Bilbo

My ego's smaller than yours...

Anthony Jackson's 6-string Fodera or Jimmy Johnson's original (stolen) Alembic 5-string. Listen to JJs work with the Wayne Johnson Trio - he invented the 5, he really did!!

I know several professionals that couldn't play their way out of a paper bag. Being pro is a great way to maximise your potential as a player but it doesn't follow that a pro is a better musician. And making a living as a musician is HARD. Most people are at least 80% teachers and 20% performers. The number who are 100% performing players are VERY low and many of them learned to live off cat litter a long time ago. I know a GREAT piano player who earned £12K last year - thats less than a Kwik Fit Fitter. I'll stay semi until Metheny calls me.

I do like a happy ending! There is an an old Ibanez Artist solid body guitar out there somewhere that I would love to see again (as well as a GK150S combo and an SWR cab that both got nicked in the early 1990s!!)

When I lived in Newport (Wales), both Arild Anderson and Miroslav Vitous borrowed my amp (on seperate occasions)! How cool was THAT?

Hey Wulf! I know all of the rhetoric about creativity in delivering jazz standards but it always feels like the arguments classical musicians use to discuss creativity when they are playing the same stuff that every other instrumentalist on their instrument has played for 4 or more centuries. Local jazz players in Suffolk are all a little stale and bored (look at the jazz listings for Suffolk - they are conservative and rarely reveal anything more radical than Stacy Kent!). Even the young guys are playing 70s jazz funk! I agree re: computers as an outlet for creative ideas but its a shallow victory, isn't it? Playing great stuff in your bedroom to an audience of one! Its ok for a while but you need to play. A great covers band is still a covers band. It can work on the night but its a poor second to the real deal!

The Jazz Theory Book - 'Mark Levine' That'll scare the doo doo out of him!

Am I the only person in the world who is sick to death of covers, 'standards' and other people's stuff? I enjoy listening to other people's music but I am just getting increasingly frustrated at playing the same old stuff (again). I have often contemplated an 'originals only' policy as a player, turning down any covers gigs, but am anxious that it would mean I would never play at all. Is the endless run of covers gigs better than less frequent but creatively more satisfying gigs? As a jazzer, this is particularly difficult as 'standards' form 95% of the material played. The money is part of it but no all of it by a long way. So, the question is, has anyone every taken a purist line on their career and not lived to regret it?

If anyone ever hears me say 'I'm kinda getting bored with my strings', you have my permission to execute me.

Love it! Its just the best! The pop/rock/funk stuff works for me for about two gigs before I start to get bored with the repetition. Latin stuff keeps me interested for about six gigs but jazz? Jazz is forever! PS Love the avatar - Floyd Pepper was an early influence!

Trouble is, teentshirt, that there are levels of structure. Some jazz (big band, most 'smooth' jazz (Diana Krall doesn't actually take chances!!), third stream jazz etc) is very structured whilst some (free jazz) has none whatsoever. If you like structure try Mike Stern's solo stuff, or Miles Davis 'Sketches of Spain' or any of Bob Mintzer's Big Band Cds. Or Michel Camilo's 'One More Once' - they are all very structured. Most jazz is built on clearly defined forms that are set out in advance but only in the way that, for instance, a conversation about fish would be - it has a beginning and middle and an end and you can say anything you like as long as it it about fish. The freedom to express yourself as a jazz musician comes from the structures. Absolute musical freedom is massively overated! That's what Ron Carter said and I believe him!

Ha ha - whats the chances of that happening!!

I have recently got a weekiy gig at a bar in Ipswich, Suffolk (Mar Azul - Saturdays 10 - 1 a.m.), playing what is essentially Latin Pop - Its a heavy gig in that it requires you to play straight for two hour and a half sets pretty much without stopping. Its a cool gig with a receptive Portuguese audience but the pay is only £50. I can do it most weeks but I do quite often get other gigs which I prefer (that'll be the jazz then ). So I need a dep whocan do the odd gig. The trouble is, the charts are poor and you have to let your ears and eyes guide you as the singer/cavaquino player/guitarist ploughs on regardless! Its great experience for someone looking to get inot this kind of music. Anyone interested? More than one dep would be cool. PM me if you are interested and I'll let you know what's what. Rob

Thanks chaps (assuming you are chaps) - I now know more than I did at 4 p.m. today. Muchos gracias!

