Bilbo

A lot of this is, as skank says, about us deciding what it is we want to do. I know that I could, if I chose to, start/join a covers band that focussed its energies on a highly commercial product that appealed to a section of he market that would guarantee frequent gigs. Problem is, and, in mycase, always has been that I don't want to. I did a gig last night that was not jazz and found myself driving home thinking 'I want to knock everything on the head except Jazz originals'. I know that is suicide in terms of regular gigging and have noticed that, as gigs are tailing off for many of us, I am finding that I am ss likely to be 'match fit' for the gigs I do do. The question is always 'what are we doing this for'. If it is fame and fortune, you take one route. If it is to make money, you take another and, if it is for artistic/aesthetic reasons, you take a third. Audiences want what they want (and some certainly DON'T want 'Mustang Sally'), and many of them don't actually know or even care what is happening on stage. As long as its noisy and vaguely in time, they can dance to it and that's all they care about. If you want to hear something new and fresh, you choices are much more limited and you have to work a lot harder but that's no different in theatre or film or the visual arts. If you are interested in quality, be that cars, pens, ceramics or food, you have to pay more and travel further. You won't get much of that in a pub anywhere in the world, let alone Cardiff. If all you want is applause, then you know what you need to do

Too many tribute bands for my liking. Should have done it as a tribute festival and called it 'Remebering Reading' or 'Monsters that Rocked'....

Esperanza Spaulding, Eddie Gomez, Jerry and Andy Gonzalez, Felix Pastorius, Gary Peacock, Butch Warren, Melvin Gibbs...... JT is my favourite jazz publication but this bass special may make it worth a look to others who may not know the publication.

Reading this, I am reminded of why they call music an art form.....it's not the tools that matter but what your creativity allows you to achieve with them.

Peart is a metronome. Bonham was a heartbeat.

Dare I say it, and I swing back and fore between 'amp modelling is the best thing since sliced bread' and 'but its still not the real thing', I have kind of reached the point where I have bigger fish to fry and can't be bothered with all the knob twiddling digital gear requires. Having all this kit that can make an E barre chord sound a million differnt ways like a million different guitars through a million different amps doesn't change the fact that it is an E barre chord. Get the sounds anyway you want; 98% of the listening public, including most musos, won't be able to tell the difference, especially if htey are listening to an ipod on the bus !! I know I can't. But I can tell when the music is derivative, predictable and boring! Can you get a digital piece of kit tham makes my cheesy jazz compositions more interesting/advanced? I'll have two!!

I prefer different Scandanavian Hammond based prog rock groups myself. Me? Its this..... Shubliiime....

The problem with these disucssions is that perspective is always determined by the listening and playing experiences of the individual. If a kid who is a rock player hears Janek as the first advanced fusion player he has ever heard, he will have a different perspective than someone who has hundreds of bess led fusion cds dating back to Jaco and Stanley Clarke or even Mingus and Oscar Pettiford. Rating a musician, be that Janek, Mike Stern or Marcus Miller requires not only familiarity with their work but also the range of alternatives that are out there. Can you place Joe Henderson in the lineage of tenor saxophone players if you don't understand Coleman Hawkins, John Coltrane, Joe Lovano, Michael Breacker, Chris Potter etc? Can you comment on the JoJo Meyer if you don't know Elvin Jones, Billy Higgins, Steve Gadd, Dave Weckl, Bill Stewart and so on? You can have a view, of course, but it needs to be tempered by some acknowledgement of perspective. I have my favourite classical pieces but would never argue the merits of Bach over Beethoven because I don't know the genre well enough. I would always look to the experts for a considered view and develop a perspective that way. The trouble with the net is everyone is an expert, whatever their knowledge or experience. Each contributor is given equal weight without any qualification.

