mtroun

I had gamut lyon D and G (both medium and varnished) and I was using Evah Pirazzi Weich E and A with them. It went for some fingerboard work because I found the first couple of positions really creaky like you say, the D in particular was hard work. I took them off not long after, put the action down and put Oliv D and G on. At that point the Evah E and A sounded totally dead so I put spiro E and A on. I've recently replaced everything with a new set of garbos. I've kept my bridge adjusters as low as they can go, with the low tension of the garbo, they aren't really that low. I'm guessing guts can eat up your board quicker because they oscillate more widely? Just a guess.

'Best' is subjective. Best from a bass players perspective, or from other musicians' perspective? Influence is also pretty hard to measure because it's not straight cause and effect. Players are influenced by external factors as well - sometimes musicians work on certain things to meet the needs of other musicians they work with. All food for thought. Bringing it back to practice, motivation and inspiration, we're never far away from a great recording to ignite our interest. What have people transcribed recently? What tunes are they learning? I've transcribed the piano solo from Bolivia by Cedar Walton (on 'Eastern Rebellion') and have been learning it on the bass. I've also been learning some tunes that a friend of mine and I agreed to work on for the next time we play together. There's lots of other stuff I've been working on as well but I don't want to go into too much detail (I'll bore everyone to tears!)

[quote name='spencer.b' timestamp='1459893711' post='3020718'] My Bryant took a lot of work to get to its best too , I recently had the board planed again by laurence and it feels and sounds great again . It does seem to be an ongoing thing though particularly with new basses, I've got an old Germany that's a lot lower maintenance [/quote] Good to know. Do you think guts make fingerboard work more complex? I've been back and forth with different steel, synthetic and gut strings, but I found the guts the most rewarding but also frustrating in terms of fingeboard noise.

Apologies if I sounded like I was having a go at Paul, my bass is definitely not a substandard instrument and I have played many more expensive instruments (and I mean a lot more expensive) that couldn't come close to it and Roger is dead right that getting the setup handled by someone who knows what you want out of your instrument is important. Paul has prioritised making basses over the setup work that keeps most luthiers busy, and is quite a prolific maker by any standard! Mine is number 101. I notice that Paul still has one soloist model for sale on his website, it might well be the last one!

[quote name='bassace' timestamp='1459671583' post='3018445'] My Bryant is a sweet little bass - why is it 'always' Bryants? - just the right size for playing and getting around to gigs. But I had a problem with the sound. It was good in quiet situations but when I turned up there was too much thump and not enough note, if you get my drift. There was also a clack on the E. [/quote] If I take your meaning correctly, it's always Bryants because they are cheap! And Paul, legend that he is, largely makes them for fun, so it seems to be worth taking them to more of a professional luthier. I find the voice of my Bryant to be very pleasant indeed, but the bridge originally fitted wasn't much good and the fingerboard has required quite a lot of corrective work.

Interesting to hear everyone's feedback. Like I said, my bass has had a fair amount of work done to it, but in stages. Most recently it had another sound post cut and had some work done to the fingerboard. Before that, it had quite a major setup, with a new bridge fitted, fingerboard planing, new nut etc. It's quite possible that I need to a) decide exactly what strings I am going to have on my bass give it to my luthier for a significant amount of time so that he can really give it a complete run over. I think in some ways the problem is that it goes to the luthier when there is a problem, rather than just to get it tuned up to be as good as it can be.

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1459668210' post='3018422'] The thing is, a lot of influential players are in no way the 'best' players, they just have the highest profile gigs. Sometimes this lines up but, often, they don't. [/quote] I suppose it's possible, but when Paul Chambers played with Miles, he was pretty much the go-to guy because he was the best. You could argue that Sam Jones (who arrived a little later on the scene) and Doug Watkins were at a similar level but Miles could pick and choose, while I guess Oscar Pettiford and Ray Brown, being a little bit older, wouldn't be able to be bossed around by Miles and probably wanted too much money so were not an automatic choice. I would consider Paul Chambers' decline in demand as a combination of his heavy drug use giving him a reputation, and a steadier gig with the Wynton Kelly trio changing his availability. He's still on a fair few sessions after Miles and died in 1969. Ron Carter has done absolutely stacks of work after leaving the employ of Miles Davis, but by the time Dave Holland started playing with Miles, the apprenticeship system, long band engagements and the Great American Songbook were all becoming less relevant. To reiterate something I said earlier with regards to John Goldsby, the idea of a 'jazz tradition' only really works up until the end of 1960s, because jazz's relevance to mainstream American popular culture started to really dry up by then. Since that time, there have been plenty of developments but they have tended to have a life of their own and become subgenres.

