You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - How to Hire & Fire

Episode Date: July 12, 2019

On today's episode, Peter and Adam give their best advice for how to hire and fire band members, as well as what to do if you get canned.The ending theme song for today's episode is "Blue" by Ziza Muftic. To get your music featured on You'll Hear It, send an MP3 recording of your music to [e-mail] have been nominated in the Music category of The People's Choice Podcast Awards! To submit, please sign up to vote for us in the Music Category here: https://www.podcastawards.com/Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Pete. You're fired. I'm Adam Maness. And I'm Peter Martin. You're listening to the You'll Hear Podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Not to be solo jazz advice coming at you. Apparently, I've been to let go.

We're both fired because it's hot and the hair is still hot. I feel like it. I feel like I'm on fire. We're not doing headphones today. I can't take it. I can't take it either. We're just going to freeform this topic of how to hire and fire. I want to fire the, we can't really fire the AC.

person here because we still need to get it fixed. I like to fire them right after it's done for taking so many days. How about that? This is ridiculous. We haven't found out if the part is here. If the part's not here, this is going to be all week, buddy. I mean, you don't care because you're leaving.

Well, no, I care. Come on, man. For Andrew and I want my people. I don't mind. I was born in Florida, man. This is like normal. It's your thing. I grew up like this.

Okay, so we're talking about how to hire and fire, I think specifically in the context of mostly bands. I mean, that's what we're talking about, right? Have you had any experience on either end of those? I've had experiences on both. ends of these. And, you know, both have their challenges. Right. For sure. And I think both, um, you get better with experience. Mm-hmm. For sure. Have you been getting better lately? Yes. I have been. I have been. Yeah. Yeah. Um, no, it's never,

either hiring or, or changing the lineup up or whatever you're doing is never easy. Yeah. Um, have you been, have you ever been fired? Yes, absolutely. That's, that's where I've learned how to do a lot of this stuff. I've been fired and most recently I did, I did, I think for the first time ever, I fired myself off of the gig. Really? Yeah, the opera. Oh, the opera, that's right. I absolutely fired myself.

You were like, looked in the mirror and you were like, Peter, you're fired. That was actually a new experience. But you know what? I think all these have in common, and we talk about mindset a lot here. And, you know, if you have the growth mindset, we remember the other day we talked about scarcity versus abundance. Yeah, yeah. When you realize that if you look at the world of, you know, you know, if you look at the world of, music and just the world in general as they're being abundant opportunities, then this should

all get a lot easier because if you're firing somebody, well, if you're being fired, the way you should respond should not be a defense. And now, look, this is hard in reality. But when you, from the standpoint of being like, wow, I'm never going to get another gig. No, there's plenty of gigs. You will get another gig. For sure. You know, I mean, if you keep getting fired off a gigs, you need to take that as a signal to maybe

deal with some of the other things that we've said in other episodes as far as, practice, get better, be professional, be conscientious, be talented, you know, little things like that. But when you have that abundance mentality, it's kind of like, yeah, it's a drag, especially if you love doing the gig and playing with that band. But you're like, you know what? Maybe the next door is even going to be better. So you're already thinking along those lines. It makes it a better pill to take. Every time that I've been fired from a gig, I've gotten way better after those experiences. Because it's been a wake-up call maybe. Or it's just been like, okay, so what I've been doing wasn't working for this person.

I need to kind of rearrange how I approach this music, right? Like, I need to figure this out so that I can not repeat these same mistakes. Yeah. But then also, it kind of, it does light a fire. It does. Under you to be like, you know what, that's not a good feeling. I want to be in demand. I want to be, you know, wanted.

