<I'm glad you included (instrumental music being the exception) because jazz musicians like myself play events all the time where we're paid to play lower-volume background music (e.g. at art galleries, wedding receptions, fashion shows, cocktail parties)... >

I'm actually going to be booking dance shows with live music soon, and I'll likely be booking mostly jazz bands. Contact me for more info.

<I'm glad you included (instrumental music being the exception) because jazz musicians like myself play events all the time where we're paid to play lower-volume background music (e.g. at art galleries, wedding receptions, fashion shows, cocktail parties)...>

<---ex jazz musician

>"indeed... I'm sure the other DJs and myself will try to play conversation-friendly music."

Ohh such as Double Dare, or something from the Meat Beat Manifesto? :)

yay, i get to hear t-bird live! looking forward to seeing you tonight, dude!

<You cannot stop people from dancing. You can only hope to contain them.>

San Francisco used to have a law against dancing. It came from two situations:

(1) Gay men were dancing together (holding each other, you know, waltzing, swing dancing, etc.). The SFPD hated that, so they raided places where people danced together. Thus was born dancing apart, and the disco phenomenon where you couldn't tell whether two people were dancing "with" each other or just getting into the groove by themselves.

(2) Hippies. In an effort to drive hippies and rock shows out of SF, city hall passed an ordinance banning dancing without a police permit. Police permits were very hard to come by because the SFPD could refuse permits based on any arbitrary criteria they chose. Thus, dancing was all but banned, except in places like the major hotels downtown, etc. Thus was born the rock "concert" where people sat and listened to music instead of dancing to it.

Then city hall passed laws requiring "entertainment permits" which banned everything including poetry readings. It was only a few years ago the city hall relented and took poetry readings and non-amplified music out of the realm of the entertainment permit requirement. Otherwise the entertainment permit is still on the books.