While we are talking cables, can someone remind me of the difference between instrument (bass to amp) cables and speaker (amp to cab) cables. I have been told this but can't remember why. And, in the answer, can you clarify why you shouldn't use an instrument cable as a speaker cable and vice versa. Yours in ignorance. Rob

Frankly - you should buy the best bass you can affiord otherwise you will spend your life wanting the next one up! Look at some name basses, buy one you like that you find relatively easy to play and that sounds good. Reputations on instruments are always available on BC (if in doubt, ask). A nice looking instrument (to your eyes) will mean you will always be excited about playing. A good secondhand quality bass is a good idea because you can get more for your money and can always resell at roughly the price you paid. Find a bass player to go with you to look so you don't get ripped off (can't see where you are located but there are players who are BC members all over and London is full to the brim with them if you go there to make a purchase). A good professionsal instrument (£1,500?) will allow you to measure your improvements against your learning needs and not against the quality of your instrument. And don't get screwed up about your fretless - 10 million cellists can't all be wrong... Playing fretless is not that much harder than fretted in reality - suggestions that it is harder are just an urban myth.

Weather Report were a hybrid of world/jazz/fusion. Their whole catalogue is a panolpy of jazz/jazz funk/jazz rock/fusion/pop - just goes to show how inadequate labels can be. My favourite WR CDs are 'Night Passage', 'Mr Gone', 'Heavy Weather' and 'Procession'. 'Black Market' and 'Domino Theory' have some great tracks (Db waltz is COOKIN') but I prefer the first four I have listed. Oh and that Alphonso Johnson guy is seriously underated!

'As bilbo230763 points out, as small difference in signal strength may be measurable electronically but whether or not that difference can be heard in a real gigging environment (or even a practical studio environment) is what matters. And if the only effect of the signal improvement obtained by adding a very expensive cable is a slight increase in the top end....then why don't you just tweak the treble control on your amp to make the same adjustment for free ?' That's what I thought....

I can accept this in principle but my question is this: can a cable effect tone in a manner that impacts significantly on the perceived tonal results in the context of the other environmental variables in play? Or, in English, is the effect significant enough to be heard against the other things that effect it such as the shape of a room, the amp's/bass's eq, flat surfaces, carpets/tileds floors etc. My perspective is that it probably doesn't so, whilst it is worth noting, it ain't worth lying awake over. I am open to challenge.

Just a small piece of advice - if the band gets louder, let your amp do the work not your fingers. If you play too hard you can get all sorts of problems (blisters at the very least) but a nicely eq'd amp with a lot of head room lets you relax and lets you execute complex ideas comfortably and tightly. I have rarely met an idea that sounds better executed with a pick but rarely is not never and there are some very sophisticated players who do use picks' Chris Squire (Yes), Anthony Jackson (Al DiMeola) and my favourite, Steve Swallow.

Bury - the jazz centre of the universe!

I was just reading something on the Eden site and thought I would start a thread on an issue that used to disturb me as a player/learner. When I was a 17 - 27 year old student of this noble instrument, I was SO paranoid about taking time off from practising that I would do stupid things like take guitars wherever I went (even on holiday) and I never ever gave myself permission to take time away from studying. Now, whilst I agree that we have a responsibility to practice as much as we can, I think it is also important to take time away from the instrument to allow us to digest the stuff we are learning - even if it is just time to listen to what other people are doing. I guess I am saying, hey guys, its ok, even productive, to take a day off once in a while and look out the window! Or is it just me?

A filter removes select bands of frequencies but never boosts any of them. There are five kinds of filter: [b]low-pass[/b], where low frequencies are allowed to pass through but high frequencies are reduced in level; [b]high-pass[/b], where high frequencies are allowed to pass through but low frequencies are reduced; [b]band-pass[/b], where both low and high frequencies are reduced but mid-range frequencies are allowed through; [b]band-stop[/b], where both low and high frequencies are allowed to pass, but a region in the mid-band is reduced and, last but by no means least, the [b]notch filter[/b] which is a narrow band-stop filter, taking out a small range of specific frequencies. I guess an analogue filter is one that is made up of old fashioned electrical circuits rather than computerised digital ones!