The lives of jazz musicians as portrayed in many popular films would have most people believing that the hard-living of someone like Charlie Parker is representative of most persons working in this particular line of cultural expression and endeavor. Seeking to go beyond this misguided stereotype, this interesting document produced by the National Endowment for the Arts (with the assistance of numerous other groups such as the Packard Foundation and the Grammy Foundation) takes a broad look at the worklife of jazz musicians in several major metropolitan areas in the U.S., including New Orleans, New York, and San Francisco. As the introduction to the work suggests, "This study provided an opportunity to examine the working lives of jazz musicians in a systematic way and to produce quantitative and qualitative information about the jazz community, the professional lives of jazz musicians, and the place of jazz in the music industry." Conducted under the direction of Joan Jeffri (director of the Research Center for Arts and Culture at Columbia University's Teachers College), the document contains sections on the demographics of the study group, information about the nature of touring as a component of their work, and comments from study participants.
