Rick Stone (Part 3)

In the third & final installment of my email interview with Rick Stone we get the guitarists thoughts on the business side of being a jazz artist.  We also have Rick indulge in a little “Crystal ball gazing”.

MFT   You seem to be very entrepreneurial with your online presence and your self-produced albums, was the business aspect of your career actually more difficult than the artistic part?

RS  I’d say the difficult part is that it’s a balancing act. There have been times when I was much more on top of the business end of things and getting gigs. But felt that it was cutting into my practice time and that I was not playing my personal best. Now found a kind of balance that’s working for the most part. With the teaching I’ve got the guitar in my hands most of the time every day. I also try to spend at least a few hours every week with the online stuff (facebook, myspace, youtube, my blogs and newsletters, etc.) and spend a few more hours booking.

I’ve built a nice office/studio here in my basement with a piano, drums and 16 track digital recording setup, so when I’ve got new music to play, I usually try to get some sessions going here to run through things. I’m also working on an online guitar instruction website and putting together materials and video lessons for that.

I’m off from teaching in the summer, so that’s kind of become my “research and development” time. I get up early, get my cup of coffee and go out in my little garden (which is really pretty amazing for a tiny Brooklyn place) and spend a lot of time practicing and writing music; my own tunes, instructional material and exercises, and whatever else pops into my head. By about 1pm when it starts getting hot, I go inside and do housework, computer stuff or whatever else needs to be done.

I’m not getting as many gigs as I used to, but I feel like I’m in better form for the ones I do get.

MFT   Where do you see both Jazz & yourself in 5 years?

RS  Five years, hmmm? Not having a crystal ball, it’s difficult to tell. There are so many great young players out there that I’m sure Jazz as an art form is in good hands. My daughter will be a Senior in college and my son will be finished (unless he goes for a graduate degree) and I’ll be a year away from the big Six-Oh!!!! I think I’d just like to be teaching, playing and writing. Maybe I’ll finally start getting over my aversion to the road.

The beautiful thing about a life in music is that there’s really nothing that you want to “retire” from. I just want to keep doing this as long as I can.