Simple rules to make your bass player happy (jazz content)

[Jim Nazium]

1. Do not call a tune that is in any fake book. Fake books are for squares. Call a tune from a record that has sold no more than 17 copies; otherwise it is too mainstream. "Scrambled Debutante" by Flaming Joe Mascarpelli is a good choice. If you absolutley must call a tune from the Real Book, play it in a different key. C-Jam blues should be played in F# or A. Don't tell us what the new key is; we like to figure that out on our own.

2. Count off the tune at 180 bpm and then play it at 220, or vice versa. Better yet, don't count it off at all, just start playing. Go ahead and do your original 13-bar intro. We'll hear it.

3. When it's time for the bass solo, everyone else should stop playing. If anyone accompanied the bass player, it wouldn't be a "solo", it would be a "duet". Now is a good time to chat up the cute waitress, check your text messages, or talk about sports. Don't worry about coming back in with the melody; you can do that whenever the inspiration strikes you. If the bass player nods or points to his head during measures 30, 31, and 32, ignore it. It's probably just a muscle spasm.

[dmusic148]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Had a fun gig last night, eh?

[BrianS198]

You have no idea how much I agree with No. 3. That is the most annoying thing that tends to happen all the time.

[jaywa]

Ah yes the completely unaccompanied bass solo. Nothing like one of those to take all the air out of a room. You can literally hear people checking-out.

[unlined4string]

I do a gig where numbers 1, 2 and 3 happen all the time. Can I add numbers 4 and 5?

4. Your bass player really doesn't want some drummer getting in the way. He's much happier playing without one, so that the rest of the band can make a few bucks more.

5. Play really loose sloppy time over your bass players nice steady time; it creates this cool jazzy tension.

[Marty Forrer]

I sub in a band (although it's not jazz) where the singer/rhythm guitarist just starts. I dont know what key, or even what the song is until it's underway, and sometimes we get to the end and I still dont know what the song is!
I dig it though, it's a great challenge to figure the song and the key in the least amount of intro bars possible. LOL!

[unlined4string]

I almost forgot numbers 7 and 8.

7. Have the piano player play strong left hand bass, just as they would if playing solo. Your bass player enjoys the challenge of improvising a part that doesn't conflict with that. It makes him a better musician.

8. Take long noodling solos over long song forms at fast tempos. You can always play another chorus even if you have nothing left to say. Your bass player can use the exercise, and he really doesn't mind that his chops are shot by the time he gets to take a solo.

[shadow_FIX]

9. No, you're right. Me walking over to your keyboard and turning the "intonation" knob to noon was out of line. I'll just compensate on my fretless/upright.

10. Even though me/drummer/sax player are all tagging the end of the tune to get out of it, feel free to blow right through the ending, and proceed to take another halfassed melody/whateverthehellifeellike cluster chords chorus. When we tag it the next time and end, I'll cue you to stop playing.

[NickyBass]

11. Of course the guy at the bar can sing a few songs. How about 'Fly me to the moon'?

[BassJunkie]

12. "Don't worry if I don't know the tune? I'll just 'hear it?' Awesome! I love doing that and when you say that it makes my ego boom.

[S. Katz]

13. Could you please find a song with two or three different common sets of changes, don't tell me which one you are going to follow, and then maybe switch among them at random from verse to verse?

[Ozonbass]

Man, and I thought it was just me...

[liltommyg]

Don't forget to frown if someone else gets lost for a second but carry on regardless each time you do.

[burnunit]

14. Don't mute your E-string, just let it ring out. It will sound like a bass mistake and no one will think it's you.

[bassman1185]

15. Practice involves just running through the set once. There is no need to go back and hit problem areas. No song needs more than two, or at the VERY MOST, three runs through before it is played in front of people.

[jaywa]

16. Please provide me charts with all the chords written in at least 3 different keys because "we never know which key the singer's gonna feel like doing that night." It's way too easy to just follow one set of chords so I appreciate the challenge. Keeps me sharp.

17. No, really, it's fine I wound up spending half my gig pay on the bar tab. Silly me, I actually believed you when you said the club was comping our drinks.

[jbo]

18. Please feel free to have a contest with the other two trumpet players, sax player, piano player, and guitar player to see who can hang the longest on Cherokee at 300bpm while going up a half-step every chorus, I really don't mind. Like you said, I really do need the practice on upright! Oh...and if I get tired and start to loose tempo 15 minutes into the song because my hand is cramping up, go ahead and shoot me nasty looks and tell me I'll never be a pro unless I can do that every night...It really is ok!!


This seriously happened to me my freshman or sophomore year of college while playing with the jazz professor (trumpet) and five of his improv students. I knew what was coming so I timed the song to see how long it would be, it was something like 30-32 minutes of Cherokee, up a half step every chorus (think Abersold "Burnin'") on upright. I was so unbelievably pissed at the end of the tune, I demanded a 20 minute break and seriously considered packing up and leaving then and there, but I didn't. Thankfully I wasn't alone, the drummer (also a faculty member) was even more pissed than I was!

Come to think of it, most of our gigs were like this. We had a weekly three hour gig for about a year at the local brewery, and I don't think we ever played more than seven or eight tunes the whole night. Thankfully, we never took any of them THAT fast!

Be it known, I transferred from that school!

[deaf pea]

Hey!
What happened to #6?

[jaywa]

Originally Posted by deaf pea

Hey!
What happened to #6?

Don't you know, bassists can only count to 4?

[unlined4string]

I jumped over #6 because I took post #6 to be that.