Bilbo

Cachao has left us. Rest in Peace, Senor. [url="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking_dade/story/466437.html>"]http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking_d...466437.html>[/url]

44 year old jazzer. Took up bass in 1980, went fretless in '86 and not really played fretted basses since. I have a fretted 6-string status I don't really use (except when I gig with Bridget Metcalfe - her MD insists on the low D). Started in a Metal band in '81. Then a bit of prog rock & pop before the jazz kicked in. Played in a band with Grant Nicholas from Feeder in 1986-88 (ish) but my jazz interests got teh better of me and I was on teh Cardiff jazz scene from 88 - 94 before moving ot SUrrey. Surrey was a jazz only part of my life but a move to East Anglia in 2001 mean that I have to try some alternative options or not play. So did som eheavy duty funk and some Latin whilst waiting for the jazz to kick in. Problem is I play jazz on and electric bass and most bandleaders want an upright. I have played with some great people over the years: Jim Mullen, Iain Ballamy, Stan Sultzman, Janusz Carmello, Roy Williams, Nick Page, Osian Roberts, Nigel Price (James Taylor guitarist) but usually only once each!!! I love to play creatively and love that real time organic blowing that jazz allows you to engage in. The jazz playing is opening up here in Suffolk and I am now playing mostly jazz again (some Latin still in there). I kind of don't know what I am like to listen to as I lack the ability to be that objective. I hate my playing mostly although I can usually nail most things I am asked to play. I do, however, like my sound as it sounds like me and noone else, a fact that is important for a jazzer. I only play my fretless Wal 4-string finger style (although I can slap at a rudimentary level - I just don't really like the music that slapping is involved in so I rarely use it). I crave a great creative jazz gig and have only every had that once when I played in the Julian Martin Trio in Cardiff in the late 80s early 90s - we really had something genuinely interesting. Cardiff based Ian Williams on drums; mad as a fish but a real original. That's me.

Phwoar! You know how to turn a man's head. If my Metro didn't already have wheels, I would be off down Maplin's like a fast thing from Fast City. As it does, I'll spend the money on something ELSE!!!

You're the bass player. No-one is listening to you. Forget it and enjoy yourself. I did a jazz gig once and myself and the pianist were a little frustrated that the audience weren't listening so, to prove a point, we did a fast be-bop 12-bar blues. He played it in Bb and I did it in B. After a chorus, he swapped to B and I swapped to Bb and so on throughout the whole piece. Yes, you've guessed it. No-one in the 120 strong audience noticed. Not even the drummer! The BiBeefChief will love that one!

Just thought of another underated electric bass player with a creditable jazz pedigree of a sort. Kermit Driscoll. Anyone remember him? His technique was not the issue - his creativity was. The man was undoubtedly an original and his work with Bill Frissel is immediately recognisable (try 'Have A Little Faith' first). Is it jazz? Who cares?

The one pictured is the one most jazzers now use as the Real Books we all refer to are too heavy for the smaller models and are they are thus prone to collapsing mid-tune. They aren't that cumbersome. I can't believe you'll hump a 48kg bass cab and then moan about a music stand!

Some great jJazz biographies for anyone who is interested: 'Straight Life' by Art & Laurie Pepper - biography of a jazz musician/sociopath but, first and foremost, a great read 'Miles Davis: the definitive biography - a critical biography' by Ian Carr 'Milestones' by Jack Chambers - another Miles Davis biography 'Mingus - a critical biography by Brian Priestly' Anything by Gary Giddens Myself When I Am Real: The Life and Music of Charles Mingus by Gene Santoro - grest writing Before Motown: A History of Jazz in Detroit, 1920-60 by Lars Bjorn and Jim Gallert - Jim has been really supportive of me in my own efforts at writing a biography so I want to give him a mention Myself Among Others: A Life in Music by George Wein & Nate Chinen Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This: My Life in the Jazz World by Val Wilmer - great writing As Serious as Your Life: John Coltrane and Beyond by Val Wilmer Friends Along the Way: A Journey Through Jazz by Lees, Gene John Coltrane: His Life and Music by Lewis Porter (Lewis has also been supportive of me) I could go on and on - I read more than I practice (its quieter and I can do it on public transport!)

