We heard a wonderful performance last week at the Hollywood Bowl, featuring some of the best jazz musicians in the world, headed by the great pianist Herbie Hancock. As with every performance at the Bowl, the auto-voice concluded with the title of this post. A good friend next to me commented, “Oh come on, it’s jazz!” She did have a point there! But most performers I know (whether in classical music or any other live-performance art form) are, to put it politely, ‘bothered’ by people talking during their performance, often so insensitive (both to the performers and the other audience members) as to continue talking – sometimes quite loudly – when others have quieted to listen. Sometimes, when this has happened in the instrumental part of a church service I have simply stopped playing in mid-piece, and the farther from a cadence the better!
Anyway, here’s a link to a funny video showing some other musicians’ live reaction to one of these talkers. But it didn’t look to me like the guy got the point…
http://www.themarysue.com/orchestral-music-ruining-perfectly-good-phone-calls-since-1876/
Ray Urwin 
Gee wliliekrs, that’s such a great post!