I don't know about everyone else, but my knowledge of DB setup isn't the greatest. Recently I had my bass guitar completely set up, with frets levelled, string heights and intonation all completely overhauled and it came back playing fantastically. With so many more variables contributing towards optimum setup, do you think it's possible to get a double bass playing as well as it can in the same way? Since I bought my Bryant 3 and a bit years ago, it's gone through a few different bridges(mostly due to poor choices on my part) and sound posts and had quite a bit of planing done to the fingerboard, as well as having a seam repaired, but it's quite a rattly beast at the moment, particularly the open A (I don't know if it's a dead spot, it's been a problem for a while, with the luthier doing work on the nut and fingerboard to little effect). I reckon the messing about with different strings probably hasn't helped, but has anyone had a miraculous experience with setup? My luthier is a well regarded fellow on these forums and amongst the playing community, so I don't think it's anything to do with him. Is it a case of sticking plasters or will my instrument need more serious work to play at its optimum? Your suggestions please.

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1458999137' post='3012699'] For me, time is about listening. If you cannot hear where the pulses, playing ahead or behind becomes a matter of chance rather than design. Playing triplets becomes fraught with difficulties etc. [/quote] I read a quote recently, can't remember who it was but a well known player, I think either a bass player or drummer, who said that time was about listening for who has the best interpretation of the beat and going with them. I'm not sure if that's quite my experience but there's a grain of truth there. Sometimes it can take a little adjustment to get to the right place. One of the problems I have had with some drummers (it's always drummers! One of the problems where I live is the shortage of great drummers) is when they assume that they have ownership of the beat and end up pulling back when I'm on top of the beat, or sometimes just completely ignore what I'm playing and plow on as loud as possible! On the other hand, it's a real pleasure when there's absolutely no doubt where the beat is, because you can be a little bit looser. I find the best horn players really integrate with the rhythm section and make sure their phrasing really fits in with the time.

[quote name='tinyd' timestamp='1458987034' post='3012582'] My pet theory is that rhythm is often treated as secondary, both in formal musical education and when people are learning more informally, but I have zero evidence to back that up [/quote] The Irish bass player Ronan Guilfoyle is one of the world authorities on advanced rhythmic techniques and their application in jazz. He's firmly of the opinion that rhythm isn't given enough emphasis in jazz education. I notice that rhythm classes are starting to become more de rigeur on conservatoire jazz courses, but I didn't on my MA and feel like I could have been doing work on that aspect a lot earlier. I think a lot of people think they have good time, but there's plenty of ways to test that ability as I'm discovering.

[quote name='Beer of the Bass' timestamp='1458981428' post='3012522'] When I say the bar is lower for bassists, I don't mean in terms of renowned musicians, but I get the impression that almost any bassist who can keep time and maintain the form can function at some level on most local scenes. Maybe not as first-call guy, and not on the best gigs, but they can function. I'm sure the learning curve is steeper for pianists or sax players for example. This would chime with the Larry Grenadier quote further up the thread. [/quote] Yeah, I see what you mean. Though keeping a form isn't easy and a lot of even quite decent horn players get lost in forms because they are used to someone else doing it for them! I think when we talk about technical expectations, bear in mind how ridiculously easy it is to play fast on a saxophone. The challenge isn't in the execution but in coming up with the content!

I don't think there's a lower bar for bass players, far from it. In fact Ron Carter has stated that the bass player has to be the best musician on the bandstand, not always the case, but it's a good aspiration. I think maybe where we're going round in circles is the stated criteria for admiration of a bass player. The first priority for me will always be the time feel created by a bass player, as I see it as a rhythmic instrument, like drums. I've played with some drummers who were quite technically gifted but couldn't keep time properly, so essentially their chops meant nothing. Also very important is the sound, harmonic knowledge, great ears, melodicism. Technical prowess is a means of achieving all these goals. Like Beer of the Bass says, having a distinctive voice is an important factor. The idea of being a 'limited player' is a bit strange though, to be able to play jazz professionally great musicianship is taken for granted. If you choose to play very complex stuff, then that's fine but choosing not to do so doesn't make you limited.

Regarding tuning, do people play along to irealb, or Aebersold recordings to check their tuning? I used to quite a lot, not so much these days, but then my tuning is pretty solid (not perfect) and I think I have a good ear for knowing if I'm in or out of tune.

