San Francisco Bass Weekend, Featuring Todd Johnson, Jean Baudin & Michael Manring

[corycombs]

Bee Bass artist Cory Combs, Drew Waters, Jason Muscat of the San Francisco Bass Trio and New York City drummer Matt Aiken are announcing The San Francisco Bass Weekend, to be held on Saturday and Sunday, June 10th and 11th, from noon to 6:30 each day. The workshop will take place at Waldorf High Schools Mission Street Annex, on Mission and 14th in San Francisco.

We're very excited to announce that the weekend is sponsored by Zon Guitars and AccuGroove cabinets. Both companies represent the finest bass products being made today, and will both have gear there to try out.

Guest clinicians Michael Manring and Todd Johnson will perform and present and answer questions about their amazing techniques.

Todd is a pioneer on the six string bass, able to play moving chord lines and complicated melodies like a guitarist. He's a really great teacher and performer. Check out his Talk Bass forum.

Michael Manring is a legend, winning Down Beat's best bassist year after year. To call him a virtuoso is being polite. The man is incredible. He has a great fourm here as well.

And we're pleased to announce 11 string solo bassist Jean Baudin is stopping by on Sunday for a performance! This is a great chance to see a true pioneer of multiple string basses up close and personal. Amazing stuff.

The bass weekend will be an organized, intensive, fun and challenging two-day workshop for bassists looking to improve techniques, strengthen concepts and build their musical foundation, regardless of level.

During the course of the two days, participants will be involved in a variety of workshops presented by the individual teachers, tailored towards specific skills that every bassists needs. Each student can shape their experience towards his or her interests or areas that need improvement.

Each clinician involved is skilled, friendly and professional with years of experience as performers, recording artists, bandleaders, composers and teachers.

Please register quickly, as space is limited to 35 participants, and we're filling up.

While the guest clinics are included for registerd participants, both Todd, Jean and Michael's clinic will be open to the public. 10$ for individual clinics, $20 for all three.

More information on the weekend and the clinics can be found here:

www.ellorywerks.com/basscamp.htm

(Contact information is on the website page.)

Thanks very much, and we hope to see you there!

Cory Combs

[lemur821]

That sounds head-explodingly cool. I wish I lived in San Francisco. That's a lie: I wish those illustrious bassists were here instead.

[FretFree]

Anyone from the Sacramento area going? I'm interested in splitting ride/hotel if possible...

[Jay Terrien]

I highly suggest that everyone in the Bay area check out this GREAT EVENT!!!!!

JT

[FretFree]

Here, here!

... and come to Elk Grove and give me and my bass a ride!

Seriously, I don't want to have to rent a car or leave my wife and kids without a vehicle for the weekend. Anyone from Sac Metro going but me?

[FretFree]

I can't possibly be the only person on here excited about this weekend...

I can't wait!

[jazzbo]

I'm out of town that weekend.

[thewanderer24]

chalk me up under the would go, but otherwise obligated.

i have a daytime gig in the southbay on saturday (starts at 2PM) and a late night gig in Berkeley Saturday night. If I didn't have the daytime gig, I'd go. But it's a low stress $100+ gig for a friendly group of folks.

[thewanderer24]

Any comments from anyone here that went??

I am sure the performances were fantastic. How were the classes?

[pierce]

i was only able to go to the performances on sunday afternoon. (even though cory was working to try and get me in for the whole thing...i just couldnt do it though. cory, you the man)

so i got to see jeff schmitt, the bass trio, jean baudin, and michael manring. it was almost like a vh1-story tellers scenario. they would play, take questions, speak a bit, play some more. it was pretty cool.

i only caught a little of jeffs performance, but it was cool. he also had a very interesting story about "victor" (i am assuming wooten), and how the finish under vic's playing area was actually worn down from like "20000 hours" of playing.

the bass trio was interesting, but i just kept going back to the underlining bassline of the songs, so the other non-bassline bass parts were kind of lost to me. they did a brazilian number that was hot. the rest of the songs were pretty cool, but more as songs and not as "three bassists playing"

jean was involved in a scenario prior to getting there that caused a accugroove 212(?) to fall on his 12-string french bass. he opened it up after the performance so that we could see if it was broken, as he didnt want to do it before he performed. amazingly it was relatively undamaged. jean played a few songs that were on his website, and a couple of others. he also took some questions. he is an engaging and funny speaker, with a down to earth attitude.

michael manring played several songs and spoke of his "love affair " with the bass. he is VERY passionate about it. he played on his hyperbass, and on his zon vb (with and without the ebow). he also did this song that was inspired by the "singing" that accompanies muslims who are on thier way to prayer (i think taht is the reference he used) - very very cool...i dug it alot

at the end of it all, i got to play (ok, well hold, and pluck a few notes) manrings hyperbass. he is really cool.

i also had a really good conversation with mark wright, the owner of accugroove. i really like his approach to cabinet building and business. when my playing can justify it, i believe i will be an accugroove customer (that and the fact that everyhting was played thru accugroove all afternoon and sounded GREAT). i am not sure what i am allowed to disclose, but lets just say that there are some interesting things that will be coming out of santa clara.

oh, and according to cory, there may be more sf bass weekends to come (more than just annually)

[bassjamn]

