Leonard Smalls

Aye... Our band decided before our 1st gig that we'd all wear similar clothes (basically the urban commando look). I turned up with camos, boots, the lot. Suitable, I felt, for a protest sort of band with songs like "Fight The System" Singer wore a Stussy t shirt with jeans (he said "but I like them!" with no irony at all in wearing a corporate logo!), drummer wore shorts and metal band tshirt stretched over his belly - his excuse was that he'd be too hot in anything else; I pointed out that camo shorts are available, and that I'd specifically gone and bought stuff according to what we'd decided! So no unified band image - we were just another band on the circuit looking the same as all the others.

Different short answer; yes. The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music have been assessing technicality for many, many years: https://us.abrsm.org/en/our-exams/ The above is the syllabus for piano exams up to grade 8 (I got as far as grade 7 about 40 years ago!). Unfortunately, they don't seem to do a bass exam so we'll never know what respective grades "The Chain" and "Schooldays" are!

Nowt killed rock'n'roll... Because rock'n'roll is an idea, an attitude; just because there's not much of it in "the charts" mean nothing. The charts aren't really the charts anymore, not like when I were a lad - people find music in a thousand different ways and just because some of us old fools on a bass forum can't find new rock'n'roll doesn't mean it's dead. It just means it's changed, or not. Either way, moaning about it is much the same as saying "it's not as good as when I was young". If you're interested, go out and find it! Otherwise just stay in remembering the good old days, and how the youth don't respect anything any more, and how you could leave your door open etc...

Some bass playing here!

Shed's alright but the trainers clash with the bass. 😜

Id say it sort of is! But only sort of, in that it's a jazzy feel in what is basically a pop song. But then so is anything by Frank Sinatra, or Mr Bubbles et al; similarly, as far as I'm concerned anything that's got all the parts written and played exactly the same every time isn't really jazz - it's almost pastiche. For me, real jazz is an improvisation developing from a theme, where what's important isn't the theme but the interplay between the musicians and what actually happens once the theme is finished. It's about the music that's inside the musician coming out, rather than a musician playing notes as they're written. No reason why the theme can't be written, and rehearsing it is probably a good thing to, but the overall piece should be something new every time. Which is why jazz has always been music that pushes boundaries; it's not the tuxedo-ed dinner jazz types doing this - they're often basically covers bands (not that there's anything wrong with that - you've got to make a living!) but if someone wasn't making new music there'd be less to cover! This is why most people don't really like real jazz - it's challenging and isn't always an easy listen; most folks want a nice tune, and if they can tap their feet to it that's a bonus. So here's some jazz - looks like Jamaaladeen may have the notes for the initial theme (unless he's checking his Facebook) but it's what develops after the initial playing around the theme that counts..

Back in the early 90s my old punk-funk band's manager had managed to get 3 record label scouts to come and see one of our shows; we'd been favourably reviewed already in Sounds, Melody Maker and the NME, and had a small but crazed following... About an hour before the gig a friend of the keyboardist offered us all some pills, saying it'd improve our playing and stage show no end. So we foolishly took 3 or 4 each. We all became very wide-eyed and manic, and thirsty. So after at least 6 pints each we jumped onto the stage, all of us feeling like heroes despite our gritted teeth and heart rate of 250bpm. So we proceeded to play all of our songs at that sort of speed as well, though not with any accuracy or even at the same tempo as each other. We jumped about, postured like rock-gods and made possibly the worst racket any band this side of Lost Virgins From Outer Space had ever produced, much to the dismay of the crowd of 200+. Luckily the set ended a lot more quickly than it normally would, and we all went off to congratulate ourselves on our triumph, while awaiting the record company scouts who would be about to enter the business' biggest ever bidding war. Funnily enough we never heard from the scouts again, and it took nearly a year to build up any sort of audience! Needless to say, we never drank more than a pint before a gig after that, and the keyboardist's mate was banned.

You can't beat The Funk... But there's so much to choose from!

That's what my dad would have said! As far as he was concerned, jazz was Sidney Bechet, King Oliver, Jack Teagarden etc. And he loved Chris Barber... I quite like a bit of kicking trad jazz as well.

So is this, but borrows much more from Ornette Coleman's harmolodic musings than Herbie's relatively straight-ahead grooves.

Aye!

Like this?

I like jazz... But especially when it gets weird and atonal with unusual note choices and rhythms. Don't really get on with dinner jazz and smoooooth stuff - that's just a vague hint of jazz for people who don't really like music but can't cope with silence.

Speak to Wilmslow Audio...

I've plumbed my new Crown 1502 into its rack along with BBE amp and DBX compressor. Tried it first as a single channel into my Markbass 102 and huge Yamaha/15"Precision Devices cab. Didn't seem any louder than with the Marshall, just noticeably less noisy. Then I tried it bridged into the 2 cabs, very loud, very clean - could hear every nuance of the effects board. Then I tried it as input Y with ch1 to the 102 and ch 2 to the Y/PD15, with high pass on 1 above 100Hz and low pass below 300Hz on 2. Lawks! Bit louder than the Marshall could go, but incredibly clean, almost hifi. And there's virtually no hum at all, even with the Crown turned up to 3/4 on both channels and the BBE on 1/2. The only noise not being produced by the bass was a very slight hiss from the pedals which I could never hear before. I like it...

New Crown power amp and rack - weighs about 1/3 of my Marshall and has about 1500W bridged!

Been working toward this bass tone meself!

You can use one to play jazz...

I've been so excited by this power amp stuff and the relief it'll provide to my poor back that I've just ordered a Crown XLS 1502, complete with flightcase and rack power strip...

Over the years I've had the impression that some bass players think that any bass playing at all, bar roots and occasional fifths, is overplaying and showing off! It's about playing what's right for the song, but there's absolutely nowt wrong in my book with a bassist or any other musician showing their Mad Skillz... Just not necessarily All Of The Notes All Of The Time - only occasionally.

Our idea of a good belch involved enunciating "Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury". A lesser effort would just be "Margaret Thatcher", and a quick better-out-than-in would be "Bulimic" (which we felt in our juvenile way to be quite apt). So Strengths: love a good knob'n'fart gag; quality gear, van, house in the middle of nowhere with large room for rehearsing, like to play all of the notes all of the time, funky as a mother Weaknesses: puerile sense of humour, obsessed with gear, won't lend van to band mates with multiple driving convictions, live miles from anywhere, like to play all of the notes all of the time, will only play funkily

Luckily for you, my laptop is currently being hosed down and cleaned of all the unpleasantness it produced with absolutely no input from me... Perhaps when it's been re-motherboarded and returned to me it'll start to produce music which is a beautiful amalgam of Thomas Arne, Thomas Tallis and Thomas The Tank Engine especially for you! 😎

You don't want to hear what I'd play to that... Wold make Brotzmann or Zorn's Japanese Noisecore sound like a lullaby!

I remember going to a jazz improv workshop a while ago... The organiser produced sheets of paper "just use these and play" she said. They were just multi-coloured Rorsach type ink blots. Needless to say we all played all of the notes possible, or none of the notes at all, all at the same time. I used lots of distortion and wah...