Wow, ok, strong opinions there. I do completely disagree with you but there you go. I've got to say I'm completely unconvinced by NHOP and Eddie Gomez, in fact I find them unlistenable (this is partly down to their over use of 1970s amplification trends, I heard a video of NHOP early in his career when he sounds much better IMO). I'm fond of Miroslav Vitous but I still think he's a bit over concerned with virtuosity as an end in itself. It's interesting because your opinion is precisely the opposite of most people I know, though I did once encounter a bloke at a jam session who loudly extolled the virtues of NHOP above all other bass players, explaining to me why he was so much better than Ray Brown. Interestingly NHOP was a massive Sam Jones fan and recorded a two bass album with him. It's weird but it's hard to tell them apart, I think NHOP slows down to suit SJ while SJ plays a lot more notes, probably to try and keep up. That record is more of a curiosity than a good record though. And I feel the same way about the later Oscar Peterson records with NHOP, lots of notes but a noticeable going through the motions, crowd pleasing kind of approach. I think saying 'what Larry Grenadier plays isn't hard in the slightest' is a bold statement. Are you really saying you can play at that level and that his status among contemporary players is a sham? Certainly with Fly, he demonstrates incredible thumb position chops, incredible control of the bow, the ability to play fluently over complex rhythms, not to mention his highly developed ears, I call all of this virtuoso stuff and I certainly can't match up to that, or indeed hope to without years more practice. Larry Grenadier was playing with Joe Henderson in his teens and has been called upon by countless older jazz masters. I'm sure he has plenty of chops that he doesn't demonstrate in such an overt way as for example Christian McBride. Interestingly, Brad Mehldau's first album has both Christian McBride and Larry Grenadier on it. When Pat Metheny picked Larry Grenadier to play with him was it because Marc Johnson was unavailable? Not to mention the fact that Charlie Haden, the anti virtuoso, is along with Palle Danielsson and Gary Peacock one of three bass players to record with Keith Jarrett, and in my and a lot of others' opinion, the best one. Again, was Pat Metheny just being nice by choosing Charlie Haden and Dewey Redman in a band that also included Mike Brecker and Jack DeJohnette? Did Chris Cheek go mad when deciding to record with Larry Grenadier, Matt Penman and Ben Street on various albums when he'd previously used Marc Johnson? I'm genuinely a bit perplexed by your assertions.

To go back on topic for a second, to the OP, one thing that really helps players develop is the peer group you are with. It's of course more difficult as you get older, but you're never that far from other musicians with similar interests and opportunities to spend time with them. I remember a while back talking to a young bass player who wanted advice about music college and the differences between the different colleges. I tried to emphasise the point that while you're at college you learn the most from the other people in your peer group who are striving towards the same things. It's worth catching up with other bass players and making it to jam sessions or gigs to get an idea as to what level you are at. For me, I do a few sessions in Leicester, but I travel to Birmingham weekly because there's a bigger community of musicians who are at a similar level to me, or slightly worse or quite a lot better! It's so useful to have a sense of perspective and something to aim towards. I'm sure being that you live in Edinburgh, there are plenty of players about - there's a sizeable contingent of Scots on Birmingham's jazz scene!