Originally Posted by pierce

i was only able to go to the performances on sunday afternoon. (even though cory was working to try and get me in for the whole thing...i just couldnt do it though. cory, you the man)

so i got to see jeff schmitt, the bass trio, jean baudin, and michael manring. it was almost like a vh1-story tellers scenario. they would play, take questions, speak a bit, play some more. it was pretty cool.

i only caught a little of jeffs performance, but it was cool. he also had a very interesting story about "victor" (i am assuming wooten), and how the finish under vic's playing area was actually worn down from like "20000 hours" of playing.

the bass trio was interesting, but i just kept going back to the underlining bassline of the songs, so the other non-bassline bass parts were kind of lost to me. they did a brazilian number that was hot. the rest of the songs were pretty cool, but more as songs and not as "three bassists playing"

jean was involved in a scenario prior to getting there that caused a accugroove 212(?) to fall on his 12-string french bass. he opened it up after the performance so that we could see if it was broken, as he didnt want to do it before he performed. amazingly it was relatively undamaged. jean played a few songs that were on his website, and a couple of others. he also took some questions. he is an engaging and funny speaker, with a down to earth attitude.

michael manring played several songs and spoke of his "love affair " with the bass. he is VERY passionate about it. he played on his hyperbass, and on his zon vb (with and without the ebow). he also did this song that was inspired by the "singing" that accompanies muslims who are on thier way to prayer (i think taht is the reference he used) - very very cool...i dug it alot

at the end of it all, i got to play (ok, well hold, and pluck a few notes) manrings hyperbass. he is really cool.

i also had a really good conversation with mark wright, the owner of accugroove. i really like his approach to cabinet building and business. when my playing can justify it, i believe i will be an accugroove customer (that and the fact that everyhting was played thru accugroove all afternoon and sounded GREAT). i am not sure what i am allowed to disclose, but lets just say that there are some interesting things that will be coming out of santa clara.

oh, and according to cory, there may be more sf bass weekends to come (more than just annually)

I had a good time as well, the polyrythm, metronome practice techniques from Cory will probably benefit me the most. He gave us lots of handouts to practice this stuff.
The Bass trio was really cool, nice to see a bassline, Melody and comping done 100% by multiple basses!

All the performances were great, some really cool tunes, definately worth the price. I was feeling light headed at the end of Sunday either too much bass activity for my brain or i had a bad chicken sandwich

-Chris

[FretFree]

Hello, all!

I'll be posting my impression of the Bass Weekend in the next few days.

It was good times for sure.

[Whappo Grande]

I have photos if anyone would like to host them.

El Marco

[FretFree]

I hope someone takes Mr. Grande up on the photo hosting... I still don't have any way to host.

Wow. It's been a while since SF Bass Weekend.

Let me start off by saying I really enjoyed myself. There is almost nothing better than listening/playing music with diverse individuals. Corey, Drew and Jason were excellent teachers. Clearly these gentlemen posess serious skill and knowledge not only of their instruments, but repetoire, performance, theory and pedegogy.

The featured artists were absolutely fantastic. Jeff Schmidt blew me away (again), Jean Baudin made me laugh and played a great set (especially since his 12 string JP had a recent run-in with an El Whappo). Todd Johnson had some serious info on practice technique and showed off some classy trad jazz skills, Michael Manring (my personal fave for years now...) played brilliantly, spoke eloquently and candidly about music, and displayed his trademark gentle spirit.

Those were the things that were excellent about SFBW.

Here are some opportunities for next time (IMHO):

1) Smaller classes - The "pick the class you want to attend" method was cool and flexible, but it meant that the most popular classes were absolutely swamped. Longer teaching days may have been able to help with this, but it would have hurt some of the working bassists for sure (both teaching and attending). Some of the classes felt rushed, also due to time constraints.

2) Location - The specific building was farily difficult to find (though the directions were excellent). I'm sure the facilites were obtained through a special agreement (affiliated with Corey?), but they appeared "shady" until you got all the way to the SFBW area.

3) Equipment - The rooms had usable equipment at best. I'm well aware of the fact that this was NOT a big budget production this time around (especially since some of us had to request scholarships so we could afford to go), but slightly upgraded equipment would help... especially with those players who lacked the discipline to NOT play while someone else was playing or talking. Jason's room had the best setup (JBL powered PA speaker driven by a small mixer). The mixer, unfortunately, did not have enough inputs for all the students in the room. A board with a solo/mute all(or others) setup would be nice so the prof could teach, soloing his channel, while the others were muted.

4) More Playing time in and out of the Classroom - There was not much time outside of classes and performances for anyone to play. Truly, I played my bass for a total of 30 min to an hour while in attendance for two days of instruction. Smaller/longer classes would help with this. A scheduled "jam" time would have helped too... maybe an after hours session in the classrooms or at another venue where people could have played together.

OK. There are my nitpicks.

I truly had a great time and fully intend to attend the next Bass Weekend that gets rolling (as there were hints that it may be more frequent than anually).

Any one else have comments?

(edit: fixed a couple of typos)

[FretFree]

Anyone else have feedback on the event? I'm just curious about other folks' opinions...

[FretFree]

Bump-O-Rama!

No... really.

Anyone want to share what they learned? Format? Likes and dislikes?