So maybe I need to step this up a little bit. And sometimes it could be the best thing that happens to you. Yeah. And I think the biggest thing, if you do want it to be a positive and maybe even the best thing that happens to you and something for your growth and for your improvement, the biggest thing you have to get over, and look, you just got to get over this, is the shame of it. See, most times we get caught up in Latin, like the injustice of it and all these things that we want to say, no, I shouldn't have been. I'm supposed to be, forget about all that. What you really is,

you're shameful. You're afraid people are going to be like, wow, he got fired. But the thing is everyone's been fired. Every great jazz musician you've ever heard of has been fired, probably multiple times. Exactly. And I mean, even beyond, you know, look, Michael Jordan didn't make his high school basketball team when he was a freshman or sophomore or something. So what if he'd been like taking that shame and rejection, you know, no, he took that. So the quicker you get over the shame and the embarrassment, I guess, maybe it's more embarrassing. I think it's a little embarrassment. Sure. Yeah. No one. It's never fun. No, no, it's never fun. But when you get to the point where you can kind of revel and be like, wow, how can I grow? What can I do to really push me for,

myself forward? Yeah. That's when it gets interesting. Okay. So let's talk about if we're on the other end of this. Let's start with the hiring. Let's start with the positive. Okay. So how, how do you go about hiring the, I don't want to say the best people. Yeah. Because I really think it's the best fit for what you're trying to do. Right, right. Best person for the job. That's not always the best player. No. Or maybe your best friend. No. But it's some kind of combination, it's some kind of alchemy that you have to work out of this person is going to fit into this. Yeah. Group of people that I'm bringing together in the best way. So I think you're already hitting on it. The group of, so there's the great player, but there's definitely that mindset of like, can

they play great in this situation? Yes. Can they, are they available, first of all? And although I would just say that some people are like, I remember actually some great players ask, really great, like, legendary jazz musicians saying like, oh, asking me for a recommendation of like a drummer and I suggested somebody. They're like, oh, you know, they would never come play with me. They're always busy.

I'm like, no, give them a call. You know, you never know. That's that same kind of abundance, scarcity kind of thing. So first of all, don't ever be a first of all. Don't ever be afraid to like reach for the stars or whatever. But, um, Yeah, but,

I mean, get somebody that's going to work great in the situation. And then I think you have to evaluate the situation like how social is it. There's some situations where you just have to get a certain skill and it really doesn't matter if they get along if they're in a one off concert. Yeah. Totally. And something that say has a really specific like hard part that needs to be read by a floutist or

something. But they're the perfect one. They're the perfect ones. Yeah. The personality almost doesn't matter. It almost doesn't matter. I mean, if you can get somebody that's fun to hang out

with after the gig, that's a bonus. But you're, now if you're in a regular band situation where you're on a 40 city tour. Yeah, yeah. Because it affects the music. It's not just about like, look, you have to put the music first with all this. If you put the music first. That's number one for both these things. Yeah, number one, put the music first. Because if you do that,

then all these decisions become a lot easier. Yeah, that can kind of come with experience because there's always a tendency to go with your boy. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. And that you're sometimes your boy isn't always the best fit for what you're trying to do. And we also, we miss out on so much, and I'm so glad there's such an awareness talking about diversity in terms of gender, race, geographic, economic, all these things,

sexual orientation, everything like in traditionally we're like, we call our boys. Even like the way we say that is like how many great players are we missing? So like make sure when you're looking, cast a wide net go to, because first of all, you know, you're going to get to a bigger diversity of players that way and better players. the more that you have, and you're going to get something that's a bonus to not having that same way of thinking maybe that you do. So they're going to bring something even better

and more diverse and interesting to what you think that you want to do. That's not all just, especially in jazz, this is not just about we're trying to get robots to execute. We're trying to get creative people that bring something to the table. Yeah, reach out to people who personally and musically challenge you and will challenge the music in a positive way. I think that's very important, good point.

And I've found that like when I've played with and kind of push the envelope and gone with people that maybe I wasn't sure how they're going to be like it's been such a like if they're if you keep the music first and they're really good players and even if they're like you think you don't have anything in common you realize you have the music in common that brings people together for sure yeah all right so let's talk about the uncomfortable situation of having to fire yes someone have you ever had to fire anybody uh I have yeah a couple times not really a whole lot so I don't have a huge amount of experience but to me I mean maybe I'm just a cold cold blooded

murderer. But I don't really have a problem with that because again, I just sort of just take the music, like as long as I'm doing it for musical reasons and not out of spite or because he or she like did something offensive to me personally, they had nothing to do with the music. Like if you keep the gig in mind, then it's just

about, like if you're the one who's empowered to make these decisions, that's just part of the that's part of your job. It's like if there's somebody that can better fit into the thing, of course, I think it's important to give somebody a chance. Like communication before you fire. I don't like this thing in any kind of situation. where it's just like you're fired like you have to give them a chance and not a chance in terms of like

you're on 10 ice because then it's that you know you're just setting them up and it's not about even like whatever legal requirement you have to do it's is just about like have you put them in the best situation to succeed because sometimes somebody be it from an employee to a band member that's your band that you have a lot of control over it's just as much your responsibility to make sure that they're the right fit but sometimes they're not so i think just having that frank discussion with them is important Now, I don't like this thing of like what you just were saying of like three months. Like say, look, you've got three months to get it together because then you're wasting their time and your time. And I think it's better to just sit them down and say, look, it's not working.

