UNCORRECTED PROOF + Models POETIC 1008 1–17 Please cite this article in press as: Pinheiro, D.L., Dowd, T.J., All that jazz: The success of jazz musicians in three metropolitan areas. Poetics (2009), doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2009.09.007 All that jazz: The success of jazz musicians in three metropolitan areas Diogo L. Pinheiro * , Timothy J. Dowd Department of Sociology, Emory University, 1555 Dickey Drive, Atlanta, GA 30322, United States Abstract We draw on a survey of jazz musicians to examine their economic success (annual amount of money earned through music) and critical success (national recognition of their talent). In doing so, we bring together literatures that are not normally in dialogue—one addressing generalism and the careers of creative personnel and the other addressing the circulation of capitals (e.g., social capital) in fields of cultural production. We find, among other things, that aesthetic generalism (being conversant in a wide range of genres) has a positive impact on both earnings and national recognition—with veteran musicians particularly benefitting from the relationship between aesthetic generalism and critical success. Those musicians with much social capital (e.g., number of local musicians known by name) and much human capital (years of musical experience) enjoy heightened economic, but not critical, success. Technical generalism (playing a wide range of musical instruments) has no bearing on economic success but has a negative impact on critical success—particularly for veteran jazz musicians. We discuss how such findings demonstrate the analytical utility of heeding the resources and ‘‘signaled competencies’’ that creative personnel have for negotiating fields of cultural production. # 2009 Published by Elsevier B.V. 1. Introduction The careers of creative personnel are marked by a common pattern: relatively few obtain ongoing success, while many enjoy fleeting (if any) success. This is especially true for those who work on a freelance basis, where their careers unfold across temporary projects and/or contracts rather than as permanent employees within organizations (see Menger, 1999). Of the 442 soundtrack composers involved in Hollywood films released from 1964 to 1975, 10% of these freelancers composed 40% of the 1355 soundtracks while 57% created only a single soundtrack (Faulkner, 1983). Of the more than 32,000 actors involved in films released from 1992 to 1994, www.elsevier.com/locate/poetic Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Poetics xxx (2009) xxx–xxx 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 * Corresponding author. E-mail address: diogolp@comcast.net (D.L. Pinheiro). 0304-422X/$ – see front matter # 2009 Published by Elsevier B.V. doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2009.09.007