Trumpet Heaven

Anyone who had a halfway decent band teacher or trumpet instructor learned early in their playing career that you should listen to the great trumpet players of today to help learn how to play the instrument (i.e., learn about tone, technique, and to hear some kick-ass trumpeting).

The person that we were always told to listen to was Wynton Marsalis, an amazing jazz trumpeter (and much much more). Just about every single one of my friends had seen him live at some point in their lives. I had never taken the time to go see him in the past, though I'm sure I missed several opportunities by not paying attention to the upcoming music concerts in my area.

About a week ago, I was walking to the grocery store. I decided to walk by the Kimmel center to see the upcoming schedule. When I saw that Wynton Marsalis was playing the following Friday with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, I couldn't believe it. As soon as I knew that there was no Michigan NCAA basketball conflict, I went to the Kimmer center and got tickets for the show (Michigan > awesome trumpeting...just barely)

While the trumpeting was amazing, the one tune that I was most fascinated with was a bass clarinet concerto. Just a bass clarinet and a piano, and it was beautiful. It was throwing babies beautiful (i.e., so beautiful that people throw babies instead of flowers...I think that phrase was something we used in the MMB, but I can't remember). I just found the arrangement of the tune from the concert on iTunes, with the same bass clarinetist. The piece is called 'A Single Petal of a Rose', written by Duke Ellington. It's a piano piece that was arranged for bass clarinetist Joe Temperley. The iTunes recording doesn't have the piano interlude, so it's much shorter than the live version I heard last night. It's still amazing!

Just one of many reasons why I love living in Philadelphia.

Morally Bankrupt

I've been reading a lot about the outrage over the bonuses AIG handed out to their executives using government money. A lot of this money likely went to the same people whose brilliance resulted in a $60 BILLION 4th quarter loss. That's not pay for performance. In fact, I think I want the people that caused those losses to leave the company as quickly as possible. They don't need retention bonuses.

I'm a little conflicted about the outrage. I have a friend who works for a company that recently went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. About a year ago, he signed an agreement promising him a bonus if he was still at the company one year later. Even though the company has since declared bankruptcy and laid off employees, he still expects to receive his bonus. After all, he probably would have looked for a new job if he didn't have this guarantee since he suspected that bankruptcy was a possibility if the economy slowed down.

I have no idea what his bonus is worth, but I assume it's low 5 figures at best. I don't really have a problem with these 'mid-management' employees receiving these kinds of bonuses (i.e., around $10k), even at companies receiving government support right now. These employees likely would have looked for other jobs long ago without these promised 'retention bonuses', and they are much harder to replace at a company that is sinking. Additionally, they are more likely to feel the pain if the company starts laying off employees.

However, when you're talking about $1M + bonuses that some of the AIG senior leaders received for their incompetence after years of making millions by leveraging their balance sheets to death, it's morally despicable.

The problem is, people follow the money in the private sector. As soon as the AIG gravy train dries up, their leaders will leave for bigger paying jobs at other poorly run companies and leave the government to clean up their ~200 billion AIG mess that they created.

In the end, I think Congress is just posturing about this whole AIG disaster. I don't think they'll actually follow through and pass any sort of excise tax, but they will publicly humiliate as many people as possible. I also hope they don't follow through with their tax threat. I'm not comfortable with the government using the tax code as a punitive measure to make up for their failure as the lead investor in a private company. It's a horrible precedent and will probably have unintended consequences if passed. The government should have just let AIG go into chapter 11 bankruptcy and allow for an orderly breakup of the company, regardless of the jobs lost in the process. That's why Chapter 11 protection exists.

I'm glad I don't own AIG stock. The government may not let them go financially bankrupt, but these executives are still morally bankrupt.