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Jeff Berlin?

#21
Bruford - Gradually going tornado, The Bruford tapes, Feels good to me.

Allan Holdsworth - Road Games

Can't go wrong with any of those albums for an "old school" flavor. However, they weren't available on CD until recently, so you are in luck. Audiophile imports has these discs.

As a leader, the Crossroads disc is a good start. His solo career started out with more of a rock edge, but he has mellowed out with age and his latest efforts have much more of a jazz feel.

Joe Frazier, Water on the Brain Pt. II, and Five G are some of the standout tunes on the discs listed above.
 
#22
I was checking out Jeff's site and noticed he has new CD coming out called "Aneurythms". I know where that name came from! When I attended the Players School for the one week intensive in 2000 there was a doctor who was also a student attending who was a drummer. He got along very well with Jeff. He had a classic rock cover band with a couple of other doctors called "The Aneurythms". Jeff was always cracking up about that name. On the last day of the intensive the Dr. had a gig. He needed a bass player and who did he get? Jeff, of course. I remember them sitting in Jeff's office listening to some of the original studio tracks for some of the songs on their set list. Jeff was taking a few notes as he was listening. At the end of the day they were loading Jeff's gear into the doc's van and heading off to the gig. I'm still kicking myself for not going to the gig. It was a long week and I had a long drive the next day. Still, I think it was very cool of Jeff to help out the good doc like that...a player of his caliber sitting in with a little ol' classic rock band with no ego in site.
 
#24
Besides being a lot of fun I did learn a lot. They will evaluate you and place you in classes that match your skill and knowledge levels. The ensemble class, with Jeff on keys, was a blast. The course is definately an intensive. They throw a lot of stuff at you and you leave with some great material that I still find myself reviewing from time to time. The curriculum involves mostly jazz, but don't let that scare you if you've never played it before. I highly recommend the program no matter what your skill level is.
 
#27
Lorenzini said:
Bud, that's great you attended. I went to the school and did the regular program, but the 1 week intensive really is intensive. You learn a lot and Jeff is a great keyboard player too!
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Lucky! I tried for a long time to get back there for a year long course, but it didn't work out. I'm pretty sure the week I was there was the first time Richard Drexler came to the school and played with Jeff at one of the end of the day faculty jams.
 
#30
DZ said:
who besides me is old enough to remeber JB's old GP column ? I used to love that.
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I had to check your age...yeah, I'm in that Ballpark. :smug:

I think I liked his GP column better than the later BP stuff. He didn't stand on the soapbox so much. For some reason, when the 90's rolled around and interest in bass players and their $$ increased, he suddenly became an authority on bass. He wasn't as vocal when there were less people listening.
 
#32
The Bruford albums are simply awesome. Jeff is all over that difficult material. He creates amazingly sophisticated lines. Palewell Park, Five G, QED, Fainting in Coils a few of my faves and on and on. The solo albums just don't grab me as much although I have not heard the latest ones. There are transcriptions of Dixie around and man that is just brilliant. Also he plays on Watanabe's stuff and also for an obscure guest spot he plays on a Ritchie Kotzen solo record on a couple of tracks which just smokes. His fingering is incredibly unorthodox and very difficult to execute. All that playing with Holdsworth must have rubbed off! Amazing fluid technique. Well he was a childhod prodigy on the violin apparently.
I have virtually all of his columns from GP. Some of the best educational material I have ever used and still do. He should release it all in a book if GP/BP permits. It would be a best seller.
 
#33
I've been to the Frankfurt Musikmesse this afternoon and stood right in front of Jeff at the MarkBass booth where he played for about half an hour.
I think his tone is about as amazing as his chops are. Pretty close to a fretless sound; lots of mids, but very little treble.
It was fun to look and listen. And I think I gotta go and practise now...:bassist:
 
#37
budman said:
What the verdict on the CD Jeff's done with David Fiuczynski? I can't imagine it not being good.
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It's OK, it just doesn't match the sum of it's parts. It just sounds like four great players getting together and jamming. The writing is not that great, like they are saving the best material for their own solo projects. IMHO It still has great playing on it, but its not up there with the best work of any of the individual members work. I might have been expecting too much.:ninja:



p.s. hi Bud and hi to Linny.:)
 
#38
Jerry,

At this last NAMM, Varney bounced through our booth and left me with a variety of Scrapnel stuff and Boston T Party was one of the CD's... Ahh, it's ok... but man, I was expecting more from it. David was at the booth right next to us (@ First Act) and he mentioned to me that it was an "ok" album, but not an essential. I guess it was T's gig for the most part.
 
#39
jerry said:
It's OK, it just doesn't match the sum of it's parts. It just sounds like four great players getting together and jamming. The writing is not that great, like they are saving the best material for their own solo projects. IMHO It still has great playing on it, but its not up there with the best work of any of the individual members work. I might have been expecting too much.:ninja:



p.s. hi Bud and hi to Linny.:)
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Thanks Jerry. We've still got plans to make it out there one day to visit my sister. We were going to try this year, but she's coming to Houston. Maybe next year. We definately want to say hello to ya.
 
#40
Long time Berlin fan here.

My favorite playing of his is that found on the Bruford and Alan Holdsworth stuff, though I also very much like everything else that has been mentioned.

Another one that is good that hasn't been mentioned (but hard to find and maybe even out of print) is a CD called "Players" with Jeff Berlin, T. Lavitz, Steve Smith, & Scott Henderson.
 

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