Zero Frets - works for me Welcome!

Aren't people who nick gear the scum of the earth?

Guitar, backing voxs, percussion (surdo, agogo etc) - all servicable not great - sufficient to record demos and explore ideas etc. Just got my first gig on guitar tho', after years of thinking I could do better than the guitar players around me. Part of it is about realising that you don't have to be a virtuoso to 'play' an instrument and about having the confidence to be mediocre! How good is good enough? As for b. vocals, we can pretty much all do it if we try. You don't have to be Ella Fitzgerald to justify singing! Its yours and its free. Just do it.

There is a standard MU contract that covers this. As I recall there is a sliding scale dependent upon the length of time between cancelation and schedueld gig. I have received payment for cancelled gigs several times on this basis.

Wal Cusom Fretless 4-string bought 25/4/86 from Monkey Business. Still keeps me [i]very[/i] happy. 4 basses ever - my first Hondo II Precsion copy (1980), replaced fairly quickly by an Aria SB700 (1981) followed by the Wal. Since had a Status 6-string but its on the wall most of teh time and only comes out if an MD demands a low B (2/3 times a year). Amps - Sound City to Frunt (remember them!!) to Trace Eliot AH250 to GK MB150S (stoeln) to SWR Electric Blue head to Eden Metro (2001). Amps are more likely to get changed due to improvements in technology/differing needs in terms of playing situations but the bass stays put.

[quote name='BigBeefChief' post='158129' date='Mar 15 2008, 07:17 PM']I also tend to like those albums recorded in weeks rather than months.[/quote] Ha ha ha! I love the idea that a 'raw' and 'unpolished' product can be recorded in weeks! What a lot of people don't realise is that most jazz is recorded in one take over an afternoon! Miles Davis recorded the greatest selling jazz lp of all time (Kind Of Blue) in two afternoons (around 6 hours) - no rehearsal, no overdubs and only a couple of re-takes. And what's more, the musicians got paid accordingly - Paul Chambers got about $350 for the whole thing. And it out-sold some of Simon and Garfunkel's LPs. Look at any one of 1,000 Blue Note cds and they will give the date of the recording as one day - look at the discographies and you will see that the sessions produced up to a dozen or more tracks. All the musos got paid union rates with no royalties (except the composers). Those great JOhn Abercrombie Trio recordings are all one day sessions - fantastic! Things are no different today. Gwizdala's cds are all recorded on one day, even if they are mixed and mastered on another. Session musicians get the gig because they can deliver in one take what other take ten or a hundred to achieve. If the product is soulless, blame the producer - he chose the musicians and 'managed' the arrangements. I did a session once and didn't hear the results until a year or two later and I had to be told it was me because I couldn't remember it at all (and I was stone cold sober!). I know that is not uncommon for other players. We have to remember, as I said elsewhere on this forum, that lots of music that is recorded is often for different audiences than sophisticated afficianados and a polished performance in one arena would grate in another.

Where are all the jazzers?? Electric 1. Steve Swallow - electric bass innovation with Gary Burton and others 2. Percy Jones - Jaco wrote the book, Jones tore it up and started again 3. Anthony Jackson - 'For The Love Of Money' quietly introduced some new sounds to the instrument 4. Mark Egan - not the greatest player ever but a clear voice on early Pat Metheny Group LPs 5. Alphonso Johnson - grooves just as hard as Jaco and often overlooked. Acoustic 1. Marc Johnson - earliest recordings with Bill Evans in 1978. One of the best sounds in bass history if my ears are worth anything 2. Dave Holland - 1972's 'Conference Of The Birds' was, in my view, seminal 3. Stanley Clarke - 1972's Light As A Feather gave us at least 3 jazz standards if not 6/6 and all this before he started slapping 4. Ron Carter - a great decade for him even if the media wasn't looking 5. Eddie Gomez - got a Grammy for Chick Corea's 'Friends' in 1979.

