Super Bass II

[thejumpcat]

Well, I heard four days of amazing music at the Detroit International Jazz Festival this weekend, topping it off with the new version of Super Bass.

Our own Rodney Whitaker held down the spot formerly anchored by the late Ray Brown, joining John Clayton and Christian McBride for an hour of show-stopping, mind-blowing thumpin', bowing, filthy and gorgeous bass-only music.

And yeah, I got that plenty early to make sure I had front-row seats. Dig the photo. I wish I would have some memory left on my camera to record a snippet for everyone. You'll just have to trust me -- it was awesome!

[Marcus Johnson]

Nice pic... I bet that was fun. Good to see three guys in suits, too! Usually, Christian's wearing a Flyers jersey or something....

[thejumpcat]

All three were looking clean. Christian played with his Inside Straight band Saturday night. They were tough, too. And Rodney was playing ALL weekend with lots of folks - Carl Allen, a tribute to Donald Byrd...there was so much good music that I can't recall it all.

The cool thing about the Super Bass show was that I was so close that most of what I was hearing was the natural acoustic sound of the basses.

I was surprised to see Rodney using blacktape Labella strings (I think). But any of thoe guys would sound great playing anything. That's definitely one thing I learned this weekend -- the strings, amp, cabinet, mic, etc. -- it don't matter. The sound is in the player.