knirirr

Having volunteered for the pit orchestra for a show in May in the local theatre I will find out some of this, though it won't be a panto. More of this sort of thing.

Always annoying! A band of which I'm presumably still a member (though no rehearsals have been organised recently) was afflicted by misuse of rehearsal time. I'd always ask for example recordings and charts well in advance, but sometimes receive them late in the evening the day before. Similarly, requests for a set list for the next rehearsal would be answered, but when I turned up prepared there was a good chance of encountering "oh, I thought we'd try a new one, here are the charts and let's have a listen to a recording." There's one other band I play with where the first time I encounter new tunes is most likely on the bandstand during a gig, but the material is so simple that this is not a problem. The material for the band mentioned above is more complex, with various parts for horns and specific arrangements.

Just wasted some money on a small and relatively cheap guitar amp; I've fancied one for a while and just discovered that the model has been discontinued. Perhaps by buying one of the last in stock now I can do better in next year's thread....

Two quite different jams to finish the year: Sunday's was very busy; we went for 3 hours rather than the usual 2.5 and still couldn't fit everyone in. Lots of horn players, singers etc. A saxophonist commented that he liked my ballad playing on bass. There were some good tunes called. Wednesday's had various people call in sick at the last minute. We ended up with: - Horn player good at reading heads from the real book but not confident at soloing. - Gypsy jazz guitarist good at comping from iReal but not confident at soloing. - Drummer who is learning the trumpet and was keen to step away from the drums and play some heads. Not able to do trumpet solos. - Me (unamplified DB). - Er... - That's it. Somehow, we were accosted by pub patrons who said they enjoyed it. There were, out of necessity, more bass solos than I would have liked.

Here's another one, with Jimmy Smith playing one of my favourite basslines. It's a bit long ("if it's 3 minutes long, it ain't really jazz" etc.) but around 5 minutes in is particularly good.

Here's a favourite of mine, with some good soloing all round.

I'm not sure if they're on Spotify, which I don't use either, but if Monk Montgomery's "Bass Odyssey" or "Reality" are there I would recommend them.

Somehow I have managed to not buy any basses, but there was one more tier 2 failure (a Fender Jaguar, for playing jazz on).

It is presumably a PWA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_app), i.e. the website is saved on your phone and adapts to the screen size to make it more app-like. This was the original plan for iPhone app development until the App Store appeared with iOS 2.

Last night's jazz session at The Chequers in Chipping Norton was a bit cramped as they were getting large dinner bookings already. We managed to squeeze in, though. Once again the EUB was very useful; easier to find somewhere to stand for playing and I can lean it up against a wall when one of the bass guitarists who turn up wants to sit in. When they do I get a chance to inflict my jazz guitar skills (I use the term 'skill' loosely) on the audience. Though we get bassists and keyboardists turning up there are no other drummers so our regular chap has to work all night.

This turned up in my RSS feeds this morning and might perhaps be of interest to people here: https://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2025/fretless-bass/

Here's my favourite piece from an excellent album:

Many people aren't aware of me who would otherwise have been if we were still using forums for some of my other hobbies, and many invitations never get to me. It's a price I'm willing to pay to not use a service owned by people I consider beyond the pale.

It was a fun day out; I've not been to one before so haven't yet had a chance to put faces to names. Nice to discuss EUBs, DBs etc. with the chaps there who were into that sort of thing, and to have a look at the variety of interesting bass guitars on show. I meant to take some books to get rid of but forgot, took some pedals to get rid of but forgot to get them out the car, and came away with an additional book (donation made to CRC).

As far as I am concerned Facebook is extremely dastardly - I refuse to have an account there or on any other service owned by the blackguard Zuckerberg. I block all known Meta URLs on my phone via DNS. Luckily for me my job doesn't need me to use it (it doesn't appear to be popular in academia), though some hobbies are affected by this stance.

Mine has been modified a bit but is still close enough to stock to give you an idea of what you'd get if you bought a new one.

Still looking like I can attend. I'll probably only be able to bring my Warwick Triumph EUB as I don't think I can fit that plus a DB and 1x12 cab(*) in the boot, though I might be lucky. (*) Orange OBC 112 with Orange Terror and TC Electronics BAM 200.

Last night we were working on some new material. Trying new stuff is always a reminder of just how good the jazz greats were; we listen to a piece and think "that sounds easy enough, we should have no problem doing a version of that" and then find that it takes quite a bit of work. Here's one we tried (I don't have a recording of our attempt).

Indeed - I recently bought something from him. Unfortunately it turned out have a small fault, but he seemed happy for me to return it. Currently it is in the hands of Parcelforce. I'm sure it's something he'll be able to fix so it can be re-listed (I spotted something else I'll bag instead).

Is that String Theory?

You're still doing better than I am! Selling things even at a loss seems rather difficult.

I've cheated for thumb position by putting a small black stick-on dot at where the 12th and 19th frets would be, but the rest of it is done by muscle memory. One of the fun parts of DB playing is not needing to look at the neck, so I am free to stare at iReal (or, if I can remember the changes, at the audience) instead.

I'm not sure about that - I've got quite a few free jazz albums and enjoy listening to them. Of course, I usually have to wait until my other half is out in case she complains of "oh no, not more Desolate Shore"... BTW, a couple of times I've seen arguments about free jazz break out on another forum, where things can get quite heated indeed. I failed to make clear that I liked listening to it and received some interesting abuse. Re your jams, it seems a bit off that there's no planning. Good luck getting a house band together and starting your own!