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Jazz and the Bass Guitar

#101
KJung said:
Don't get your point. That sounds like the way the tune was played 50 years ago and it is killer. What does that have to do with anything.

That's like playing a clip of Marcus Miller, and then playing a clip of Larry Graham and saying... see, that's what it is all about. Well, OK, yeah that's good too:D

The early and later great quartets and quintets of Miles swung a bit differently also... did Elvin swing harder than Cobb or whoever. Don't know, they sure sounded different!
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My post was directed at whoever commented on how much the clip was swinging.

As for the Larry Graham/Marcus Miller analogy..not an analogy at all. Larry Graham was and is still a funky mofo and so is Marcus Miller, there isn't much displute in that...
 
#103
Bernie Connors said:
I've said all along that the EB doesn't have the same overall presence in the music as a DB. They're two very different iterations of the instrument in a lot of ways. But, to say that the EB can't stand on its own merits and is the red-headed stepchild of the DB and can't hang in a jazz setting is incorrect, IMO.

That being said, PC was one bad dude.
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I'm not making that statement, I also believe the hanging has nothing at all to do with the instrument and has everthing to do with the player of the instrument.
 
#104
Phil Smith said:
My post was directed at whoever commented on how much the clip was swinging.

As for the Larry Graham/Marcus Miller analogy..not an analogy at all. Larry Graham was and is still a funky mofo and so is Marcus Miller, there isn't much displute in that...
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My point was that Anthony and Paul Chambers are also both mofo's... not much dispute in that:D Different mofo's, playing similar music in some cases with very different style, kind of like Larry and Marcus.

If you define 'swing' narrowly as 1948-1954 bop or whatever, then things get pretty boring to me. Man, Zeppelin swung!, Benny Goodman swung, Pops swung, Miles swung:D I like it all.
 
#105
Not sure if any of you have seen this DVD but it's a great addition to any jazz fans collection. Steve Smith is a monster and his band swings hard. I saw them one evening at The Jazz Kitchen in Indy with my brother, who is a jazz drummer, and was blown away.

Baron Browne can swing his tail off on the fretless EB and would this music be great with James Genus or Robert Hurst on DB? Sure but I don't feel that I'm missing anything with having it played on electric. It's different flavors of great.

Some days I want Cookie Dough ice cream and some days I want Snickers ice cream. Doesn't mean either one is inferior.

EB and DB bring different flavors of great to the music and if the player is playing at a high level, I don't believe the music is left wanting.

Steve Smith & Jazz Legacy
 
#106
So the only reason I see as to why EB is bad for jazz is snobbery, and reasons why you should learn upright are "because the people who pay you are snobs". I'm too busy worrying about the music I guess to be bothered by what is 'right' - all I know is my electric sounds pretty damn good in a jazz standard set up.

I will agree that image is a part of the performance but I don't think it's a deciding factor if you get a classy enough looking electric, something like a warwick that has the whole 'wood' thing going with an elegant shape, though I can see why something like a sunburst P bass wouldn't fit in. If it looks classy/expensive, no one in the audience is going to ask questions
 
#111
puddin tame said:
So the only reason I see as to why EB is bad for jazz is snobbery, and reasons why you should learn upright are "because the people who pay you are snobs". I'm too busy worrying about the music I guess to be bothered by what is 'right' - all I know is my electric sounds pretty damn good in a jazz standard set up.
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That would be the wrong reason to learn upright. The reason why I learn upright is because I love playing upright. Secondarily, upright seems to fit my background and interests. I've got a fair amount of classical training on cello and bass, and continue to play classical at home. I make extensive use of the bow in jazz. And my kids are taking string lessons, so it's a family thing to practice along with them on a bowed instrument.

