Oh god this is hilarious. Someone actually wrote a story about the "jazz flophouses" on Ocean Avenue. In the New York Times!
Check out Deborah Baldwin's piece:
CARMEN STAAF, a 28-year-old New England Conservatory-trained jazz pianist, does what she has to do to make ends meet. Last year, she played accordion in a musical about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, starring puppets. More recently, she played ragtime piano with a xylophone band — in a dog costume.
But those gigs were nothing compared with talking her way into a $920-a-month studio apartment big enough for a bed and a baby grand. “I kept pestering the landlords,” said Ms. Staaf, a finalist in a jazz competition this month at the Kennedy Center in Washington. “I sent them a list of friends who lived in the building. I sent them my CD. It was like I was auditioning.”
Wait — her CD?
I went to school with Carmen (she is a great musician), and like, half the people mentioned in the story. NEC and McGill represent on Ocean Ave!
Society co-conspirator Mark Small gets a shout-out too.
Ughh
Posted by: Mark | 03 May 2009 at 08:45 PM
You should read my local news group. They cut the article to ribbons and basically showed their hatred of the musicians (didn't help that everyone in the picture was white) who have moved to this neighborhood. Although they raise very legitimate concerns as to the application process of some of the landlords out here, they also throw around some heated race debate (not all well thought through) and some serious bitching about noise (which they fail to mention anything about blaring TV's, babies, alarm clocks, stereos, and the mother above me who constantly yells at her son to "shut up" which I hear with equal frequency and at ungodly hours which no musician would perpetrate)
Wish I could post this stuff. This is where the real story would be.
It ain't easy being a musician in NYC.
Posted by: mark | 07 May 2009 at 09:11 AM