Because circumstances are rapidly changing for the freelance musician in America and especially in major cities like Los Angeles, here are some insights from LA session guitarist and Mel Bay author Jay Leach regarding one of the most important attributes for today's working musicians- flexibility.

             Stephen Rekas
             Guitar Sessions Editor

Yesterday morning (Monday) I received a call at 8:05 a.m. It was from a friend who had called me last week to see if I would be available this coming Thursday to do overdubs on an album he was producing.

My friend is not a flake. In fact, he is an Emmy winning composer who has a long track record, but because of a jam-packed weekend, he had forgotten to call me to tell me the only time the artist and the co-producer could do the session was today at 4:00 p.m. Was I available? If this didn't work out, the next time they would be in the studio would be in about a week-and-a-half. My attitude is, "Grab it now if you can," because in a week-and-a-half anything could happen. (Michael Jackson might even start going to singles dances.) I was open, so I took it.

The job called for overdubs of two acoustic guitars, 5-string banjo, and pedal steel, and the producer said there would probably be a heavy emphasis on the 5- string. Consequently, I tightened the banjo head, changed the strings, and adjusted the intonation before wood-shedding about 6 hours to have my chops sharp. I showed up at the studio at 4:00 p.m. and began working on pedal steel. After finishing the third tune a little after 6:00, the artist told the co-producer she hadn't eaten lunch and would really like to take a dinner break and what did he think?

He says, "Oh man- if it's OK with you guys (myself and the producer), I'd love to break now because I haven't eaten since breakfast". The producer looked at me and said, "We're done with the pedal steel stuff and I'm hungry too, so let's go!"

As for me I had:

1.)   Nothing else booked for the rest of the day.
2.)   No compelling reason to oppose the other three people except for the fact that I wanted to finish up and go home.
3.)   A session that was going along great and no reason to "rock the boat'.

We went to a corner Italian deli (an old favorite of mine), had great food, told jokes, and the artist paid. We were back at work in 45 minutes. We did the two acoustic overdubs and then they wanted to go back and listen to the three tunes with steel to see where they wanted to use banjo. On listening back, they unanimously voted that the banjo was unneeded and unwanted and I was done. That was that.

Check it out, I could have:

1.)   Insisted on working straight through whether the producer and artist were hungry or not.
2.)   Asked to be paid for the time on the dinner break because I hadn't planned on stopping.
3.)   Pushed hard to try to play banjo on at least one of the tunes because I would make more money (double scale) and I had put in time and energy to prepare; after all, it was their idea- right?

All three of these points could easily distill down to three words-
"self serving jerk".

When you're hired as a sideman on someone else's job, you must be flexible and have the attitude of a servant. You have been invited for one reason only, and that is to help make the project the best it can be. At the professional level, it's assumed that you'll play fantastic, but if you show up with any kind of "star attitude" it interferes with the vibe and works against your being invited back -unless you're the only person within a hundred miles of your city that hasn't contracted the Black Plague.

Of the aforementioned three points the only one that might have been relevant is the one about wanting to work straight through because you have to go to another gig. Then, the onus of flexibility goes to the artist and producer's side. They surely realize that if they're hiring "happening cats" there's a risk that those players might have other obligations.

Anyone who works in any area of the arts knows that unpredictability is the only thing that's predictable but in a curious way, that's what makes it so much fun! I remember once getting a call at 10 a.m. for a national McDonald's commercial with a noon downbeat and at the end of the week I saw it on the air. If you're a sideman, decide right now that you will do anything you can (within reason) to sweeten the scene musically or socially for anyone that is gracious enough to hire you; if you do that you will consistently be rewarded with regular employment. The word will get out.

To learn more about Jay Leach please see his website at www.JayLeach.com

Jay will be featured in the June 2005 edition of Fingerstyle Guitar magazine with a cut on the issue's compilation CD.