I will agree that image is a part of the performance but I don't think it's a deciding factor if you get a classy enough looking electric, something like a warwick that has the whole 'wood' thing going with an elegant shape, though I can see why something like a sunburst P bass wouldn't fit in. If it looks classy/expensive, no one in the audience is going to ask questions
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My old Kay looked horrible, and my electric is a metallic blue Ibanez. Nobody gave me any trouble about either of those instruments. When they found out that I played both, they typically requested upright. But I have to admit that I am probably a better player on upright. I could correct that by heading back into the shed with my electric, but at my stage in life, with a demanding day job and hectic family life, it's hard enough for me to serve one mistress, much less two.

I'll repeat, you can play jazz on any instrument. Trying to imitate a sound or an image is -- at the very least -- putting the cart before the horse. More important priorities include:

Fall in love with jazz
Learn jazz, including its traditions, not to imitate but just to know the shared language
Develop skills that are important for jazz
Master your instrument

Some instruments are more common than others in jazz. How many jazz combos have an oboe, or french horn?
 
#112
KJung said:
+1 I enjoy the dialectic versus thinking 'I'm right and you are wrong'.

This kind of ties into the whole Wynton Marsalis thing of 20 years ago (or more... man time flies) that 'jazz is only this and not that'. How far can an artform move and still be called that same artform? It is a hard question, and obviously the 'tools of the trade' are part of that.

...VERY few doublers would choose to bring an EB to a more traditional jazz gig except if there was a brutal schlepp or they were just lazy schlubs:D

However, some great jazz, even boardering on 'traditional' in many ways, is being made on the EB.
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Ken touches pretty close to the heart of what I was reacting to this afternoon. To me, this thread is not an electric bass vs double bass thing, but a "what is jazz thing". The question, "how far can an artform move", in particular, haunts me.

To my ear, Jazz can pretty much move anywhere, if it retains its improvisational spirit. If I listen to what Count Basie was doing with large ensembles in the 30's, compared to what Stan Kenton was doing with them in the mid-40's, and where Gil Evans took them in the late 50's...

Heck, if I simply compare Miles Davis to no-one else but himself, taking samples from the mid 50's vs late 50's, vs mid 60's, vs late 60's, the sheer range of expression is astonishing. And yet it's all recognizably jazz. And those names don't even begin to scratch the surface of where fine players have taken the artform over the decades.

I never understood what Wynton Marsalis and that crowd were talking about. Where do you fit Sun Ra into the idea of a homogeneous "jazz tradition"? Or if you do accommodate Sun Ra into your definition, where does that leave Louis Armstrong? Or Diz? And let's not even get started on Monk Montgomery vs John Abercrombie vs Al Dimeola...

On a related note, DB has a beautiful, rich voice. To my ear, the only time that it lacks presence and definition when it's used in bands that drown it out. The kind of bands where EB starts to make more sense, perhaps? Except to pigeonhole EB as being only suitable for louder groups, or maybe Mahavishnu-era fusion, would do a vast injustice to quieter acoustic music made by guys like Steve Swallow on EB...

This is why I get itchy when I hear people trying to box jazz in or categorize it. "You can't do that, it's not jazz"... If that kind of thinking had been present when Miles Davis was in the studio, we'd never have had Bags Groove. Never mind 'Round About Midnight, Miles Ahead, or Bitches Brew. And jazz would have been the less for it.

And speaking of Anthony Jackson, I realize that a lot of what he has done arguably isn't jazz. And I suppose people who think that basses can only have 4 strings, may even question whether or not he is even a bassist.

But how else could you define what he does here, with Akiko Yano and Cliff Almond, but as jazz?



And does anyone on TB care to argue that they could have done it better on upright?

Sure, most EB players suck compared to AJ, including me (in a big way, as a matter of fact), and their contributions to the world of jazz will certainly be less significant. But you could say the same about the vast majority of DB players vs Scott LeFaro...
 
#113
I really think it's a simple matter of what we're used to hearing idiomatically. Jazz predates the EB. Jazz was invented in the day of DB only and when a style is born in a certain instrumentation, I think it's really hard to hear it another way. Another thing is that the sound is a really huge part of the feel. In any style, the sound is integral to the feel. I wouldn't want to hear James Jamerson's lines played with a really thin sustained sound any more than I'd want to hear Marcus's lines played on Carol Kay's bass.

