chicago bassist and Verdine White

[Youngspanion]

Last night I watched a DVD of Chicago and Earth Wind and Fire. They were together at the Greek Theater. Both of these bass players blew me away. Vernon with his groove. The Chicago bass player with his mastery of the bass. Its all good music too. Check it out.

[cb56]

Saw them both together in concert last summer. Jason scheff has been Chicago's bass player for about 20 years and he is fantastic!
EWF has been getting lots of exposure lately. (check out Target dept. store's commercials, thay actually get some camera time along with their music)
I actually sat and watched some ice skating show the other day that had ice skaters skating to EWF LIVE on A&E. While i don't give a rats behind about ice skating, it was still a good listen because EWF was playing live, not faking to a recording.
Verdine White is very high energy and a top notch player.
Even though Phillip Bailey is excellent, I miss Maurice's vocal . He was a major infuence in that band. send your prayers and positive thoughs to him for his health.

[JimK]

Originally Posted by cb56

I actually sat and watched some ice skating show the other day that had ice skaters skating to EWF LIVE on A&E. While i don't give a rats behind about ice skating, it was still a good listen because EWF was playing live, not faking to a recording.

That Ice Capades show wasn't on Bravo? I think I flipped through it the other night...IIRC, it was on one of our 'higher' channels.

Good to hear EW&F was not faking it, 'cause there's this DVD I have(EW&F In Concert)...not good.

I haven't bought that Chicago/EW&F DVD; I would already own it if was the late '60s/'70s era of each band.

[JimmyM]

The Chicago/EWF tour was one of the top ten grossing tours of last year. After seeing the DVDs, I know why. It was a great and fun show. If they come back to Orlando next year, I'm going.

[Jay Terrien]

For the life of me, how can Verdine White can play those mad, tight bass lines and DANCE AND KICK HIS LEGS all over the place!!!? AND HE IS SMILING THE WHOLE TIME!!!!! It is mind-boggling. What gives someone that type of fluidity and precision coupled with such sweet dance moves? Pilates? Yoga? He rules.

Lastly, his denim jeans on a recent issue of Bass Player magazine, remain, IMHO, the smallest pair of fashionable jeans EVER to grace the cover of any major media publication. That's hot. I am thinking he is sporting a 26" waist with a 30 length. Any other guesses?

Originally Posted by cb56

Saw them both together in concert last summer. Jason scheff has been Chicago's bass player for about 20 years and he is fantastic!
EWF has been getting lots of exposure lately. (check out Target dept. store's commercials, thay actually get some camera time along with their music)
I actually sat and watched some ice skating show the other day that had ice skaters skating to EWF LIVE on A&E. While i don't give a rats behind about ice skating, it was still a good listen because EWF was playing live, not faking to a recording.
Verdine White is very high energy and a top notch player.
Even though Phillip Bailey is excellent, I miss Maurice's vocal . He was a major infuence in that band. send your prayers and positive thoughs to him for his health.

[willgroove2]

on that ice skating show and all their shows these day's verdine's bass lines are "supported" by tracks running in digital performer and/or pro tools about 40% of the time.I watched some of the show(the mrs dig's skating and i dig EWF)and they were playing live with tracks on all the uptempo stuff,the ballads were all live IMO.this is done not because they can't play the stuff but to make it sound bigger,remember EWF used to have 15-18 people on stage at one time and now they have maybe 10-12.mike mcknight is a programmer who did a lot of work for their show and he writes for keyboard magazine and wrote about the work he did for them and others.

[JimK]

Will-
Personally, I have a problem with that.
Once uopn a time, I had a discussion with a co-worker(non-musician) about such. He's OK with it 'cause if he's shelling out $50-$75+ X2, he wants the 'live' performance to sound as close to the cd he has at home.

I'm probably in the minority...I would rather hear a LIVE band, warts & all, vs. a totally sterile, albeit polished-like-a-cd, 'performance'.
IMO, a scaled-down arrangement for those 10-12 musicians would sound fine.
But whadda I know...and who cares since I don't attend any 'shows' anymore.
(I'm lucky if I make my own).