I dunno about fully developed, can most people today play as well as Paul Chambers? Is it just reading practice to play extremely fast bop lines with the bow on gut strings? Ron Carter has said what he has to say about unamplified bass, but in fairness his best years as a player were before he started using an amplifier all of the time. I've also heard people say that Ron Carter can't play! I don't even know what to say to those people. I know what you mean about machismo, but also practicality comes into it, you need to play hard enough to be able to make the instrument vibrate, and you can amplify that sound much better than tickling on a 1mm action! I think players care deeply about their sound today whereas in the 1970s they were just really happy to finally be able to be heard! Larry Grenadier has a point about being able to impress your peers with minimal technique, but in the hyper competitive world of today's jazz scene, I'm not seeing anyone who can't actually play like you say, feel free to PM me the name of the player who you think can't play the instrument(I meant Thomas Morgan not Ben Morgan, I was thinking of the rugby player!) I don't really know what constitutes mastery in your book if you think top players today are limited technically. It also seems to be you are wanting to hear music that pushes the boundaries technically rather than concerned about the overall musical effect. I know there are few players today that play as expansively as LaFaro for example, but as much as I admire his playing, I'm more of a Charlie Haden/ Sam Jones/ Butch Warren workman bassist fan myself. Leave the twiddly stuff for the horn players and get focused on making the band sound as good as possible. When it comes to soloing today, I think a lot of players play less linearly and use a lot of rhythmic superimpositions as opposed to focusing on hornlike lines. Certainly the degree of rhythmic prowess it takes to be a first call NYC player today is pretty astounding and certainly not very 1958. The problem with a lot of European jazz today and since the 1970s (and I hate to generalise) is there is generally a lack of that rhythmic drive. I see this as an African American tradition that needs to be respected, a lot like behind the beat playing in hip hop. Jazz is definitely a lot whiter today than it originally was, but American jazz still maintains a lot of the older musicians and the younger generation that played with them, which means American jazz musicians are judged a lot more on their ability to play the history of the music. I don't think this is a bad thing and this is maybe where we differ in opinion. Younger players coming up still in theory have to pay their dues and demonstrate that they can play standards whereas there is less pressure to do so in Europe, so the frame of reference is different. I personally find that this can lead to a lack of depth and subtlety. That said, most of the best European jazz musicians have a great deal of respect for standards and swing and can play it, even if they choose not to, much like their American counterparts. For example, Jakob Bro is a widely admired Danish guitarist, but he works extensively with American musicians as well as European ones. Everything is of course deeply interconnected. Anyway, I'm aware that we've wandered fairly off topic. I get the feeling that we probably aren't as diametrically opposed as it comes across on here, but I still think Stuart Nicholson is a hack who doesn't have a clue what he's talking about, so we must agree to disagree on that point!

Long, but covers it pretty well: http://jazztruth.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/blast-from-past-stuart-nicholsons.html

[quote name='The Jaywalker' timestamp='1458864085' post='3011761'] "Only European players who have made a massive impact on jazz worldwide could be worthy of inclusion..." I have to vehemently disagree. If this is about bass; then artistic relativism and the "fame game" can't come into it. There's some spectacularly mediocre US bassists that are really popular with younger players (imo because what they do is readily achievable...and I'm not going to name names and open a can of worms) and who have international careers. G A lot of what guys in NYC are doing with non-swing stuff is only just catching up to what was going on in Europe 40 years ago. But that doesn't matter. I've always used the Buddhism comparison for Jazz. Wherever it goes, it picks up part of the local tradition and evolves into something new. Indian Buddhism + Tibetan Bon gives Vajryana. Mixes with Taoism and you get Dzogchen on the border with Tibet and Chan/Zen in China and Japan. Jazz moved from New Orleans to Chicago and Kansas City. Different sounds. To NYC - different sounds. Bird threw in Bach and Hindemith and we get bop. Moves to Europe and joins with classical and Folk traditions - again, different sounds. Some folks want to keep it in 1958...too bad for them! [/quote] Ah, I don't think we'll agree on this. There is IMO a lot of hype expended on European jazz because of European jazz writers and the fact that Europe's jazz audience has remained while America's has moved on to other styles of music. As a result, American jazz went 'underground' (or more accurately, stayed in NYC like it had since the 40s, but got a lot less attention) The idea that NYC jazz players wanted to keep it in 1958 is one of those lazy criticisms that get bandied about but doesn't bear any scrutiny to the actual facts. It's usually used as a stick to beat the 80s young lions movement. People forget that Wynton Marsalis came out blazing with a lot of hype but then produced a series of classic albums where the rhythmic language of jazz got seriously expanded, and paved the way for musicians like Steve Coleman. I don't really see a precedent for that in European jazz. Europe produced some classic music during the 1970s, Kenny Wheeler, Eberhard, Jan Gabarek etc, all very nice, but I don't see it as significantly advanced over what was happening in the USA at the same time, when Woody Shaw, Steve Grossman, Keith Jarrett etc were at their creative height, just different. One is connected more to the jazz tradition, one to the classical, nothing wrong with that. A lot of the reasons European critics have pointed to Europe is because critics tend to be in favour of novelty over evolution, and love classical influences, as they studied European classical music at university. There's all sorts of economic reasons that European musicians have done well as well, with generous state funding for music in Norway for example, funded by oil revenues. American jazz musicians had to scramble a lot when the popularity of the music suffered. Thus a lot of 1970s American jazz gets swept under the carpet. The 1980s saw a renewed interest, thanks to Marsalis and some others, some of whom were a bit more hype than substance, but that does happen. I think saying that the achievements of the current crop of top NYC players are readily achievable is a bit preposterous. Are you thinking of players like Ben Street, Eric Revis, Larry Grenadier, Drew Gress, John Hebert, Ben Morgan, Joe Martin? I've watched some of these guys play and their ability is off the scale. I do think there are less self-conciously 'virtuoso' players in the USA because they are more aligned to the idea of being a supporting player, and also there is a tradition of being able to produce enough acoustic sound without an amp to hang with the drummer (and American musicians do seem to play LOUD) Some European (and some American) musicians pushed their string heights as low as possible and went for sheer speed over anything else, but that's not really much of an achievement if it doesn't sound musical in my opinion. Anyway, we clearly see it a bit differently, but I do think there's an inherent critical bias towards European-sounding music and dismissal of American jazz as regressive, which doesn't bear out much scrutiny. Have you been to New York?

