mangotango

...and you bumped into me, so it obviously wasn't a complete waste of time

What about the new Ibanez 32" Mezzo bass? Nice compromise scale, P/J pups, not expensive.

Do you actually stand up with this?

This is good stuff. I have a roll in the gigbag for EUB playing, because I tend to get blisters when I haven't played a lot for a while and suddenly get a gig. This will definitely get me through.

Yeh, us Scousers - we're dead insouciant, though, aren't we though, ay? Oh and on the subject of this thread - my BF oneTen often gets paired with my Genz Benz Streamliner for my Little/Jazz rig. Sounds brilliant.

Well, I was finally able to book a lesson with my teacher. I tried his French bow again, but it became apparent to him that I was holding it wrongly, and by the time he'd fixed my hold on the bow, it didn't feel any better than the German bow anymore!! So we agreed that, for the small amount of bowing that I do, German should be fine. I will persevere for now and see how it goes.

Oh here we go again...you should know that if I need someone to blame me for stuff that they do, I have a perfectly good Mrs. Mango at home for that. Anyway, Spectors… last night was the first time I've ever had someone come up to me after a gig and ooze enthusiasm over my apparently amazing fretless bass sound... good old Spectorcore fretless 5, another on-point @Dood recommendation!

Apparently they also make an EUB...on their website, there are pictures of it being played by John Patitucci. http://www.jacoland.it/site/drop-upright-2/ Doesn't look too bad, but I can't see him trading in his Yammy for that any time soon....

Take my Bass Collection 5'er off my hands......lovely bass, now surplus to requirements since the arrival of my Spectors.

Same here in all respects. Except, very definitely not a skinny man. And I don't stand at the back (except in the 18-piece big band)....

On it.

Exactly that. I play jazz on an Aria EUB, pretty much always pizzicato. I have a cheap German bow but never have felt too comfortable with it, though I have been putting in some time on it. When I played DB a lot of years ago, I had a French bow which felt better. However, to change now will cost ££££'s and will involve a re-learning of technique. So, should I:- Persevere with the German option on the grounds that it won't add any more cost and I've already invested time and effort in practice with it? Or seek out a French alternative, which may move me on better in the long run, but will require money and time to get up to speed with it, which for the small amount that I'm going to use it, may not be worthwhile?

Yep, I was in a band that had one of those letters from them, but pre-Deacon Blue. First option was the reason that we received. Should have kept it, but IIRC we as a band had a ceremonial burning session for letter, envelope, and anything else connected.... think we might have been somewhat less than sober at the time.

On the subject of Dads...not that I ever got on well with mine, but he did one thing right; when I was very young, he queued up for hours in the rain to buy tickets for the whole family to go and see this local band that was on in town...... The venue was Liverpool Empire, back in December 1965; turned out to be the last time that the Beatles played live in Liverpool. We were right near the rear of the Upper Circle - any further back and we'd have been on the staircase to the foyer! But even now, I do remember being able to see the band, being surrounded by loadsa girls screaming, and thinking, even at 7 years old, that "this would be something good to do". Couldn't hear the guitars properly, at all nor much of the singing...McCartney's bass rumble was what got to me that night. I could also hear the drums, but of course when it came to me learning to play, I made the right decision.... Later on, I remember seeing Stanley Clarke with Return To Forever on the Whistle Test and then Colin Hodgkinson live with Back Door, supporting ELP at the same Liverpool Empire (and being MUCH better than the headline band); and desperately trying to work out what each of them was doing. Then, one day a mate who knew that I was getting into playing jazz said to me "You need to listen to this guy...", and lent me his copy of Heavy Weather by Weather Report. That was it for me. Jaco…..maybe not my first influence, but defo my biggest. The only one who ever influenced me to buy a particular type of bass (and speaker size!! 1 x 18" cab, -flippin' heck, it was heavy) to try to find some of his magic.

Spectorcore 5'er. Really lovely bass.

That's no good. If that ban were to apply universally...there'd be no-one on here!! (..especially me, if you bear in mind that I was moved to buy my current fretless - or one of them, after failing to sell the other yesterday!! - after seeing a video review of it on Basschat, made by.... @Dood!!! )

Mmmm, yeah, agree. I was saying to @Stingray5 when we were struggling with the World's Largest Car Park (aka the M25) while homeward bound - it seems that with guitarists (and I admit it, 'cos I am the guitarist in one band), there's always that gunslinger, competitive thing going on; bass players tend to be much more mutually supportive of one another - hanging together like the oppressed minority that we are.... Or as I told @Silvia Bluejay - drummers are psychos, guitarists are egomaniacs, singers are on another planet....bass players are the only sensible/sane ones!!

