Band leader accused over unpaid fees
THE LEADER of a popular Jewish function band has been accused of failing to pay his musicians, with fees totalling thousands of pounds left unsettled for years.
Jonni Gilbert, the director of the Gilev Showband, a familiar name on the Jewish wedding and bar- and batmitzvah circuit, is being placed on a Musicians’ Union (MU) list of band leaders who have “not paid musicians on a regular basis”.
The JC has seen a number of social media posts by musicians who claim they have had to wait months or even years for payment, and in some cases have not received the full amount they say they were owed.
When contacted on Tuesday, Mr Gilbert claimed he had “gone personally to each person who has said I owe them money and I’ve rectified it and I’ve paid what was owed”.
In a letter sent later that day, Mr Gilbert’s solicitors, Ezran Law, claimed the unpaid fees were “of a historic nature and are being settled, if not already have been”.
But bassist Daniel Mount, who is Jewish, said on Wednesday afternoon that he had not been paid £2,000 he is owed from seven jobs in late 2015, and that Mr Gilbert had been out of contact since March 2017.
Mr Mount said: “He gave me a flood of gigs over four or five weeks and when I started questioning him over the fees he just disappeared.
“He’s very good at seeming very genuine with it all. He just gets away with it. You realise he does it with everyone. I won’t be working with him again.”
Naomi Pohl, the assistant general secretary of the MU, said she knew of “several claims” against Mr Gilbert, adding that it is common for band leaders to exploit the fact that work can be scarce for freelance musicians.
Singer J-Sol Olatunbosun, 24, told the JC he was owed £1,500 for six months, and was paid only when he threatened to visit Mr Gilbert at his home.
He said: “I think he exploits the fact that freelance musicians are always looking for work. But we have bills to pay just like anyone else.”
A singer who wished to remain anonymous said he was paid the £250 he was owed on Wednesday morning, after the JC had contacted Mr Gilbert.
Another bassist said he had been waiting “more than a year” for a fee of £1,000 which was still unpaid on Wednesday. Contacting the band leader had been “a nightmare”, he said.
Mr Gilbert claimed that personal issues were behind his failure to pay artists, but that it was “not malicious”, and that he has “tried to be as communicative as possible”. He said: “Under the pressures of being a newly-single parent and trying to upkeep the brand of the band and do the best possible job, which we’re known to do, it’s unfortunate that things might have got lost in translation in the admin side.
He added: “I’ve made significant changes to the way I run things and I now have a full-time business manager. Everyone I’ve hired over the past five months has been paid.”
Mr Gilbert, who has worked in the music business for 26 years, pointed out that he too had experienced delays in payment. “Corporate clients can take up to 60 days to pay,” he said.
ALEX STEPHANY is a Jewish entrepreneur who has launched a crowdfunding platform — but with a difference.
Unlike other ventures which allow people to invest in companies, Mr Stephany’s platform, called Beam, gives people the opportunity to fund jobs training for homeless people, helping them into sustained employment.
“Homelessness has been something that has troubled me a lot, and it’s been getting worse”, Mr Stephany said, citing a report from the Shelter charity released earlier this month, which estimated that there are more than 300,000 homeless people in the UK.
Mr Stephany, a former CEO of the ParkatmyHouse app [now called JustPark], said the idea for Beam came after he had noticed there was a lack of “technology that makes it safe and easy to help a homeless person.
He said: “I began to think about what the best kind of help actually was.”
The 35-year-old, who grew up going to Finchley Reform Synagogue, was inspired by a lesson he remembered from childhood Hebrew classes. “One of the things that really stuck with me from Cheder was Maimonides’s eight degrees of charity, the highest level of which is the help that allows someone to no longer be in need of help.
“So for me the challenge was: how do we allow homeless people to get back into work, to become selfsustaining and then also help other people? And that’s very much what Beam is about, because once people go through this model and are in work, they pledge to repay their campaign donations for future Beam members. So I came up with this idea which mixed crowdfunding with employment training.” Mr Stephany said the idea had been very well received by “senior people in homelessness charities.
“The website has been up for eight weeks. There are nine members on it so far.
“Four of the campaigns have been funded and of those four people, two have already passed their training and two are currently doing their training.
“It’s a very personalised approach. We sit down with the individual and get to know them. We obviously discuss their work history, their ambitions, and their strengths and we work out what the right career is for them.
“Sometimes an individual will know exactly what ithey want to do. At other times there’s a little bit more work to uncover what the right career path for them is.
“The thing all of these different pathways have in common is that training people up in high-demand skills is very likely to lead to sustained employment.
Details at https://www.wearebeam.org/
One bassist was owed £2,000 for jobs done in 2015