Its the 'big fish in a small pond' mentality and a short term vs. long term strategy. A band that pulls only its mates can have an immediate appeal but its time will be limited and its earning potential short term. If you are going to build up a venue over time, you will want to ensure that your audience returns week after week and the only way to do that is to quality control your acts. Poor bands every week will only keep the audience in place for a short time. We see it a lot with Jazz. Venues put on singer/pianist duos and call it Jazz but it often isn't or is really poor so jazz fans don't come because they have higher expectations. So the venue folds.

I prefer this nutjob..... [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Otbe5c2OIxI&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Otbe5c2OIxI&feature=related[/url]

A world without real books? God forbid!! We'd all have to write our own tunes!

Satin Doll, as I recall, is Dm7, G7, Dm7, G7, Em7, A7, Em7, A7, D7 / , E7b9, Cmaj&, A7 (repeat) Your changes resolve to the Fmaj7 too soon and lose the tension too quickly. Try this set of changes, they are the ones most people use....

Sounds great. Will look that one up later!!

I am getting the impression that my generation (born 1963) consist of significant numbers of people who floundered around in the dark a little in their early days and found their way to bass later simply because it was not 'there' when they were younger. In my 'yoof', I was a singer and won the school Eisteddford competition every year from 6 to 10 years old. I them stopped before Comprehensive because I somehow knew that singing like a choir boy is a great way to get your head kicked in at the big school! I remember a cousin giving me a guitar at a very impressionable age (I think I was about 12) and me fcuking about with it for about 5 years without really playing anything other than a few 'party pieces' (not whole songs but odd riffs, bits of Beatles tune, odd solos and melodies). I would have had no idea what a bass was at that age and there was certainly noone around who would be able to tell me about that kind of thing. Saxophones were absent, as woudl have been anything like oboes, French Horn, bassoon etc. I got hold of the idea of a bass at the age of about 15/16 and was playing bass lines on that old guitar a long time before I got a bass but the real thing came after I started work aged 17. Bass was then the priority although guitar was always there and moving forward concurrently (although more slowly). But bass is the only instrument I have ever really gigged on. Now I'm off to learn soprano saxophone (ordered one this weekend)!!

I have used ebay and paypal as a seller and buyer and it has never been a problem. On the single occasion I didn't receive any goods (a cd), I went into dispute via Paypal and they got my money back in a matter of days (it was only a few quid). Personally, I think it is a case of being careful with what you are willing to bid for and what you would want to see in person before parting with cash. I look for feedback and, if it is an ebay company, I look them up on the 'net and get an sense of whether they are kosher or not. So far so good.

I too have a stand although, as my music room is by default a 'me only' space (no kids and my wife just never goes in there because she has no reason to), it tends to lay on the floor on its side as to put it on the stand, I need to retract the spike which is a hassle. At gigs, it lays on the floor.

A simple but pretty little piece. I don't know Nick Drake's stuff but this is sweet and the overall recording/performance is cool too.

I intend to. I am not playing this seriously but to get out of the bass/guitar space I have been in for 31 years..... just to get some new perspectives!! Oh and its light to carry

One of these is on its way; it'll get me started without wasting vast sums of money [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGi-_zLfwjw"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGi-_zLfwjw[/url]

I think 'Cats', in the jazz fraternity, refers to hardcore jazzers who can do it, as opposed to those on the periphery of the jazz scene who are not there yet. So, say Jasper Hollby could be a 'Cat' but I wouldn't be as I am not in that league. So if someone like Branford Marsalis or whoever called you a 'Cat' it would be a compliment. So old farts playng Jazz in pubs in Sheffield who call people Cats are kinda poseurs. Personally, I think you have to be a Cat to decide who else is so its a minefield and if you try to call someone a Cat who isn't, you coudl look a bit of a dick. I can't call anyone a Cat yet because I am mere cannon fodder. Alternatively, I could be talking total bollocks!

He must be good, he plays fretless. Fretless is hard.

I suspect he just plugged it in and there it was.

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poNxrtz_p40"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poNxrtz_p40[/url]

Yes.

They're bleeding well making it up as they go along. Courageous but ultimately a failure. Rather listen to Spoombung.