The American Music Business Gets Nasty by Thomas Wolf
In a past blog post, I outlined what my grandmother Lea Luboshutz and her family had learned about the American music business in the United States. It was not like Russia and Western Europe. The business was far more complex. But I reserved the story of the union movement for its own post. The Musicians Union had a direct impact not only on our family but many other musicians. At first, it was hardly a blip on the musical landscape. But over time, that would change dramatically.
The American Federation of Musicians (AFM) was established in the 1890s. As a relatively weak union, it did not have a significant impact on the classical music business during its first fifty years. The reason was, frankly, a simple issue of supply and demand. The tumultuous political events and wars in Russia and Western Europe had brought hundreds of the world’s most gifted musicians to the United States. American musical organizations were flooded with talent – individuals happy for a job and not about to make a fuss if they were not treated especially well. At the highest levels of the classical music world, American-born musicians simply could not compete for the most coveted jobs. Principal “first chair” positions in major orchestras – those jobs that paid the most – went almost exclusively to Europeans[1] for decades It would take the Boston Symphony Orchestra, one of America’s flagship institutions, sixty-five years before it hired its first American-born principal player in 1946 and despite union activism going back to the 19th century, the Orchestra did not recognize the legitimacy of the union as a bargaining unit for its players until 1942.[2] Thus, for management, it was a happy time. European-born musicians were not only the best in the world, but they were people who, for the most part, did not want to make trouble over wages and working conditions. They were happy for the work. Unions were not for them.
Thus, the AFM had virtually no success improving the wages and working conditions of America’s classical musicians for a long time. Both were inadequate in the extreme. At the dawn of the 20th century, a musician could not make a living simply playing in an orchestra. Not only were wages low (in 1909, the Philadelphia Orchestra paid $30/week and that didn’t improve much for decades) but the season was short (Philadelphia’s season was 22 weeks that year).[3] There were no company benefits like medical or pension plans. And working conditions were abysmal. There was no limit to the number of services that an orchestra could demand from its players in any particular week, how long those services could last, or when they could be scheduled. Today, by way of contrast, there are strict limits on the number and length of services and significant overtime pay when they are exceeded. When recordings began to be an important part of orchestral employment, it was not unheard of for an orchestra member to play a rehearsal in the morning, perform a concert at night, and then play a recording session after the concert.
The AFM realized that its bargaining position with American orchestras was weak due to the flood of good players from abroad and made some attempts to do something about it. In 1905, conductor Walter Damrosch decided to import the “famous five” from Paris as principal players for his New York Symphony (Georges Barrère, flute; Leon Leroy, clarinet; Marcel Tabuteau, oboe; Adolphe Dubois, trumpet; and August Mesnard, bassoon). Unlike the Boston Symphony, which was non-union and had imported such players without fuss, New York had to negotiate with the union. Despite union objections, Damrosch got his men simply by paying a small fine. By 1919, the AFM had become somewhat more successful in changing immigration legislation to curtail the unregulated admission to the U.S. of foreign musicians. But the number of foreign-born musicians already in America was so staggering that it had little impact on the AFM’s overall bargaining position.
There was another reason why many classical musicians were lukewarm or dismissive of the union. The AFM seemed focused on issues that were, at least initially, of little interest to them. New developments in the movie business (films with sound) were depressing musician employment in theatres. Beginning in 1927, with the release of “The Jazz Singer,” the first “talkie” (or movie with sound), house musicians employed by movie theaters to provide background music for films were rapidly displaced. By 1930, 22,000 movie theater musician jobs were lost, while only a few hundred jobs were created for musicians performing on soundtracks created by the new technology.[4] This became the major focus of the union.
