Internet Buskers April 9, 2020

Copyright © 2020                               John F. Oyler

April 9, 2020

Internet Buskers

A few days before social distancing turned into sequestering I saw an item in the paper regarding a virtual swing dance party to be held by the Boilermaker Jazz Band that evening. I decided to investigate it and was rewarded royally for my curiosity.

I have been aware of the Boilermakers since their earliest days, three decades ago. More recently we saw a current version of the band at one of Pitt’s lunch time concerts. Founder and (antique) Albert system clarinetist Paul Cosentino is its leader; trombonist Jeff Bush shares the front line with him these days.

We know Bush well and are major fans of his. He has been a member of the faculty at the University of Duquesne Jazz Camp that my grandson Ian attended the past two years. In addition, we hired him and a rhythm section to entertain at my retirement banquet last year.

The dance party was streamed live from Cosentino’s Facebook page. Sure enough, promptly at 9:00 pm my laptop screen presented a view of five musicians in what turned out to be Cosentino’s living room. In addition to Paul and Jeff the band included string bass player Tony DePaolis, pianist Antonio Croes, and drummer Thomas Wendt. Wendt is another familiar face from Jazz Camp. In addition to being a fine musician, he is an intellectual and an accomplished jazz historian.

My original intention was to watch a few minutes just to get the flavor of it and then move on to other things. They opened with a rousing version of “Esquire Bounce” and proceeded through a wonderful series of standards, and suddenly it was 10:00 pm and time for their break. By now I was hooked and eagerly anticipating the second set, which turned out to be equally enjoyable.

By the time they reached the end of that set, I found myself wishing they would go on and on. And I wasn’t alone in my wishes. Facebook was running a chat room in a window on the right-hand side of the screen, with running, equally appreciative comments from the other folks watching. The audience peaked at twelve hundred, generally averaged about nine hundred.

I was impressed at the obvious enthusiasm of all the members of the band, even though they were playing in a living room, with a camera as their only audience. One must assume they were enjoying greatly what probably is their last opportunity to play together for the foreseeable future.

I was well aware of the talent of Cosentino, Bush, and Wendt, having seen them perform previously. DePaolis and Croes proved to be perfect partners for them. Together they made up an outstanding quintet.

At the start of the concert the audience was advised that the musicians would accept tips via Venmo or PayPal. The longer I watched, the more convinced I became that my enjoyment was sufficient that I really should send them a token of my appreciation. If even a fraction of the viewers felt the way I did, the band must have had a good payday.

All of which leads me to wonder if this might be an appropriate venue for buskers, entertainers who perform in public places in the hope of being reimbursed by gratuities. A good example of successful buskers is “Tuba Skinny”, a seven piece New Orleans style band that started out playing in the street in the Latin Quarter for tips. Today their YouTube videos include a suggestion that viewers support them via Venmo.

There are all manner of excellent musicians struggling to make a living and lacking a reputation big enough to permit them to survive from gigs in clubs and concerts. One wonders if an Internet venue like the Boilermakers used might generate sufficient income from voluntary tips to make performing pay off for them.

I certainly prefer to support Tom Roberts and/or the Allegheny City Ragtime Orchestra, or (ragtime pianist) Mark Spitznagel, or Warren Davidson and the folks who perform in “Chamber Music at Old St. Luke’s” series in live performances, but virtual concerts with voluntary tipping would be an acceptable alternative.

This might be a mechanism for local performers in niche areas to reach broader audiences. There aren’t enough ragtime fans, for example, in the Pittsburgh area to support an outstanding performer, but there probably are nationally.

Violinist Ray Chen has a YouTube site with over one hundred thousand subscribers; we suspect that is quite lucrative for him. My granddaughter Rachael and her clique of teeny-bopper groupies follow it religiously. One wonders how many subscribers/viewers an artist would need to make a living that way.

In a slightly different, but self-isolation related vein we were thrilled at the Pittsburgh Symphony telecast of their 2016 concert in Berlin, featuring Tchaikovsky’s Sixth (Pathetique) Symphony. It too was a delight to watch and also left me wishing for more.

In addition to the orchestra’s performance being superb, the camera work greatly enhanced viewing it. The cameramen were able to focus on the appropriate soloist or section throughout the rendition, making it easy for the casual viewer to know exactly who was playing.

The cameras also did a fine job of following Maestro Manfred Honeck and his conducting. In a live concert we see his back; this gave us the view the musicians see. It certainly demonstrated the way he communicated with the orchestra.

It was a treat to see close-ups of so many performers we recognize, particularly when they were being featured. Especially impressive were the four principal reed players – Cynthis Koledo DeAlmeida (oboe), Lorna McGhee (flute), Nancy Goeres (bassoon), and Michael Rusinek (clarinet). It is hard to imagine any orchestra with a better quartet than these.

We enjoyed seeing my granddaughter Rachael’s violin teacher, Irene Cheng, close-up numerous times, as well as Associate Concertmaster Mark Huggins, cellists Anne Martindale Williams and David Premo, horn players William Caballero and Zach Smith, etc., etc., etc. I am surprised I now so many more of the individuals in the Symphony than I do in the Steelers, Pirates, or Penguins these days.

The concertmaster for this performance was Noah Bendix-Bagley, who since has left for a similar position with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. I didn’t realize how much his departure and the failure of the Symphony to find a suitable replacement meant until I watched the concert.

Apparently the Symphony plans to stream video of an old concert every Friday evening. If so, I will certainly look forward to that opportunity each week.