Years ago, when I was helping to run a children's theatre company, it really pissed me off when people asked us to perform for their group or organization, and didn't expect to pay us anything for our troubles. It would be one thing if they were asking us to participate in a benefit — even then we'd ask for expenses to be paid — but for just an everyday regular performance we expected people to pay us for our time.
Still to this day I can't understand the logic in asking us to do what we did for a living for free. Did they think because we worked in the arts we had some special arrangement where we didn't have to pay rent, buy food, or any of those things that people with more conventional job worried about? Well, if there are any of you out there who suffer from a similar delusion about people working in the arts, you need to get over it in a hurry. It doesn't matter whether someone is a painter, musician, actor, singer, sculptor, dancer, or writer they still have to have enough money at the end of the day to pay their rent and put food on the table.
Unless an artist is incredibly lucky and makes it big, he or she will be leading a hand to mouth existence for most of their days. Artists don't have a pension plan, and in North America (if they don't live in Canada), the chances of them having medical insurance are slim to none. The fact that it is next to impossible for artists to afford any type of insurance leaves them particularly vulnerable in emergency situations. But if you think that artists in general are vulnerable, that situation pales in comparison to the one faced by a particular group within that community.
Predominately African American, the older generations of jazz and blues players in North America are at most risk from the deprivations of age, illness, and misfortune. Far too many years of creating wonderful music for no money and sometimes little recognition, has left that community in difficult straits under normal circumstances. When a devastation like Hurricane Katrina destroys not only their homes, but their means of earning a living by destroying their instruments, equipment, and the venues for their performances the consequences are catastrophic.
With all levels of government seeming more intent on ensuring they never return to their former homes or their neighbourhoods are rebuilt, the musicians of New Orleans are facing circumstances we normally associate with refugees in countries that don't consider themselves "world powers". Fortunately there are people who recognize the contribution that they have made to North American culture, and are refusing to allow these men and women to be swept under the carpet and forgotten.
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