[JimK]

Originally Posted by Jay Terrien

For the life of me, how can Verdine White can play those mad, tight bass lines and DANCE AND KICK HIS LEGS all over the place!!!? AND HE IS SMILING THE WHOLE TIME!!!!! It is mind-boggling. What gives someone that type of fluidity and precision coupled with such sweet dance moves? Pilates? Yoga? He rules.

I mentioned the In Concert DVD above...check it out: Verdine is putting on an aerobics class; you'll SEE his hand stays in 1st position & yet you'll HEAR funky/staccato fills up around what should be the 5th-9th frets.
I cut much of what Funk teeth I have on EW&F...Verdine is great, I'm just a little miffed that they're into doing glorified karoke.

Originally Posted by Jay Terrien

Lastly, his denim jeans on a recent issue of Bass Player magazine, remain, IMHO, the smallest pair of fashionable jeans EVER to grace the cover of any major media publication. That's hot. I am thinking he is sporting a 26" waist with a 30 length. Any other guesses?

Didn't notice.
There's a Seinfeld episode in there somewhere...'not there's anything wrong with it'?

[willgroove2]

I know that a few years ago they had morris pleasure playing in the band(he might have been the md)as well as being a great keyboard player, morris is also a great bassist and during the set he and verdine had a little bass battle.that always struck me as funny being that morris was playing much of the time verdine was out front dancing.

[j-raj]

*sorry, I had to fix the title of this thread...*

I'm with JimK, live is where it's at.

[willgroove2]

Originally Posted by j-raj

*sorry, I had to fix the title of this thread...*

I'm with JimK, live is where it's at.

+1,however I have been doing some gig's where there are some kind of tracks involved.mostly drum loops and backround vocals(NO BASS STUFF!!!)and i have to say it does help to make things sound bigger live if done correctly.now the act's i have been working with doing this play music that lends it's self to this approach.in the mid to late '90's i spent quite a bit of time working in vegas and one of the trends out there at that time was bands using sequncers on everything motown,rock whatever.i remember a fellow musican coming by to check us out and asking me "you guy's playing everything live? that's cool must be fun i havn't done that in a while.

[Brad Johnson]

Originally Posted by JimK

Will-
Personally, I have a problem with that.
Once uopn a time, I had a discussion with a co-worker(non-musician) about such. He's OK with it 'cause if he's shelling out $50-$75+ X2, he wants the 'live' performance to sound as close to the cd he has at home.

I'm probably in the minority...I would rather hear a LIVE band, warts & all, vs. a totally sterile, albeit polished-like-a-cd, 'performance'.
IMO, a scaled-down arrangement for those 10-12 musicians would sound fine.
But whadda I know...and who cares since I don't attend any 'shows' anymore.
(I'm lucky if I make my own).

You have company.

I'd rather hear a live band screw up than watch a mimed performance. Otherwise I'd rather see someone other than EWF miming EWF... maybe one time set of Nobel laureates then there could be a band made up of porn stars (Stormy on bass?), maybe some international groupings, maybe some precocious kids, maybe stay at home moms, etc. If the guys that DID play it DON'T play it, what's the point?

[j-raj]

Originally Posted by willgroove2

+1,however I have been doing some gig's where there are some kind of tracks involved.mostly drum loops and backround vocals(NO BASS STUFF!!!)and i have to say it does help to make things sound bigger live if done correctly.now the act's i have been working with doing this play music that lends it's self to this approach.in the mid to late '90's i spent quite a bit of time working in vegas and one of the trends out there at that time was bands using sequncers on everything motown,rock whatever.i remember a fellow musican coming by to check us out and asking me "you guy's playing everything live? that's cool must be fun i havn't done that in a while.

I hear ya...

I guess there is a point to having sequenced elements to the show's performance. The biggest 'big-band' groups I have played in (22, duke ellington tribute) and the largest rock revues (13, Jesus Prestley) that I have gigged with would have been more difficult and 'un-natural' with sequencing/prerecorded parts... So I guess it all depends.

As for on-the-spot looping, I used to play in a 3 piece (Michael Levine) with a fair amount of loops that were constructed and manipulated as we were playing the tunes. Since the drummer was receiving a click in his ear, the gig was really tight. All I worried about was my time with him. Those gigs sounded like an orchestra was playing with us at times.

...still I like completely live gigs more.