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Double Bass The day the BG took over.

#121
Chris Symer said:
So enjoying this thread! After hearing so much BS about newbies feeling unwelcome, it's great to finally have a thread going where players with a lot of history are feeling moved to post. Keeping them feeling welcome should be a consideration for the site as well IMO.
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Man, thanks Chris, for that. As an OT aside, a few of us older persons (mainly, myownself). have been accused of being bullies and trying to discourage younger posters and noobs here @ TBDB. I'm glad somebody's aware of the positive sides of our posts. The complaints are based on out of context remarks by us and are most times designed to be humorous which are taken serious by politically correct individuals who just don't get it. And, please, don't take this remark as ammunition for another possible dust up in this good thread.
My last post, mentioning "Enter, Ray Brown" into the L.A. studio scene as Red Mitchell left for Sweden is, IMO, important in terms of the Fender bass' impact on that recording scene because, as one of you mentioned, Ray took some BG lessons with Carol Kaye. BUT, for two reasons and two reasons only....to keep up with the times and to make it worthwhile financially to leave the road with OP. Not at all about the love of the instrument or the genre of music that it entailed. I spent more than one evening with Ray and Milt Hinton when we used to do the Dick Gibson Jazz parties together, discussing this very topic.
 
#122
I heard a cool thing on Marian's "Piano Jazz" show yesterday. Kenny Werner was the guest (incredible, by the way)... and he related a story that Steve Swallow told him. Steve had just made his decision to switch exclusively to bass guitar. And of course, the first thing that happens is that he gets the call from Monk to play upright with him. He turned it down. Talk about strength of convictions! (I have another term, it starts with "s" and ends with "-tupid" :D) But hey, you make your choices. Kenny Werner said the same.."I would have played washboard with Monk if he asked". LOL
 
#123
Chris Symer said:
(1) Don, you say you were "very reluctant" to buy a Fender Bass. Does this mean that you never did, or you gave it a try for a bit and just didn't dig it? (2) Early on I would imagine that the music hadn't changed much and could be played on either instrument. It took a while for the Fender to come into its own, and as the music changed a real separation between what people did with the two instruments begain to develope, correct?
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1. At the time, I couldn't afford it, although I also didn't dig the sound. Then I got a 12 year gig on DB with Eddie Hazell. I also busted up my wrists, and I couldn't hold a guitar anymore.
2. I agree.
 
#124
Paul Warburton said:
So, did the music change because of the advent of the Fender BG and the Fender Rhodes piano or did those instruments change the music?
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You're saying the same thing twice here.
(Was A changed because of B, or did B change A?) Is that what you wanted?

Likely, people developed them both together. Artists using the latest technologies to create, in turn allowing the creators of those technologies to stay in business and make more new things, which allows other artist... It's been going on for centuries. A lot of different technologies were emerging at that time: tape recording, amplification, television, FM radio, LP production etc all developing with the music.

For those who remember, how did the elders of the day take the arrival of electric instruments? (Just think, back then the elders were old enough to remember a time when Johannes Brahms was still alive. Not like these kids today, born in the 1930's.)
 
#127
A couple of things occurred to me reading the recent posts. The first is how the three string bass players must have felt when the EADG tuning took over. The other is the resurgence of the Fender Rhodes piano in the hands of players like Uri Caine. My thoughts are along the lines of the way I feel about bass guitar- it is its own thing, and should be treated as such. Like the Rhodes (and the clavinet), it's still at heart a sound generator activated by a finger, either through a mechanism (grand piano?), or directly in the case of a bass guitar-not like a synthesizer where there's no tactile connection.
 
#129
Did Leo Fender's bass change music? Absolutely -- I have no doubt about that. You wouldn't have Jamerson's bouncy, nimble lines without EBG. Same thing with McCartney. Somebody will chime in and say "of course those lines can be played on DB." Well -- with a skilled player they can be played on kazoo, too, but they sound like crap on that platform. And there's nothing about the kazoo's voice that would make you imagine those lines in the first place.

We keep saying around here "you can't look at them as the same instrument -- they're different." Along with that truth comes the implication: different instrument, different voice, different musics.
 
#130
Don Higdon said:
Working from memory, one of the first to employ the Fender bass in a band was Dizzy Gillespie.
This raised eyebrows.

You are absolutely right. I remember the shock of hearing that Dizzy had a fender player. I think they were playing at the club on Broadway (?) where the band lined up on an elevated stage parallel to the long bar. Lousy set-up as it was. Unless my memory is faulty (and I've got a couple of years on most of you :) the player was Frank Schiafano. If I have the spelling right.

