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Archive for the ‘double bass’


A good Upright Bass night

Published July 15th, 2007 in double bass, Jazz | No Comments »

Played at the Inn at Morro Bay last night. It was a slim crowd, but they were appreciative.

This guy named Bill Cyeeta came in with his wife, a middle-aged gentleman, and they guys in the band were telling me he’s an upright bass player from down south. I talked with him for a little bit at the set break, and he was real cool, so I had him play a couple of songs.

I could tell right away that his technique was great, he’d definitely been playing for a long time. His knowledge of music was deep and he knew how to apply theory correctly to certain sections that I couldn’t do. He was good.

So then, after like two songs (an F Blues and Footprints) I came back up. Great, this guy just played excellently. Now I knew I had to turn it up. We closed the set with All Blues. When it came time for my solo, Mike Raynor (drummer) laid out completely. I started playing the Brian Bromberg style bassline with the melody at the same time and then I pulled out all the stops. It got Bill’s table AND the table next to him light up.

My technique, after playing the Upright bass for only one year now, leaves much to be desired. But my “Sense of adventure,” as Bill put it, more than made up for it that night. It was cool. We had a real good time, and it was great to see how my bass is supposed to be played.

Month Recap

Published May 1st, 2007 in the leadbirds, double bass, Jazz, Salsa | No Comments »

April, my birthday month, has almost always been good to me. This month had some great gigs, notably the San Diego show with Crosby. Also, I did a recording session with the salsa band, Sabroso, entirely on the Upright bass,

I played with some great new musicians, honed my chops with lessons from Jedi-Master Ken Hustead, got some, learned some. Great month.

There were more than 12 gigs this last month. I’m looking to top that in may, I’ve got 5 gigs this week alone.

And just recently, I won third place in the Drum Competition. That was a hoot. I felt pretty nervous, It’s weird having the entire place stare at you for 3 minutes. I’m used to that sort of thing on stage playing bass, but it was different somehow.

There was definitely some grumbling amongst drummers. Howard, the new owner of the Drum Circuit, told everyone that I was really a bass player, and when I got third, some drummers were a bit peeved. It was all in good fun for me.

Video of Drum Competition coming soon….

Great Show

Published February 23rd, 2007 in double bass, Salsa | No Comments »

Sabroso opened for Sambada last night, and it was a smokin hot evening!

The band sounded great, everyone pretty much kicked ass. No one made any major mistakes, intonation was great, good times. I did have a little problem with the upright feeding back due to the massive subwoofers under the stage at Downtown Brew. Kip (the sound man AND the guy who runs the building I rent my rehearsal space) is my homey so he did the best he could and rode the faders. Everyone said the bass sounded huge and good.

Dave absolutely KILLED it on the timbales. I asked him about that cause he tends to blow licks at rehearsals, and his response was to the effect of, “Hey, that’s in rehearsal. This is live, it’s time to do it right!” What a pro.

Sambada is a great band. Afro-Brazilian funk. Everyone in that band can really dance. They all trade instruments throughout the course of the show too, which I thought was cool.

I don’t normally dance much, but I pretty much danced all night long with some lovely people. Good times.

Upright (s)kills

Published February 17th, 2007 in double bass | No Comments »

I played pretty okay last night. And that’s a good thing. Sometimes I don’t know why I play this big bass.

The Double Bass is the proper name. It’s also referred to as the Upright Bass, the Dog House, the String Bass, the Standup Bass, The Bass Fiddle, the list goes on.

But no matter what you call it, it is by far the sexiest instrument ever invented. It has that great sound when plucked (called pizzicato) and that silky sound when bowed (called arco). No other instrument sounds that good in the low frequencies. And it’s got those great curves!

It’s very cumbersome due to it’s large size. It’s taller than I am! That makes it difficult to carry around, put in my car, set up in small areas, etc.

It’s also extremely difficult to play. I can play some cool and fast chops on my electric bass, which is around 20 times easier to play, but not on the Upright Bass. It’s as if I had to learn how to play an entirely new instrument. It’s an uphill battle for me. Having received my Bass and started playing it this last summer, I haven’t had enough time spent on it to even get comfortable yet. Which is frustrating, because I want to play all this stuff I know from the electric bass, but I can’t do it!

So with all these factors against me, I sometimes wonder why I bother. It’s a total labor of love. It’s not practical, it is occasionally physically painful to play, it is extremely difficult, the pickup technology hasn’t developed very well yet so it’s hard to get a good sound out of an amplifier.

I guess it’s all worth it when I play jazz on a bandstand. It really sounds better than the electric bass at jazz gigs. It sure looks better. And every now and then, after struggling and hacking my way through a jazz set, some one will walk up and say, ‘Oh, I just Loooove the big bass!’. It’s like they didn’t hear me sucking, they were just enamored with the struggle of getting sound out of it in the first place.

And I think it’s times like that where I remember why I play the damn thing. Because it IS a great instrument. And because I felt the same way about it as that person did for so long.

And because it looks cool.

Bad, Bass, Bad!

Published February 3rd, 2007 in double bass, Jazz | No Comments »

Remember all those entries about how good I think I play?

Well it was bound to happen.

I normally go down to the studio after work and practice for a while. It’s almost a nessecity when playing the upright bass. That instrument is NOT like riding a bike. If you don’t play it for a week, all is lost. Especially when you are (relatively) new to the instrument.

So this week I practiced drums instead. Why? Because I have a gig tomorrow night playing drums in a mediocre funk band. I absolutely love playing the drums. I tell people it was my first instrument, cause I would bang on anything around that produced a tone as a child before I had any guitars around.

So, being all excited about playing drums saturday night, I’ve spent all my practice time on the kit. Well guess what? I sucked ass on the upright bass tonight at my regular Friday Jazz gig.

And I played worse than I have in a long, long, long time. It was so frustrating. I could tell everyone else in the band was noticing.

Funny part was I took a few solos that came off well and got good response. But those were only good because I played as hard as I could out of pure anger at my crappy playing. Weird how that works.

Lame. Tomorrow should be fun though…..

Who Is This Amazing Woman?

Published December 8th, 2006 in video, the playbacks, the leadbirds, double bass | No Comments »

I don’t know, but I know three things:

She’s in Brazil,

She rocks the upright bass with a german grip arco style,

and she’s gorgeous.


Double Bass on Vimeo

Besides that I’m pretty wiped out. The Leadbirds played at SOHO in Santa Barbara last night with Katherine Shorr, this righteously cool singer songwriter lady from LA. It was a great show, even though we had to play a few Christmas songs, which I absolutely loathe, but we had a good time. Great turnout for a wed. night show.

Woke up at Kenny Loggins’ house (He’s out on the road, which meant I could sleep in the guest room!) and drove back to SLO just in time to work 8 hours at the music store as a retail guy. Easy money, hangin in a music store and getting paid. It’s a good music-related supplement to my income. And I happened to sell like $1200 worth of gear for my man Dan Ernst, the owner.

But damn, talk about being wiped out. Had a rehearsal with the Playbacks after work, and needless to say I think I’ll be sleeping in tomorrow…..