Angelo Debarre - Swing 48

Buco

For us in the States that's pretty weird to see and when those guys visit the US once in awhile they always plays play in front of the audience that soaks up their every note and analyze their wrist position and trying to peek to figure out just what kind of pick do they use and thoroughly enjoy what they see and hear.
But that's not all that unusual in Europe, there are quite a few YouTube videos of the greatest of the great playing in a bar in front of not so inspired audience with glasses and silverware clanging over this "greatest solo ever".

Bones

What was the one about the master violinist who played in the NY subway at rush hour and almost no one paid any attention? Most people have no idea what they are listening to.

Buco

Joshua Bell. I think I read it started as a bet among him and his friends. And he took his 3.5 million strad with him, says he was a nervous wreck because of that.
One lady recognized him and felt weird leaving him $20 when she knew he sells out concert halls worldwide at $100 a seat.

dongiedong

Yeah well here if you want to see some of the greatest you go to Paris (2hrs by train) there are gigs, jams.. any night and sometimes for free. This particular concert was ~10$.
Same goes for you in the US with like bebop or blues I suppose ?

Though I agree it's kinda frustrating sometimes as a guitarist not to be able to hear every single note, I'm not a big fan either of total silence like in a classical concert..

BillDaCostaWilliams

Regarding the Joshua Bell busking episode 7 years ago:

'The original experiment has been transformed into a children’s book and the article won a Pulitzer Prize. Bell’s publicist keeps track of his name on the Internet, and nearly every week, she says, someone else blogs about the story as a metaphor for everything from salesmen ignoring potential customers to Christians ignoring Jesus. But it still makes Bell sigh.

“I’m in dangerous territory of it becoming the main thing I’m known for in my life. I really don’t want that on my tombstone: Here he is, underground again,” he says.'
http://tinyurl.com/grueb9s