One other unrelated thing that sticks in my mind (piddling point that it is) is the term "bass guitar." I've always used fender bass as a generic term. To me the bass guitar is just that--a bass guitar. A six stringer tuned an octave (I believe?) lower. Barney Kessell, for one, recorded with it and the distinction between the two instruments was made clear on the record jacket notes.
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#131
gerry grable said:
Don Higdon said:
To me the bass guitar is just that--a bass guitar. A six stringer tuned an octave (I believe?) lower. Barney Kessell, for one, recorded with it and the distinction between the two instruments was made clear on the record jacket notes.
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Hey Gerry, you're thinking of a baritone guitar. Kessel played one on 'Two Bones and a Pick'. They have a 27" - 30" string length and are usually tuned A - A. B - B or C - C. Danalectro made the first electric ones in the late fifties and the Fender Bass VI came out in 1961. Rick Danko played one for a while, as did Jack Bruce, and George Harrison and John Lennon used one on the 'Let It Be' and 'Hey Jude' videos.

Hijack over. ;)
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#132
Damon Rondeau said:
Did Leo Fender's bass change music? Absolutely -- I have no doubt about that. You wouldn't have Jamerson's bouncy, nimble lines without EBG. Same thing with McCartney.
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The big change was the Heavy Rock Trio or band with Singer, Guitar, bass and drums.

Before it would have sounded kind of empty with just guitar - but people discovered that if you turned bass guitar way up loud - then it filled out all the sound and thus created heavy rock.

All those bands like Led Zeppelin, Free, Cream, Hendrix etc. relied on the loud overdriven bass to filll out the sound live. But in doing so, they created a new genre of music that became very different from the Blues it was based on.
 
#133
Jake, Thanks for the clarification. I bow to your expertise. I googled baritone guitar and was surprised to see have often it has been used--Kessel to Glen Campbell. I said it was a piddling point. But. . .I didn't know it would turn out to be my head :)
 
#134
Jake deVilliers said:
gerry grable said:
Hey Gerry, you're thinking of a baritone guitar. Kessel played one on 'Two Bones and a Pick'. They have a 27" - 30" string length and are usually tuned A - A. B - B or C - C. Danalectro made the first electric ones in the late fifties and the Fender Bass VI came out in 1961. Rick Danko played one for a while, as did Jack Bruce, and George Harrison and John Lennon used one on the 'Let It Be' and 'Hey Jude' videos.

Hijack over. ;)
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Wes used the bari too on several albums. I think it was B to B.
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#136
Michael, as I mentioned, there were a few amped DB's around in the mid 60's, but all things considered, I think the advent of the Fender Rhodes piano was the straw that broke the camels back and it definately changed the volume of the rhythm section, including drummers, forever.
The real negative, IMO, was the total loss of volume dynamics in jazz, in particular.
The volume became loud and louder.
 
#138
Paul Warburton said:
Michael, as I mentioned, there were a few amped DB's around in the mid 60's, but all things considered, I think the advent of the Fender Rhodes piano was the straw that broke the camels back and it definately changed the volume of the rhythm section, including drummers, forever.
The real negative, IMO, was the total loss of volume dynamics in jazz, in particular.
The volume became loud and louder.
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Interesting that came from the Rhodes. I agree with you it's a big loss. Drums can be incredibly beautiful when played with dynamics.
 
#139
I was raised by a jazz DB player, and I listened attentively to just about everything he said or played. Pop played "Baby," his left-handed DB, from about '47 until 2000, but he did own a few electric basses along the way.

He bought his first amp when he got his first electric bass - in the late sixties; it wasn't until later that he bought an Underwood pickup and began amplifying his DB.

Pop got his first electric bass as an unwilling accommodation to the changing gig market. He was never comfortable playing electric, and always conceptualized bass lines as a jazz DB player. I could see the disappointment on his face when someone called him for a gig that wasn’t jazz or required electric bass.

Pop's preference was always to play unamplified DB. He only took an amp to loud gigs or sessions where there was likely to be "some stupid SOB who thinks playing loud is more important than playing musically and paying attention to dynamics."

His feelings about amplification changed when he got his PolyTone amp, which was small, lightweight, and easy to use. Before that, he always bitched about amps being too big, and heavy, and the way they changed his sound: "Whose brilliant idea was it to make a perfectly good bass sound like an electrified turd?"


Thanks for a great thread, Mr. Warburton.
 

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