knirirr

Monday's rehearsal involved going through some vigorous pieces on double bass, ready for a gig a week on Monday. This resulted in some blisters, so I thought I'd take it easy at tonight's (mostly gypsy jazz) jam and play electric. My other half suggested I try her very short (23.5"?) scale 5-string, which was an interesting experience. I could manage it well enough when I knew the changes, but trying to read charts and find the right notes on a tiny instrument with an extra string was a challenge. I think I got away with it, but only just.

As part of Oxfordshire Artweeks we did a couple of sets in the garden outside an artist's studio in Charlbury. This was a rare chance to play fretless electric as the performance space was a bit cramped. A few seconds of one of our tunes can be heard here, if anyone fancies it (I'm hidden behind a bush).

I wonder what effect this merger with DHL will have: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwywd2wzxp2o Probably not an improved service...

Plex does the trick for me; the streaming source is my collection of mp3s and if I want to keep something I'd get the CD/mp3s. There are some good apps for Plex such as Plexamp and Symfonium. The latter also handles streaming URLs so I can get SomaFM stations and TSF Jazz in the car. When I used to use iOS I tried Apple music but found it horribly buggy and Apple's support useless.

I see complaints about tablets for jazz gigs from time to time on forums, but the pros around these parts don't seem bothered by them, and glancing at them doesn't appear to affect their playing. For our next planned gig I'll need my iPad for one piece as it's hard to remember and not played often, but could play from memory for the rest. So much stuff that's unfamiliar, or boring (makes it hard to remember), gets called at jams that I couldn't get away without one. Plus, my jazz skills are never going to be up to transposing on the fly for singers for anything but the most basic of changes.

On the topic of energy I came across this article recently: https://andymasley.substack.com/p/a-cheat-sheet-for-conversations-about I'm not sure how true it is, but it's an interesting perspective.

This band is somewhat unusual in that though we're a "jazz" band the material is often along the lines of long reggae grooves with a bit of blues trumpet soloing over the top, and even some lyrics. This is surprisingly popular locally as it is quite accessible. Pretty much all the material is original, composed by the trumpeter or guitarist (or both together).

Fun stuff last night - we in the house band did a favourite piece of mine in the opening set. No other pianists turned up but a bass guitarist did, so I was asked to comp on guitar for a piece so the pianist could take a break. Fun, but when it came to soloing the audience feedback was that the guitar was hard to hear next to the bass. The bassist's volume seemed OK to me so I wonder how much of the issue was that he was plucking close to the bridge, playing in a high register and using roundwound strings.

We've been preparing for a jazz gig in the centre of Oxford at the beginning of June. The set is pretty much sorted out now, and other than a few wrong notes (this is jazz, though) and a flying drumstick everything was sounding good. Some effort has been spent trying to find varied arrangements, with different structure and number/order of solos, which is something we usually do for gigs - see https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/324449-jam-nights-cliquey/page/8/#comment-5458986 for why I mention that...

In my experience this usually happens at jams but not quite so much at gigs. I'd rather a bass or drum solo every 3-4 tunes instead of each one, but it seems impossible to escape frequent bass solos at jams.

There are a small number of gigs lined up, but nothing new, e.g. - Charlbury Beer Festival. - Ramsden Fete. - Charity concert in St. Martin's Church, Oxford. ...plus some as-yet-unconfirmed stuff. I'd be surprised if there were more than half a dozen gigs, but that number is fine with me.

We have sometimes had solo/duo performers turn up at our jam, and have tried to fit them in where we can. Unfortunately, their attempts to play with the band haven't been particularly successful. There are three monthly events in the town of the open mic format and only one which is an actual jam with a full band playing, so we try to discourage the solo/duo stuff and have a website explaining how we expect the session to go.

A sticky or sweaty neck after someone has used one's instrument is never pleasant. I've got a bar towel stashed away for my EUB's neck, though I fear that one day someone will take offence when I wipe it.

One of those drunk idiots once said to me, after chipping a headstock against a wall, "what are you looking at me like that for? These are supposed to be bashed around a bit!"

...a view with which I'd reluctantly agree in the case of the double bass (which offers similar logistical issues to drums and keyboards), but not the bass guitar. BTW, we have had jams where multiple people have brought double basses and or keyboards, which has been a bit of a pain. We have yet to see multiple drum kits being set up, but multiple drummers at a jam are rare.