Category Archives: April 2026

Chris Walden: Bridging Jazz and Symphonic

AFM Local 47 Member Spotlight 

AFM Local 47 member Chris Walden is a 7-time Grammy nominated composer, arranger, conductor, and musician. He is the founder and conductor of the Pacific Jazz Orchestra and leader of the Chris Walden Big Band. He has been the lead arranger for the Academy Awards since 2019 and has written big band and orchestral arrangements for Michael Bublé, Diana Krall, Paul Anka, Jennifer Hudson, and Christopher Cross. Local 47 sat down with Chris to talk about his career in music. 

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AFM Local 47: Covering Lots of Bases

Modernizing Bylaws: At the April 27 General Membership Meeting we are also calling a special meeting of the Musicians Club, the entity that owns our physical property. There will be a bylaw resolution to allow us to vote both online as well as by mail or in person. Currently the bylaws, written in 1924, require the use of postal mail only for a referendum. For voting reasons, this meeting will be in person only. Please make your plans to attend and help us modernize the voting process to save your money and resources on future important votes! 

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Jazz Appreciation Month – A Union Guitar Player’s Perspective

April is Jazz Appreciation Month, and for those of us who came up playing the bandstand, carrying an amp up narrow staircases, and learning the trade from older players, it’s more than a celebration….. it’s a reminder of how this profession was built. 

Here in Los Angeles, that history runs straight through Central Avenue, where from the 1930s through the 1950s some of the greatest jazz ever played in this country came out of union halls, nightclubs, recording studios, and live stages where musicians worked under AFM contracts that set real standards. Those contracts meant scale wages, pension, health, and the idea that musicians are professionals…. not hobbyists. 

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We Can All Make a Difference

Greetings, Local 47 members! 

Membership Dues + Work Dues = Operating Budget 

Our Local’s income is derived from two sources, membership and work dues. Your timely payments of both are essential to the operations of your union. Year after year we are facing rising costs, from insurance to utilities while revenues are barely keeping pace. Plan on attending the next General Membership meeting on Monday, April 27th at 7:30 p.m. here at the local for information on finances and more. This meeting will be in person only due to elections of Hearing Board Officers.  

Our annual Membership Drive starts on April 1 and runs through June 30. During this three-month period all initiation fees, both Federation and Local, are waived resulting in a savings of $140 for first time members. Please join us in promoting this great opportunity by sharing this information with your colleagues and students. See our website, www.afm47.org/join for more information.  

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LS-1 Private Teaching Now Available

Local 47 is pleased to announce the availability of the LS-1 contract for private teaching, now offered using the scale rate of $75 per hour plus 12.1% pension contribution, creating an important new opportunity for members who teach private lessons. For the first time, under the current agreement, the pension contribution may be designated by the purchaser—such as a parent or student—to be paid on behalf of the teaching musician, allowing members to pay directly into their own pension plan while performing private teaching work.  

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Much-Needed Legislation That Can Make a Difference for Our Industry 

This month’s guest column comes from Lara Wickes, President of the Recording Musicians Association Los Angeles. 

Greetings friends and colleagues, I’m honored to get a chance to write my first column for the Overture and share some of the recent goings-on in the Recording Musicians Association. In our continuous task of representing the specific needs of recording musicians both to the AFM and the larger entertainment community, board members Sidney Hopson, David Horne and myself, along with local president Marc Sazer attended a very informative hearing at Burbank City Hall last Friday (March 20) hosted by Senator Adam Schiff, in which he spoke about a bill he has been drafting over the past year that will, if enacted, put into place federal tax incentives for film and TV production in the United States. A bill that is, in the opinion of every speaker at the hearing, highly necessary and long overdue. Especially with the impending merger of Warner Brothers and Paramount poised to wreak even more havoc on the livelihoods of entertainment workers. 

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AFM Members Perform at the 2026 Academy Awards Ceremony 

The 98th Academy Awards ceremony, hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, was held on March 15th at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, with the music performed and prepared by AFM members listed below. Their work brings the Academy Awards to life with great music!

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AFM Local 47 Hosts Health Care Panel for Members

Last month, Local 47 held the first in a series of planned informational panels for members. This exciting initiative was created to offer transparency and helpful information to our union’s members. 

The inaugural panel focused on the Entertainment Industry Flex Plan (“Flex Plan”) and helped with any confusion that members might have with it when it comes to the Local 47 Health and Welfare Fund (“Local 47 Plan”). The panelists were Local 47 Vice President John Acosta who is a trustee of the Local 47 Health and Welfare Fund, Pete Anthony who is a trustee of the Flex Plan, and Sean Dugan who is the Fund Manager for the Flex Plan. Local 47 President Marc Sazer served as moderator. 

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Jules Greenberg – A Remembrance 

Jules Greenberg was born in Philadelphia in 1929 to Mort Greenberg and Rose Bolen. He loved big band music so much that he studied at the Curtis Institute of Music and became a professional musician, starting as a drummer and winding up a versatile percussionist.   

He joined the American Federation of Musicians in April of 1955 and went on to work on Broadway for years, playing shows like An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May, West Side Story, 1776, and many others. 

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Music Performance Trust Fund Scholarships

The Music Performance Trust Fund is excited to once again provide the Music Family Scholarships and the Music’s Future Scholarships. 

Music Family Scholarships of $1,000 will be awarded to 75 individual recipients.  This category is open to the members in good standing of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) and their children who will attend a college or trade school in the fall of 2026, pursuing any field of study. 

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