If you're a professional musician these days, there's more than a good chance that you're doing a fair bit of traveling. Two weeks here, one week there, six weeks on a cruise, and every once in a while you even make it back home again. Some players love this kind of life; some don't care for it quite so much, but one of the biggest rewards of this consequence of the business is the opportunity of meeting some extraordinary people.

Earlier this year, I was playing at The Aladdin casino in Las Vegas. While I was there, I sent out an email to some discussion groups inquiring if anyone knew of any jazz gigs I could catch during the days while I was in town. Unfortunately there didn't seem to be anything happening in the afternoons. But what did happen was, someone who had seen my posting informed me of a website for Raj Rather, a jazz guitarist who was in the area. I went to the site and found an email address for Raj and I emailed him to see if he was playing any daytime gigs that week, or if he knew of anyone who might be. I didn't hear back from Raj that day, but that night at The Aladdin, Raj and his wife, Diana, a vocalist with whom he performs in a duo with, came up to me on my break and introduced themselves. We talked for my entire break and hit it off instantly. When I knew I'd be playing down in the Vegas area again, I emailed Raj to see if he'd be playing on any of my nights off in Vegas. Unfortunately our schedules didn't line up to allow that to happen, but we did make time yesterday afternoon to get together and do some playing. It was great to get together with such a great player and great person, and add another brick to the foundation of what I hope to be a long lasting friendship.

Okay, here's the moral of the story... It's real easy to go from road gig to road gig, just playing your sets then waiting to move on to the next stage. Take some time, and make the effort to meet some of the interesting people that live and work in some of the areas that you're traveling through. That experience could easily be far more valuable than the paycheck you make that week.