I can swing my rear off on either EB or DB all day long, but when I play with Jeff Watts or Victor Lewis I really want to be playing DB. It's just what I hear. I'll do it on EB too, but when it's over I'll feel like I've just tried to sing an opera over the telephone.

Same token, I've played with Carl Allen on EB with Mike Stern before and it was really cool. But Mike's gig is not exactly a straight ahead jazz gig in the traditional sense no matter WHO is playing. On that gig, given what is demanded of the bass, I'd much prefer to play EB in general.

Instead of raging against people who seem to have "archaic" attitudes about which instrument is appropriate in what setting, ask yourself if the person with the attitude in question is even educated enough to have an opinion. It's not just as simple as "this bass goes in this style" so if that's what they think, you might just know something they don't and there may not be any convincing them, although you should try.

If you stick a really great electric player in the middle of the Jazz at Lincoln Center big playing old Duke Ellington charts with Wynton, it's probably not going to work the way the vast majority of listeners would like it to, myself included.

Same token, the DB can work in more groove oriented situations as evidenced by Cristian McBride.

From another perspective, as a piano player, I can also tell you that it doesn't feel as good to play jazz with a good electric player than a mediocre upright player because the sound is a really huge part of the feel.
 
#114
thepontif said:
I really think it's a simple matter of what we're used to hearing idiomatically. Jazz predates the EB. Jazz was invented in the day of DB only and when a style is born in a certain instrumentation, I think it's really hard to hear it another way. Another thing is that the sound is a really huge part of the feel. In any style, the sound is integral to the feel. I wouldn't want to hear James Jamerson's lines played with a really thin sustained sound any more than I'd want to hear Marcus's lines played on Carol Kay's bass.
he feel.
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This is essentially what narud was saying as well. I agree that most of the guys who can, play those gigs on upright. I just caught Mike Merritt playing a jazz gig and he was on his doublebass. Tom Kennedy does that, John Patittucci, Mike Pope obviously and Dave Carpenter would do that. I think Bob Cranshaw would still be playing upright if it wasn't for an injury that sort of pushed him in the direction of playing electric (same sort of deal with Chuck Sher I believe too).

I love hearing guys play electric on straight ahead and do it well, I just think there are very few out there. I love hearing Dario Deidda, Gary Willis (rare), Cranshaw and even Carol Kaye play jazz on EB! I know I'm biased, I love the sound of electric bass and got into jazz after I had already been influenced and played a lot of R&B, Motown and Gospel.

Steve Swallow has to be the first player to come to mind any time this topic is discussed because he's just a monster of a musician and is respected by everybody from Liebman to Abercrombie, Scofield and Steve Kuhn, but the guy could be playing Chapman Stick and still get the gigs he does with his level of musicianship and playing. If not anything else, these guys have at least opened the door for the rest of us but if jazz is really your thing, as it is right now, you either need to play your tail off to get respect as an EB player or get proficient on the doublebass.
 
#115
thepontif said:
If you stick a really great electric player in the middle of the Jazz at Lincoln Center big playing old Duke Ellington charts with Wynton, it's probably not going to work the way the vast majority of listeners would like it to, myself included.
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And then there's John Lee of the Dizzy Gillespie All-Stars.
 
#116
Or there's Marcus Miller in Miles' band.....

I don't really know John's playing, but I know that Dizzy's band reached far beyond "traditional" jazz.

And I concede that there are exceptions. Still doesn't change my perspective on it...which comes entirely from inside it.

Another angle....I played with Kenny Davis at NAMM last year who was SWWWINGGGIN' on electric. SUPER hard. But then, he brings heavy traditional experience playing DB with cats like Freddy Hubbard to the electric and you can't fake that.
 

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