Hello, bass players! I have fun memories of my first gigs, because I was unexperienced, but had intuitive ways to find a solution that cleared up uneasy situations. I play by ear, though, sure, still have a bass teacher, a friend of mine. I perfected technique with him in new licks, but my older stuff I let untouchable. And it works out fine. I remember one show I did with my ex-hard-blues/rock band, The Old Blues. We had a date at the Chopper's Bar in Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, where I live (I'm brazilian and feel like I was an american from United States or an englishman, because north american and european music have no competition for me...); I do not drink (I'm 45 and stopped drinking at the end of 1992) and was cool and enthusiastic. My band's pals were a little nervous and we had this girl singing, she was cool and danced very well, very interesting presence onstage. We opened with Simple Man, a shuffle hard-blues with quick passages and chord changes. I remember doing improvised stuff. It's funny. In my case, at least, rigid rehearsals explanations don't work very well; I love to improvise, and our guitar player was terrific and read tablature music so well...The tune was cool, the drummer sung the main parts and doubled vocals with the guitarist and harp player, and our guitar slinger opened with this riff, 'dam dam, ta dam dam dam dam dam dam', I entered with a crazy pick stroke - I fingerplay and fingerpick - and...gone! Oh pals! A few seconds before the guitar solo, I remember speeding up my fingering but the result was cool. People loved it. In The Pusher I played a solo and it worked out nice. I Don't See You was a weird 'sad blues' in minor key, with subtle key notes changes, chord changes. We played songs which were in portuguese tongue too of course.
Later on AND much before, I played in bands where felt very happy, because I could make my 'researches'. Heavy-metal, bluesy groove music, r&b, rock, roots-rock. It blended so well. I did not want to make a 'short fly' on jazz or fusion so, I guess that's why it all worked so well. I can play jazz and fusion, but by ear, and, being intuitively, I need a tight supporting band to become lose. I have a personality where I find cooler in doing what people order me to do. I don't see myself as a natural bandleader. I led one band once, it was cool, but I have like a Boz Burrell attitude, I play well and do my job, that's all. My voice is good but limited. I have a song of mine, called Disco Voador (means Flying Saucer, UFO). My voice fits well in it, but then I stop! It starts with my bass and I guess it's psychedelic vibe. All guitarists love to play it because it is so simple to memorize (like in Chicago blues stuff) and they can solo 20 minutes if they want. I solo in it once in a while, but very rarely, because I want to make a surprise.
When I play The Pusher in my Samick, 4 strings active 1958 model bass, I go like,'that's it'! But eventually I may switch to a Fender Jazz Bass; you know, the Samick has 24 frets, and Fender basses, 20 or 22 frets. The high notes that I play in the Samick in this song, become different, lower when I play it in Fenders. I just 'suit' the band, I guess...
I finish! Please, dear members of TalkBass, reply if you want. I love you all!
Best regards,
Carlos Bill.
