Berklee Students, present and former!

#42
77-79

Studied with Greg Mooter, Whit, and, the best, John Neves. Will always remember and continue to quote Neves for my own students. I remember Whit stating that Jaco couldn't swing. Also took some private lessons from Randy Coven who was a student, a few years ahead of me
 
#45
Hello Mike Dimin ,
I think you misinterpreted something I may or may have not said about Jaco. You said you attended Berklee 1977-1979, that was the height of the time when all our bass students wanted to play Donna Lee after we all heard the Jaco version, which was released in 1976. I don't think that I ever said " Jaco couldn't swing." What I probably said was that the Jaco version of Donna Lee was played with a straight eighth note feel. If you want to listen to Donna Lee when a swing eighth note feel, we all would want to check out Charlie Parker and also a great version by trumpeter Clifford Brown.
 
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#46
Whit Browne said:
Hello Mike Dimin ,
I think you misinterpreted something I may or may have not said about Jaco. You said you attended Berklee 1977-1979, that was the height of the time when all our bass students wanted to play Donna Lee after we all heard the Jaco version, which was released in 1976. I don't think that I ever said " Jaco couldn't swing." What I probably said was that the Jaco version of Donna Lee was played with a straight eighth note feel. If you want to listen to Donna Lee when a swing eighth note feel, we all would want to check out Charlie Parker and also a great version by trumpeter Clifford Brown.
Click to expand...
What I also left out was that you then proceeded amaze all when you played the head with a wonderful swing feel. Your recollection is much better than mine. I was one of those very young, bass players transcribing all the Jaco stuff.
 
#52
Hello.

I graduated in 2010, Bass Performance/Music Education Dual Major.
I had private lessons with Fernando, Bruce, John Repucci and Whit Browne.

Also, I met so many of bass teachers in Ensemble classes and Lab Classes.
They were all nice and taught me a lot of musical jewels.

Now, I am studying at West Virginia University in Jazz Pedagogy Master Program.
Here, I am teaching some Jazz ensembles and I am learning the basic of classical and jazz saxophone playing and some classical upright bass techniques. :)
 
#53
David Melnick. I took private lessons with Bruce Gertz around 1990 while working as a software engineer. Now I am a general surgeon in Madison, WI but still play in a jazz combo- played a Sunday brunch yesterday in fact! Of all the classes and experiences I had in high school and college including all the the standard courses, the ones most important to my happiness today are my times learning and playing music.
 
#54
I graduated Berklee in '94 with a degree in Songwriting, studied Guitar with Mark White, and didn't come over to the deep end until after school. Now I wish I had the chance to learn all the cool bass stuff, too.
 
#56
I graduated the Berklee online '12 it was very helpful to me in the way that I go about learning and practicing today. Anthony Vitti ,D. Mo,Rich Appleman and Jim Stennett influnced my playing greatly and where I am currently. I am starting to do big things here in Nashville and I am thankful ! Never underestimate the power of online classes because it works if you apply yourself. J.Arnold
 
#57
Great to see this forum and it brings back some tough, yet great memories. So happy to see the love for John Neves, he was wonderful in so many ways, I think I learned as much about living music as playing it thanks to him. So many first words of advice of his I have given to new players. I was there '81-83.
Now living in Western, NY.

For some reason I have a hankering for a Slimey's (wasn't it Stevies?) slice of pie. :) I think I recall it being next to the drum store.

Cheers to the Berklee bass dept, past and present!
Dirk
 
#58
Dirk - Most of that section of Boylston St.,from Hemenway to Mass Ave. has been bought up by Berklee. Most of the businesses that you remember are gone. The area is all part of our ever expanding campus. You should see the new 16 story building at 160 Mass Ave that Berklee has under construction. It's the block next to the 150 building extending all the way down to the Christian Science Church property. Berklee owns most of that side of the street also. Quite a change from when I started teaching at Berklee in 1976, when the only buildings were 1140 Boylston, 150 Mass Ave, and the Berklee Performance Center, which was completed when I started teaching. Also student enrollment is around 4200+ today. It was about 1200 in 1976 !
 
#59
Hey Whit,
Wow I only remember those 3 buildings as well, yikes. Great to hear things are growing, I will have make a visit back some day. With 4200 students I can see the need for expansion, I thought it was fairly crowded back then. :)
Cheers,
Dirk
 
#60
I was at Berklee on 2 different occasions (3 if you count the 5 week program in 1992 while still in high school. Even THAT was actually a hugely profound experience).

Initially, I went as a college student from 1993-96 but then got some gigs and I was 20 and wanted the experience of doing all the wild stuff 20 year olds do. At that point, I was ditching classes and even ditched my own performance for a recital prep class that was semi-important for my final grade. I remember going to see a show at this club that no longer exists called "The Rat" to see some classmates of mine play. Tom Appleman was in one of the bands and Rich Appleman was there to watch. Rich was stern with me and didn't mince words but I explained to him that I felt "lost". He was cool about it and told me that if I ever wanted to come back, it'd be ok.

So a couple years passed. Those playing opportunities ran their course and I decided to pick up where I left off. Also, I had grown up a bit and had a better idea of what my abilities were and where I wanted to steer my career as a musician.

I returned in 2000 and finished not long after that. I pretty much studied with Bruce Gertz the entire time and he taught me a lot! However, I should mention that I also studied with Anthony Vitti during the five week program and much of what he taught even in that short amount of time stuck with me. I use all of that information to this day in some format. Also, the other thing that profoundly shaped my playing was playing at Wally's--which is the only club of its kind in Boston. I didn't play there a whole lot but I did the funk night gig every so often. It was mostly from 2002-2004 and I subbed fairly regularly for my good buddy Mark Kelley. It definitely was an experience which shaped my bass playing and musicianship for the better.

I've been in NYC for the past ten years. Even though NYC is really tough (especially now), overall it's been cool and I've been able to do lots of great things in terms of playing, touring, and recording. For prospective students, I'll say that 75% of the people I work with I met at Berklee or through someone I went to school with at Berklee.

I also have done some teaching at Berklee for the Bass Lines program (from 2003-2012) and its revamped version The Victor Wooten/Bass Summer Bass Workshop program.

Best to all of you,

Steve Jenkins

www.stevejenkinsbass.com
To listen to music: stevejenkins.bandcamp.com
facebook: facebook.com/therealstevejenkins
twitter: @sjbassplayer
 

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