This is an interesting topic for sure. Personally I think any study of jazz has to focus primarily on the USA, not to discount European players completely. Only European players who have made a massive impact on jazz worldwide could be worthy of inclusion. Lesser known USA players might be a little more lost in the mix but I think Goldsby is trying to represent the richness of the jazz tradition up to the 1970s, where things become a little bit more fragmented. There's no chapter on Christian McBride, Bob Hurst, Ray Drummond, Peter Washington, Dennis Irwin etc etc. Stuart Nicholson did write an IMO preposterous book proposing that the vanguard of creativity in jazz moved to Europe after the 1960s. There's so many things wrong with that premise I don't even know where to start...

[quote name='The Jaywalker' timestamp='1458748464' post='3010497'] My only gripe - and it's a big one - is that's its heavily biased towards "tradition". Meaning that minor US players (or indeed guys who really couldn't play at all but we're in a historically important band ie Pops Foster) are given a lot of airtime and some of the greatest bassists in history are glossed over in one chapter entitled "The Europeans" (naturally, none of whom merit a transcription extract). Those feelings aside, it's a great book and I'd still recommend it to anyone! [/quote] There has to be an end point to that section of the book, and it is a handbook for straight-ahead US jazz, which serves as a universal starting point for all the various directions jazz has gone since it ceased to be in the mainstream. You could argue that it neglects a lot of important later American players as well, but there's no way of being comprehensive. Since the average man in the street (and a lot of bass players) basically have no idea about who the different players who shaped the direction of jazz bass playing, I think Goldsby has to be applauded for doing so much research and digging so deep.

I have an interesting relationship with books. I'm quite a studious person in general, and I've ended up with a pretty big collection of most of the major guides to playing jazz and to playing the bass. Yet you can't really learn to play jazz from a book, and there's no mythical step by step guide that lays it all out there for you, it's a personal journey. That journey can include books or can basically ignore them. I find books very useful as a teacher as they sometimes spell out particular approaches to practicing very well. Jerry Bergonzi's Inside Improvisation books are fantastic because they tackle a single aspect of improvisation in a very methodical way, which is a lesson in itself about persisting with something rather than being distracted by something new all of the time. Books may help inspire you to get out of a slump, can I especially recommend 'How to Improvise' by Hal Crook and 'The Jazz Musician's Guide to Creative Practicing' by David Berkman, if you're looking for an idea farm. The only problem is you might find yourself wanting to just rush through everything, which is where a teacher comes in. It takes a leap of faith to keep doggedly doing the same thing but it's generally the only way to get good at something. You don't often see the results until months or years later unfortunately, which is why everyone is looking for a magic panacea (the right book, the right teacher etc etc) The best way to approach practicing though, is the simplest, practice for your next gig. If you haven't got a gig then have one at home, every day. My teacher makes me do this, by choosing 10 tunes (two sets of 5) to play and work on long term until they are really comfortable, at which point tunes can be substituted for others. For each tune you play the melody, walk for a chorus, solo for a chorus, go to the out head. You may not want to play the head if you're practicing a fast tune. Anything that comes up that needs practicing (like nailing particular corners of tunes) will need a bit of further examination after the 'gig'. Good luck!

Jazz is my speciality. PM me if you don't mind travelling to Leicester.

I teach in Leicester, but I can understand if that's a bit far for you. Birmingham has many great players. What kind of style are you looking for instruction in?

My double bass is called Penelope or Penny for short. Not sure where that came from. My current bass guitar (the Skjold) doesn't have a name as yet. My bass guitars up to this point were called Christy (Peavey), Rosa (Squier fretless) and Maryanne Marilyn (Stingray). For some reason I can't seem to remember what I called my first double bass. My car is called Graham, because its Gray and also as a subtle Alan Partridge reference! I don't intentionally name them, their names seem to come from above in moments of divine inspiration. If only that happened more often with writing decent tunes!