As recordings became a factor in the music business, however, classical musicians at last began to pay serious attention to union activities. Recordings were a threat to ALL musicians – classical or popular, foreign or American-born – since now consumers could listen to performances over and over again without going to concert halls. Musicians began to worry that without audiences for live events, employment would dry up. Thus, when the legendary James Petrillo was elected President of the AFM in 1940, he focused on compensation for the thousands of musicians who were losing work. He banned all commercial recordings by union members from 1942–1944 and again in 1948 to pressure record companies to give better royalty deals to musicians.
He also persuaded the record companies to create a Recording Industries Music Performance Trust Fund – paid for through a modest tax on record sales – which to this day sponsors free public performances throughout the U.S. and Canada by union members. In addition, the union carefully regulated rates for live music over the radio and set rates for the musicians hired to make jingles and ads, a huge source of revenue that only increased exponentially with the advent of television. At last: a series of major union victories had direct impact on the lives of classical musicians.
By the mid-20th century, the composition of U.S. orchestras was changing. They were now increasingly made up of U.S.-born musicians. An inevitable evolution had taken place now that American-born students of European musicians were getting orchestra jobs. The best conservatories in the United States (the Curtis Institute of Music, the Julliard School, the Eastman School of Music, the New England Conservatory, and others) were now turning out American-born graduates who were winning jobs in symphony orchestras as well as the orchestras of ballet and opera companies. And as they did so, the climate and attitude within these organizations was different. The older, compliant Europeans, ever grateful for a job, were becoming outnumbered by young Americans who had been raised with the expectation that they were entitled to decent pay and fair treatment. Clashes were inevitable and became more frequent, not only between musicians (represented by the union) and management, but also among the musicians themselves. Older and better compensated musicians – primarily European and many occupying principal positions – were quite content. Not so younger section players. And the arguments that were occurring within musical organizations were occurring within musician families as different generations took predictably divergent positions. One of those families was our own.
In 1962, a particularly memorable clash (at least for me) occurred at our dining room table in Philadelphia, soon after the New York Philharmonic ratified a new contract with its musicians that, for the first time, provided year-round, 52-week employment with guaranteed vacations and other benefits. Musicians in other orchestras, including those in Philadelphia where we lived, were immediately agitating for a similar deal. But among the musicians, there was not unanimity. The principal players (those who sat in the first chairs and were paid more) were against the idea. They had plenty of work whenever they wanted it and enjoyed extended periods of freedom such as the summer months when they could do other things. In addition, many of the old guard European players did not like the idea of any kind of labor agitation. But many of the section players, particularly young Americans, were adamant that change had to come.
Within our house, the battle was raging between my generation championing the union view of fairness and the views of the older members. When, at a particular evening meal, I repeated the mantra of the musician activists in the Philadelphia Orchestra that “musicians should be paid as much as plumbers,” my grandmother Lea, in exasperation, lifted the big silver water pitcher and dumped the contents over my head yelling, “Then you should become a plumber!” Not only did I not heed her advice, but to her chagrin, the Philadelphia Orchestra management caved in to the demands of the more radical players and provided the 52-week contract soon thereafter. It was a sign of things to come.
[1] In a symphony orchestra, each player is part of a section for his or her instrument (e.g., violin, cello, trumpet, flute, percussion, etc.). Each section has one principal player who sits in the so-called “first chair.” This individual is given the most important parts to play. In many orchestras, a principal player can make twice what other section players earn. In the case of the concertmaster (the principal first violin), the salary can be triple that of a section player.
[2] Milton Goldin, The Music Merchants, The MacMillan Company, 1969.
[3] Details on the Philadelphia Orchestra situation in 1909 are given in an oral history by Orlando Cole in the Curtis Institute of Music archive. When you combine the low wage the Philadelphia Orchestra was offering its musicians in 1909 with the shortness of the season, musician income from the Orchestra was about 1/8 what it is today after adjusting for inflation. That does not include the additional compensation musicians today receive in the form of medical and pension benefits and overtime.
[4] This and many of the facts that follow come from the website of the American Federation of Musicians (http://www.afm.org/about/history/1920-1929) (accessed January 5, 2015).