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Black bassists and "their sound"

#62
I believe it's a technique, not a race or culture issue. However, I listened in the old AM days to a good mix of music, then the Brittish Invasion, leading to FM rock; which led me away from motown and toward British bass players; JPJ, Chris Squire,Glenn Hughes. Frankly, I think the riff to Roundabout is pretty funky. Jaco is funky...Trapeze is funky, all without the use of slapping. As to the technique of slapping, I can't tell someones race by listening alone.

Once at a live show I was playing In the '80'S, using a Rickenbacker with Rotos, a younger black crowd approached me at a break. One asked to see my bass.That kid slapped the hell out of that Rick..blew me away. This is when everyone knew,except this kid, that you can't slap a Rick...WRONG!! He probably had no formal musical training, but the smile on his face slapping my Rick...I was and am still amazed.
I told him to put away the round ball and pick upo the bass. I WONDER WHERE HE IS TODAY?

I fake it suing a pick and lots of trebble. The technique seems to be more percussive than musical. If I could do it, I would do so sparingly. I saw Billy Sheehan at a clinic. He can slap like you wouldn't believe, but doesn't use it. Frankly, I don't seem to grasp it..the technique escapes me, but I am envious. My 2 cents.
PS....I would like to just have a conversation with Anthony Jackson. I used to love his column in BP. His elegant command of English is amazing as is his playing...again.. not a race thing, just a compliment to anyone with that command of English. zon6c-f
 
#64
white boys seem to always rush and don't know how to play in the pocket or behind the beat. Tell one to "lay back" and you just get a confused look. Same thing if you say "don't pay a delta blues shuffle, play a Chicago shuffle". Or "give me a Bill Withers groove". In my experience, most white boys are generally more interested in notes & flash than groove. And they seem to have lost the concept of playing as part of a section and picking up the feel of the song. Not saying that all white boys are like that, or black players are all groove, but generally, that's the way I've seen it happen.
 
#65
Have you guys ever heard of Jesse Stern? He played with P Funk, and Sly for a while, and he played for Jordin Sparks. He plays a lot like the players in the video, and he's a white guy. Of coarse, his wife is black. I think race isn't really a color thing though. It's a culture thing.
 
#66
azureblue said:
white boys seem to always rush and don't know how to play in the pocket or behind the beat. Tell one to "lay back" and you just get a confused look. Same thing if you say "don't pay a delta blues shuffle, play a Chicago shuffle". Or "give me a Bill Withers groove". In my experience, most white boys are generally more interested in notes & flash than groove. And they seem to have lost the concept of playing as part of a section and picking up the feel of the song. Not saying that all white boys are like that, or black players are all groove, but generally, that's the way I've seen it happen.
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lolwut.jpg
 
#67
Brad Johnson said:
None of them play like the clips... all three were big influences on me since I was listening to all of them in their heydays.
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mind you I enclosed a disclaimer that they don't play the same stuff seen in the clips but they are all white musicians excelling in music generes which are considered to be of black origin.

with all due respect to the OP, he used the words R&B and Funk a lot in his descriptions and these words bring to my mind the bassists I listed from the 60s-70s, not the clickity-clackity of modern slap pyrotechnics.
 
#68
azureblue said:
white boys seem to always rush and don't know how to play in the pocket or behind the beat. Tell one to "lay back" and you just get a confused look. Same thing if you say "don't pay a delta blues shuffle, play a Chicago shuffle". Or "give me a Bill Withers groove". In my experience, most white boys are generally more interested in notes & flash than groove. And they seem to have lost the concept of playing as part of a section and picking up the feel of the song. Not saying that all white boys are like that, or black players are all groove, but generally, that's the way I've seen it happen.
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:eyebrow:
 
#69
It's probably 90% culture, which is a high percentage!

The other 10% is that I truly believe black people on the whole have more rhythm and pocket out of the womb. But that still may be because their lives revolve around music with syncopation and pocket (r&b, African and island music, jazz, blues).

When music was first being played on Earth, white guys were playing melodic instrument (lutes & flutes) and Africans were playing drums.

It just so happens that black people have pretty much now conquered the whole realm of syncopated music, including the lutes and flutes of our time.
 
#73
I think that it's really more of a what you're raised with factor.

I think that there are cultural factors as well, but culture is transmitted in the same way as what you learn from your family of origin... preferences, tendencies, frameworks for making sense of the world are all things we learn from our families, neighborhoods, civic institutions and media various media channels.
 
#75
Music in America comes from 2 primary traditions; African and European. When you trace both back to their origins, important distictions begin to appear. In the European tradition for which classical music is a great example, melodies and harmonies abound, The 'rhythm section' is way in the back somewhere accenting a crescendo from time to time. In the African tradition, the origins reveal the use soley of rhythmic instruments, ie, various drums and percussion instruments, and rhythmic vocal chants. There is nary a melodic instrument in sight. The differences in these 2 traditions help to explain the state of the modern musical landscape. Another major difference is each traditions approach to rhythm itself. For example, Tool is, by all accounts, a rhythm oriented band. However, there approach to rhythm is more likely to inspire fist pumps, head bangin and moshing than dancing. The African rhythmic tradition is drawn to rhythms that inspire people to move their bodies and dance, ie a snare consistently on the 2 and 4. Churches provide a great demonstration of these cultural differences. Go to a black gosphel service, and then attend a white catholic or protestant service. The differing role of dancing, music, and body movement in these 2 cultures is rarely more evident. Latin music is as close a fusion of these 2 traditions as i can think of. As a white guy who's influences are 90% from the African tradition, and as a guy who has much more of a black feel and approach to rhythm, I am acutely aware of these differences. Neither tradition is better than the other, they are simply different. But for me, I find it really difficult to connect with the ryhthmic approach born of the european tradition. My body just wants to move. I have come to realize that my musical connection with musicians that know how to and like to dance is far greater than with those who don't. The ability to dance and feel rhythm from that perspective has become a real criteria for me when i am auditioning musicians. Musicians that dance and move when they play have a different feel than those that don't. In response to many above, genres are culturally influenced....the genre IS a function of culture. Take the role of the guitar in reggae vs. rock music as an example. In rock, melody lines and solo's are very common. The ryhthm part in rock very rarely leaves an 'space' or grooves in a pocket. In reggae music, the guitars role is 90% rhythmic often accenting the 'and' of each beat. To deny the cultural roots of most genres is absurd. Did Funk, Reggae, hip hop, and gosphel music come from white Europeans? Did Classical, Opera, and New Age Music spring from Black African Roots? Of course not. Listen to the music of Asia....clearly it was born of Asian culture. Cool topic man.
 
#77
When I first started playing bass. I really struggled with playing in the pocket and with the groove of the song...keep in mind, I'm as white as a Swede (in fact I am Swedish :D)...

I asked a friend of mine that was an incredible bass player, who happens to be black, what the secret was...was it popping and slapping? was it playing behind the beat or ahead of it? was it a "Black" thing? what in the heck could I do to make the song groove and play in the pocket...

His answer was so simple it was astounding..."Play what the song needs; nothing more, nothing less...and remember, it ain't about the notes...it's about the silence between them..."

It was a revelation to me and it transformed the way I played after that...I found in almost no time that I was actually grooving and the pocket was there for the taking...
 
#80
de la mocha said:
I'm black and I can't slap!




LOL, I should put that in my sig! :p
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I wouldn't worry about that too much, slap ability has nothing to do with groove/pocket etc.;) We are a product of the environment we immerse our selves in. I know kids that have almost listened to nothing but reggae their whole lives, their reggae feel on bass is incredible, even when they haven't been playing that long.
 

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