Double Bass What do you expect from your (Jazz) Drummer?

[GodinFan]

Time and taste.

Appropriate volume.

Don't leave the bass player totally adrift when they're soloing.

Find some underutilized colours and use them. I've played with way too many drummers who never ride on closed hat. Backbeat on the HH column is cool too.

 

[TroyK]

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Don't leave the bass player totally adrift when they're soloing.
...

I'd say this is a matter of preference. If I know the tune, I can keep time through my solo with or without accompaniment. That doesn't mean that I always object to it, but I don't need it. If the drummer or piano player are not hearing things the same way that night or if it's a poor sound situation or something else, I'd rather be on my own sometimes. They are more likely to throw me off or step on my phrasing than help keep anything together. Other times not.

In my regular trio, we try not to do it the same way all night, because that gets boring for the listener. Sometimes we interplay through solos, sometime we set the soloist "adrift".

The key with all jazz playing, regardless of instrument is to commune constructivley with the other guys on the gig and what that means, depends on the guys, the night, the setlist, the room....

Man, I'm a blowhard today. What's up with me?

 

[RBrownBass]

Time and taste.

Appropriate volume.

Don't leave the bass player totally adrift when they're soloing.

I don't mind that so much from drummers (tho most will play something during a bass solo, just not much), but from the pianist, it's a killer. Sure, my soloing doesn't sound great with or without accompaniment, but without makes the bass solo different from the others, and I consider that a bad thing. I'll solo maybe once a set, if that, and I'd like for the overall vibe of the ensemble not to be ... "and NOW --listen up, everyone-- we're gonna let the BASS player shine!". I get the lower volume thing which usually makes it necessary for the other musicians to bring it down a couple notches, but setting it out like that makes the bassist (and the solo) seem an accessory rather than simply an expression by another one of the musicians on stage.

Find some underutilized colours and use them. I've played with way too many drummers who never ride on closed hat. Backbeat on the HH column is cool too.

By "column", do you mean the HH stand or the rod the upper cymbal clamps to? I'll agree that riding the closed HH is rare (used to be a drummer in HS, not a great kit player, but it taught me to listen), and probably won't get much more popular in "jazz" because its straight-eighth presence in rock/pop/R&B/whatever kinda pigeonholes it as "not jazz drumming".

What I'd like? Well, if he's on stage, the timing and taste are a given. So I would prefer that drummers not play the snare a lot on the 2 and 4. I mean, if the tune that's been called or is next on the list is that sort of tune, fine, but those tunes can be weeded out beforehand. The tunes I enjoy most call for something more fluid in terms of where he'd place accents and hits. No one (especially the drummer; it's so obvious) should be playing to remind anyone else where the beat is- they know, or ought to.

You haven't lived (or died a bit inside, your call)until you get on the stage with a guy from BigBandLand who "just never got into" a supreme artist like Tony Williams and plays everything like the Rockettes are in front of him.