ABSTRACT
The lives of working jazz musicians present a picture of the original gig economy—a professional life predicated upon temporary, often low-paying engagements that afforded little or no job security, limited access to benefits such as unemployment and health insurance, and rarely linked together into seamless or unbroken stretches of employment. Yet despite the popular mythology surrounding the jazz club culture of New York, surprisingly little research has yet investigated the ways in which that city’s jazz musicians, particularly locally based players outside the mainstream jazz canon, navigated this network of gigs and sessions to earn a living.
