A Top Tip for Jazz Singers

[Huge Hands]

Guys,

Not sure if this has ben posted before (just did a quick search and couldn't find it), but I was reading my old Viz from Christmas and found this top tip for jazz singers that looks like it had been sent in by a disgruntled bass player:

[i][b]JAZZ SINGERS. [/b] Show off your innate rhythmic ability, natural leadership and rat-pack-esque style by clicking your fingers on beats 2 and 4 ever-so-slightly off the beat in front of the bass player. It's a well known fact that as most bass players can't keep time naturally, the whole thing would fall apart if it weren't for you clicking those fingers, so don't stop whatever you do. You can make it extra fun and unpredictable for the whole rhythm section by ocasionally coming back in for the verse in tune and in the right place. [b]- Jazzy2Fives, e-mail.[/b][/i]

I thought it was funny. Classic!

[The Funk]

Oh, that's good. I like that. It can apply to singers in many genres, but I have to say amateur and semi-pro singers who claim to sing jazz seem to be the worst.

[Beedster]

[Bilbo]

Off the Eden website:

Interviewer: What do you expect is in store for the future of jazz bass?

Yogi: I'm thinkin' there'll be a group of guys who've never met talkin' about it all the time.

Interviewer: Can you explain jazz bass?

Yogi: I can't, but I will. 90% of all jazz is half improvisation, even on bass. The other half is the part bass players play while others are playing something they never played with anyone who played that part. So if you play the wrong part, its right. If you play the right part, it might be right if you play it wrong enough. But if you play it too right, it's wrong.

Interviewer: I don't understand.

Yogi: Anyone who understands jazz bass knows that you can't understand it. It's too
complicated. That's whats so simple about it.

Interviewer: Do you understand it?

Yogi: No. That's why I can explain it. If I understood it, I wouldn't know anything about it.

Interviewer: Are there any great jazz bass players alive today?

Yogi: No. All the great jazz bass players alive today are dead. Except for the ones that are
still alive. But so many of them are dead, that the ones that are still alive are dying to be like the ones that are dead. Some would kill for it.

Interviewer: What is syncopation?

Yogi: That's when the note that you should hear now happens either before or after you hear it. In jazz, you don't hear notes when they happen because that would be some other type of music. Other types of music can be jazz, but only if they're the same as something different from those other kinds.

Interviewer: Now I really don't understand.

Yogi: I haven't taught you enough for you to not understand jazz bass that well.

[johnnylager]

[bremen]

:-)

[jakenewmanbass]

OP and Bilbo,
both had me laughing loud enough for my neighbours to hear.
I'm a jazz bassist (some of the time) and my wife is a jazz singer.

particularly this:

Yogi: Anyone who understands jazz bass knows that you can't understand it. It's too
complicated. That's whats so simple about it.

Edited April 16, 2008 by jakesbass

[mcgraham]

[quote]Interviewer: Are there any great jazz bass players alive today?

Yogi: No. All the great jazz bass players alive today are dead. Except for the ones that are
still alive. But so many of them are dead, that the ones that are still alive are dying to be like the ones that are dead. Some would kill for it.[/quote]


That's genius, had me chuckling for a few minutes.

Mark

[bassninja]

Thanks Bilbo, that makes much more sense now...