We both know this. I can I could go through the charade of saying you're going to be on probation for a while, but we know that's not going to work. I think that you would succeed in other situations. I'm happy to recommend you based upon these criteria for this, the way I have my band now or the way this band is going. It's just not your skill set is not a good fit. It's probably not even what you want to be doing if you really look at it. Yeah. And the way you just phrase that, I think, is a good point because you don't have to give them every single detail of why.

Like, I'm sorry. They suck. Yeah, you miss that change in the last two gigs or whatever. And it's not even good because then they're going to come back and be like, oh, would you miss things? Yeah. So, like, you don't want to get into a dialogue. So when you actually have to do it, you know, keep it short. If they ask why, you know, be as vague and as forgiving as possible.

With it, you know, it's not the right fit. It's time for a change, I think, is a good strategy for that. But, yeah, you don't have to, like, give them a list. And, in fact, that's just going to be counterproductive to the conversation. Exactly. Because it's really, I mean, if they've been around that long, I mean, if it's like a short-term thing and then, like, you bring somebody on, then you're having to fire him immediately. That's probably your fault for, like, if you made the decision. If you kind of come together, then there's, like, a working out period or whatever.

Did you get fired by Willie Aiken's ever? Uh, I don't think I actually got fired. But I was never like, I mean, I played with him. I was never in his band long term like you. And I was so young, man. I mean, I was barely hired. Everything was on probation. I was 15, 16 years.

I didn't know what I was doing. Yeah, I was 17 when he fired me. And he just called me. And this is, this was like a model of how to fire him. He was like, he goes, hey man, it's not working out. Keep practicing. And I'll talk. I got another guy for the gig.

That's so great. Yeah. It's so respectful and honest and like. And I did. And then a year later, he hired me again. He hired me back. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, one of my biggest times of development came. I was fired by Betty Carter. I mean, I was kind of, I mean, I was fired. It was never like, it was a little bit. I had some personal family stuff I had to deal with, so I took some time off. But she also told me, like, if I didn't move to New York, I couldn't be in the band any longer. I played with her for nine months.

And it was like, I was sort of the only person around that time that wasn't living in New York. I kind of fly up there on my own when we started tour and stuff. And I didn't really tell her at first. I was just like, I was up there a lot. But when she sort of found out, if you're not going to live in New York, you're going to be fired. And so I was a little bit obstinate about that. And because of my family situation and stuff in New Orleans, I really needed to stay there anyway. So she basically fired me over that.

But what it made me realized, like, that lit a fire under me. I was like, wow, if I don't go back to New York because I lived in New York before that, I'm like, I better be so good. And I wasn't that good. I mean, I was good enough to do the gig. But not enough for her to be like to live in New Orleans and New Yale. And so I started getting a mentality of like, okay, if I'm going to play with the big boy, the Betty Carter's of the world, then I better be so much better than everybody else

that they don't mind flying me up there or the inconvenience. Because it is an inconvenience. New York, especially back then, was like the center of the jazz world. It's a little different now. Yeah, I understand where she's coming from. Yeah.

Yeah, and like who was I? So at the time, I wasn't like, what's right? I mean, I totally understood it. So that was more of a... But that did help me a lot, actually. That's cool. Yeah. Well, this is fun conversation.

Yeah, I was kidding. You're not fired, by the way. Oh, thanks. Yeah. You are on probation. I should hope not. We have two more podcaster. Two days to check back with me.

All right, so it's still hot as hell in here. But you can. We're still making jazz educational courses at Open StudioJaz.com. We could make a fried egg on top of this as well. You can just burn it up. Go to Open StudioJazz.com. Check out our new platform. It's like lightning fest.

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