Listening to Heather Bambrick on Jazz.fm this morning I learned that the time to process a visa application for performers has doubled and that to get an expedited visa now costs $2,800, limiting the ability of musicians to schedule tours in the US.
I have such a hard time even finding a jazz club, learning that now we can’t even get musicians just makes me even sadder.
Crazy President, capitulating Congress, $400 million planes, crypto scams making the president a billion dollars, no habeas corpus, defiance of SCOTUS, no due process, weaponizing DOJ, CIA FBI, intimidation of media, and universities...
Destruction of every branch of government, cutting medical care to give huge tax cuts for billionaires, etc!!!
TAX CUTS FOR THE MOST WEALTHY WHO ALREADY DON’T PAY THEIR SHARE.
And trump pretends this is going to lower the deficit, but in fact, it will double. And our credit rating was reduced because tarif uncertainty, which increases interest, and increase deficit!!!
Explain why I should have confidence in a guy who parades in public for all to see that he has no idea what the pictures he uses to accuse others of genocide really are?
There is no explanation that I can think of.
"They are eating the dogs in Ohio and committing genocide on the white farmers in South Africa!"
For the record, I am for an efficient cost-effective government that is transparent and treats all equal under the law. I also think music is international and the idea of limiting ourselves to only US musicians is the very definition of cultural poverty.
A comparison of talent levels as a percentage would be true.
It's the bassackward utilitarian culture and its conditoning...bbq, homecoming game, corn, quikshop, walmart and something in the water, made em a lil thick in the head at times...conforming & curb thy intelligence rinse repeat formulaic
Good post, @erik_squires. Many of the greatest musicians, whether jazz, classical, rock, are in Europe, Asia, South America, Australia. True that there’s little interest in great music in the USA and that $ greed trumps art almost always.
Explain why I should have confidence in a guy who parades in public for all to see that he has no idea what the pictures he uses to accuse others of genocide really are?
Will really hurt South Florida, NYC and California. Palm Springs, CA, in particular, already is feeling the pain as thousands of Canadians who go there to warm up in the winter cancelled their trips.
@evanpressMy parents reside in an upper middle class planned retirement community near Phoenix. As some age and need higher levels of care you’ll naturally see homes go on the market. This last month my wife and I noticed more than just a few homes for sale.
When leaving dinner and in passing I asked my parents why there were so many homes for sale. With disdain, my parents said it was because they were Canadian homeowners - as if it were the Canadians fault for wanting to leave.
@hifiguy42, it would be easier to teach a pig to sing than to teach lord snowflake anything. Lord snowflake's mother still cannot get him out of her basement.
@hifiguy42 To give you a heads up Stalin was a monster that let millions starve to death and sent armies with pitchforks to fight the Nazis or get shot by their own.
Duarte was small potatoes it was the Marcos' which ran the Philipines and are still running the Philipines.
If you really compare these monsters to Trump you are another terminal patient of TDS. The major symptom is total disregard of factual evidence and addictive watching of The View and having unclean thoughts about Whoopi Goldberg.
I wonder if Russians in the 1930s were accused of Stalin Derangement Syndrome? Or Duarte Derangement Syndrome in the Phillipines? Or Orbanitis in Hungary?
It is a nice, lazy way to minimize authoritarianism, I'll give you that.
Good post, @erik_squires. Many of the greatest musicians, whether jazz, classical, rock, are in Europe, Asia, South America, Australia. True that there’s little interest in great music in the USA and that $ greed trumps art almost always. Still, the niche of sophisticated listeners and musicians exists and to have both cheated of their enjoyment and livelihood due to bureaucratic nonsense demeans us all -- and just makes America more mediocre.
@evanpress- Weird and creepy how this went sideways. I personally want a very efficient government. Visas, taxes, mail. I want it to be fast and go smooth and the last thing I want is idiot with a badge at the border hassling people based on his/her personal prejudices.
I believe the fees went up in April 2024 and it is a shame as most of the musicians I would like to see come from the UK and Ireland. I recall talking to a musician from Ireland maybe ten years ago and he said the reason he did fewer tours in the US but longer tours was because of the pain of getting all the paperwork in place and once here he was going to tour as long as allowed.
We just returned from a trip to Spain. We overheard 3-4 conversations of other tourists who said they would not visit the US. My wife had a conversation with 3 middle-aged women who had planned a trip to Miami until stories of visitors being hassled, held for days before being deported and so on. Instead they went to the south of Spain. If you check the numbers, tourism to the US is way down. Will really hurt South Florida, NYC and California. Palm Springs, CA, in particular, already is feeling the pain as thousands of Canadians who go there to warm up in the winter cancelled their trips. Hassling musicians and artists is just a subset of our new attitude towards our friends who want to visit.
While the cost and hassle of getting a visa obviously didn't have anything to do with the decreased interest in jazz, you can reasonably expect it likely to have impact on the future of musicians ability or desire to perform internationally.
I'm sure greed plays a role but even that aside everything is expensive these days and there is a lot of competition for people's entertainment dollars. Streaming alone provides unlimited content these days at the expense of alternatives like going to live events. The world is always changing. Count on that!
The average American under a certain age has zero interest in live music. Combine this with sky-high ticket prices that 99% cannot afford and America's belief that greed is more important than art, and voila, you get no more venues.
While the OP specifically mentions jazz clubs, the visa cost applies to all entering musicians and artists. If you understand economic supply and demand, then added costs to entry will lessen the demand for visas. Less artist will come to the US. Additionally, other actions taken by the US government have resulted in an overall decline in foreigners visiting with artists and musicians being a small part.
Yeah, but the reason for the lack of jazz clubs is that rock n' roll took over the audience back in the 50's and never relinquished it. Elvis changed things. The Beatles changed things.
You would be hard pressed to get an answer of who their favorite jazz artist is you if asked anyone under the age of 60. I am 60 and I would say Gary Clark Jr. :)
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