Yes indeed. Mind you, my Mrs. had been at Bluewater earlier in the day and from what she said, it seems like @Stingray5 and I got off lightly.........

Really good day. As ever, I got to make the acquaintance of some smashing people who have mildly foolish board names but also amazingly brilliant bass kit. Nice long chats with BassAce and I got to try his EUB, also MacDaddy’s Rob Allen Mouse, some astonishingly fab basses from the remarkably modest Jabba, and huge thanks to Cetera for letting me play the winner of the Mangotango “THIS is the bass I most want to nick today” Award, for that wonderful Spectorbird. People had a go on my Aria EUB, some of them making it sound much better than I do (bah!☺️) and then we had a good talk filled with interesting stuff, from today’s guest Pete Stroud.👍👍 OK, it wasn’t a perfect day - nobody bought any of my Gear For Sale, dagnabbit; the traffic on the way home was a bit cr@p, and annoyingly Liv’pewl failed to beat That Scummy Lot; but bass-wise, it was pretty darned fine. Huge praise to all who organised the event, and as ever to Hamster for MC’ing raffle proceedings so we’ll.

Compare the weights, if you regard that as a factor...having owned BC basses, given the Power Bass a go and also tried Sires before today, I can't help thinking that the BC's will be muuuuch lighter....

This. Cheap and easy. Folds up and goes into the back of the car neatly. If it's a long session, add a cushion.

What he said. Great Idea, but hopefully it was just bad timing for some people and shouldn't be regarded as a reason not to try again another time.

Congrats on making A Good Choice.

Last night, Tom Harrell at Ronnie Scott's (or as one of the graduates at my work asked, "Who's Rodney Scott?" No-one laughed, honest..... Anyway, the Tom Harrell Quartet. Spoiler - no massive bass content, though Ugonna Okegwo played some fine upright bass, stationed between the piano and drums. No, this was a truly great concert for very different reasons from the usual. Tom Harrell plays trumpet & flugelhorn (not at the same time, obviously). He is a soloist of rare talent. He has suffered from paranoid schizophrenia since his University days. He's now 73 and has, against all odds, carved a career in playing jazz. Without his medication, he can start to hear voices that tell him anything from "You suck, you shouldn't be in the music business", right up to instructing him to walk through window. When he goes on stage, he shuffles on, with his head held low and face to the floor so as not to make eye contact with the audience. When onstage, but not actually playing, he stands off to the side, eyes tightly closed, counting, awaiting his cue. He hardly talks to the audience, except to announce the band members after they've played, struggling to speak. Oh, and he counts off the tunes. That's about it as far as verbal communication goes. But when he's playing....he stands upright, close to the mike-stand, with the bell of his horn right up to the microphone, as though to ensure that every single note of what he's playing flows through to the audience. You hear 100% of what he's doing. There's no Cat Anderson-style upper register acrobatics to his playing; he finds the horn's sweet spot and sticks there, like a boxer delivering punch after punch. Faster tunes have a fierce beauty to them; slow ballads resonate with a tender warmth. You won't hear any comfortable entertainment clichés going on. Even when he duets with just the bass on "Embraceable You", he picks apart the melody of this old warhorse of a standard and tiptoes his way through the changes, improvising with a watchmaker's delicate touch. And the tone of the trumpet isn't harsh and bright, like so many jazz guys have. No, it's full and round and warm; that of the flugelhorn even more so. And yet, Harrell looks so fragile, as though a gentle breeze might blow him over, as if his instrumental link to the audience is all that's holding him up. The band are smartly dressed, sharp even, just like you'd expect from cool jazz dudes. Harrell looks like he's just stepped in off the street. He managed to spellbind a pretty much full house at Ronnie's for two sets. Many of us left at the end with our jaws still dropped, overwhelmed by the music he produced and probably even more by the struggle that's he'd overcome just to be there.

http://www.basscentre.com/bass-collection-jive-bass/bass-collection-jive-bass-purple-haze.html Bet they'll adapt one of these and put Mr. Pratt's name next to it. Looks good though.