[quote name='queenofthedepths' post='156876' date='Mar 13 2008, 05:34 PM'][pedant]Surely there are only 7 notes in any key? If you include the octave as well as the root, that's 13 notes in an octave! So it's not quite 66%...[/pedant][/quote] You are, of course, correct. It is, in fact, 58.3333% not 66%. I stand corrected. That's far too risky! Don't do it

[quote name='dlloyd' post='157227' date='Mar 14 2008, 09:37 AM']Apart from the fact that there are truly tone-deaf people who cannot understand music past a vague, superficial aesthetic, I'd agree.[/quote] I was once told that someone who is genuinely tone deaf cannot hear the difference in frequency between a dog bark and bird song. I think real tone deafness is actually very rare. The rest is learned helplessness - people who are repeatedly told they are tone deaf to the point where they believe it and proceed accordingly. The concept of excellence in singing, for instance, is a Western phenomenon. Asking someone is Africa if they can sing is like asking them if they can chew. Its not an issue.

Nice one, Paul C. Now there is NO reason for people not to understand this stuff.

[quote name='cheddatom' post='156834' date='Mar 13 2008, 04:47 PM']I don't see how knowing theory will make you more able to play a teapot, a shirt, or a piglet.[/quote] That's the point. Pascoal knows all the theory you need. He is a great player and composer in the conventional sense but is also one of the most creative musician on the planet - his swimming pool, vocal, underwater tube trio is a must! Harmonic and melodic theory in the sense it has been discussed here is ethnocentric - a thumb piano is an African invention so has no use for the tempered scale. Nor has a piglet.

[quote name='2wheeler' post='156634' date='Mar 13 2008, 12:06 PM']I stuck to a walking bass line through "Straight, No Chaser", got lost a few times but got through it and had a very good time most of the time.[/quote] I still get lost after 28 years of playing it. Its kind of part of the deal. At the stage you are at you just need to get out there and make a noise - remember; there is no such thing as a wrong note, just a poor choice. If you are lost, just keep goign until you find it again. There are 12 notes in an octave and eight in any given key. That's a 66% chance of hitting a 'right' note even if you try it randomly. Noone is listening to you anyway, you're the bass player! BE LOUD, CONFIDENT and WRONG! Just play, play, play and have a ball!

Let's put this in perspective. Look up Hermeto Pascoal on YouTube (but don't stop at one video as you won't get where he is coming from unless you look at several) - now tell me whether theory stifles your creativity!! Saxophonist Iain Ballamy once told me that he saw Pascoal play music on a shirt. Other instruments include piano, melodica, teapot and piglet - yes, piglet. Hey BBC! - you're gonna LOVE it!!

They're juss makin' it up as they go along....

[quote name='jakesbass' post='156110' date='Mar 12 2008, 03:57 PM']We live in an age where we have to pussy foot around for fear of upsetting the sensibilities of one person or another.[/quote] Do we? I must be missing something, snot box!!!

The problem with finding your true path as a musician is recognising the fact that you are already on it. If you practise every lick, trick and song of your favorite musician, and nothing else, you will still not sound like him/her. You can' t help it - so being an individual is not the issue. But, using the drum analogy, you can get quite credible without 'learning' anything but I bet you any money your playing will fill up with cliches very quickly whether you like it or not because the music you LISTEN to will be cliche-ridden. We are the sum total of our experiences and those experiences aren't only our practice schedule; it is also our listening. So unless you listen to original (i.e. not genre specific) music, you will inevitably fall into the boom chuck boom chuck school of drumming and sound very unispired. You may have a whale of a time but the listeners won't hear anything worth talking abou! I also agree that technical players are not always the best - I think, for instance, that Jeff Berlin, despite his astonishing technique, lacks the genre specific skills to play anything other than what he does. Despite his endless efforts to the contrary, he has not got a massive list of sessions to his name because can't nail grooves idiomatically correctly like someone like Lee Sklar, who is a lesser player in terms of superficial dexterity but grooves like a mofo. Technique is not everything but it helps.

'This Must Be Love' Alphonso Johnson's line on Phil Collins 'Face Value' LP/CD Yum Yum Pigs Bum!

I guess the worst thing is technique without knowledge of theory - Yngwie J Malmsteen!