Bilbo

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1367586622' post='2067269'] I dare you to play straight 8 root notes for a whole song [/quote] Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.... Look up Racing For Home: No Quarter on youtube.

[quote name='iceonaboy' timestamp='1367586238' post='2067256'] Maybe its just me, but I think all jazz players make it up as they go along anyway [/quote] And THAT'S why it is hard!!

Interstingly, when Branford Marsalis finished the Sting tours, he said that going back to Jazz was hard because he had to get back into [i]thinking[/i] (rather than playing) that fast. I think Mike has a point; it is not the chops that are missing, it is the ability to translate your mental idea into a physically executed line that is lacking when you are not hitting the mark.

[quote name='Spoombung' timestamp='1367583535' post='2067209'] Just wondering how you get so many gigs, Bilbo? Regular band, dep work? Do you have an agent? [/quote] I don't have that many, although I have done (2008). I am on about 50 a year nowadays although they are all good ones now (musically, I mean). When I did 120, 80 of the were awful, awful stuff. Bad players playing bad material badly but for good money I get to play with great people by booking them. On the bakcof my Paul CHambers biography, I wrote this: [i]'Rob Palmer is Senior Probation Officer and a semi-professional bass player of 28 years experience who has played jazz for most of that time. He has performed and recorded with some of the leading British jazz musicians including as Jim Mullen, Iain Ballamy, Stan Sultzman, Janusz Carmello, Dave DeFries, Tim Whitehead and Roy Williams. His ambition is to play with one of these guys twice'. [/i]

[quote name='BassBus' timestamp='1367579743' post='2067134'] I have heard it said before, that there aren't many notes that are wrong in jazz. [/quote] I seem to manage to find the suckers, though

I use Nymans but haven't got the faintest idea of what it is supposed to do I think I may try some others to see if my crap bowing is the fault of the rosin rather than me!

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1367578533' post='2067112'] and you know all this anyway. [/quote] I do; I am just trying to give myself permission to be crap and happy at the same time

I have been (mostly) playing Jazz now since about 1985. THe level of gigging has gone from minimal (4 or 5 a year) to overwhelming (120 a year). With some rare exceptions, the bands have not been rehearsed and, in many cases, have included people I have rarely played with. Most of the tunes I have played most of the time have been things I am only superficially aware of and I have been reading chord charts and improvising around sequences the knowledge of which is, at best, peripheral. Some of these charts are going past like s*** off a stick and there are lots of strange symbols and extensions designed purely to humiliate me. A lot of the work I have done is massively flawed and I deeply admire those players who can make something beautiful out of a sequence that, by its very nature, puts rocks in your path. I don't consider myself to be one of those players. I can find my way around a basic standard but lob in a few slash chords, some obscure harmony and I am easily thrown. I can usually figure out a way through, given time, but, because most of the gigs I do don't allow for that level of preparation, that time is mostly after the fact. Playing Jazz, as an improvising Art form, is a high risk undertaking. I was wondering, therefore, given all the above 'environmental factors', why I think it is EVER going to be anything but grimly inadequate.

Joe Henderson - Lush Life CD

Shreng terwon dioih \IKF I asdew giinhs o fj lkj ooooj dasdh jkshf hgksk lkn. Caprngngis, fiiew n.

I think the ideas can come reasonaly quickly but, like someone said, its 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. I get a melody or chored sequence or some other concept going (a riff, a theme, a rhythmic idea etc) and then, like clay, start moulding it. The first bit is easy, the second bit is where the real work takes place. Sometimes it comes easily, sometimes it is like pulling teeth. I have read a lot about composing and most composers say the same. Some things just land in your lap, other things take forever to come together.

Thump..... ( Bilbo's head hitting the desk)

Granted, but can he cook a meringue?

[quote name='fumps' timestamp='1367420601' post='2065432'] Have you heard many new young players ? [/quote] All of the time. A lot of young players can rip s*** out of Jaco's stuff but, as someone said above, it's the soul, the swing that they miss. Feraud, Garrison, Gwizdala etc are all monster players but they lack Jaco's organic humanity, his heart. Jaco played some incredibly moving music, clever but never cerebral.

[quote name='Skol303' timestamp='1367424979' post='2065517'] Yeah sorry Bilbo, the party's finished. Same thing happened back in [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/190256-october-composition-competition-voting-time/"]October.[/url] Once Charic pulls up the drawbridge, that's it. Don't worry, plenty of scope for you to see my compositional ass suitably kicked this month I'm sure [/quote]

Errrr. Lowdown got another vote? Too late to count, I assume?

I do it because it matters to me. When it becomes about money or popularity, it does not meet the needs I have. It is for its own sake and the music is its own reward.

That may yet be the approach!

Interesting images but one thing I have noticed on here is how important backbeats are to most folk. If one tries to create a Jazz feel, it is harder because the level of playing s is higher and getting a jazz feel out of sequencers and midi is nigh on impossible . We shall see where this takes us

,Jaco played some great stuff and some dross. He played well on some crap tunes and poorly on some great tunes. For me, when he was hitting, he was hitting and his hit rate was the envy of a generation. He opened doors for me that I didn't even know were closed. What he does for anyone else is of no interest to me. He was 'my man', along with 3 others, and I sometimes still hear him today and go 'wow'. There aren't many that do that anymore.

Mmmmmmm......

So, where is my picture? I have work to do.....

Just realised that, despite playing 99% fretless for 27 years, I hardly ever slide.

Doing their job vs redefining the job. Mmmmmm, let me think?

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9iaqFtyWfE"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9iaqFtyWfE[/url] This was the one I was talking about. I was a 17yr old rocker and the opening guitar got me right away but the rest of it was so fresh sounding to my naive ears. 1.19 on was lovely and then, bang, the groove at 2.34 and then again at 3.06.