Will Lee's excellent advise.......

[scuzzy]

never heard him speak, but that was great. thank you for posting. it seems to be a common trend with those cats that keep getting called. if they are jerks....they will stop getting called.

 

[Smooth_bass88]

I am similar, the king of homework but I don't practice much. I'm always working on the stuff for the next gigs and current gigs, which is in essence practice, but I'm not running scales or exercises.

Yeah, I’m like this. I get lots of calls for sub dates, plus my regular gigs are always adding new tunes and I like to be the person in the room who knows the songs better than everyone else. Sometimes I’m quasi musical director.

 

[Joshua]

After watching the Will Lee clip I had to look up the James Brown - Letterman performance.

Is this the one Will is talking about?

No idea if that's the clip, but it was hot like the sun!

 

[Jazzdogg]

never heard him speak, but that was great. thank you for posting. it seems to be a common trend with those cats that keep getting called. if they are jerks....they will stop getting called.

Old musicians don't retire; their phones just stop ringing.

 

[Smallmouth_Bass]

I love playing shows and never take them for granted. It always surprised me when musicians on the gig would indicate that the shorter the playing time the better - as if they'd rather be doing something else. There's typically nothing I'd rather be doing and my attitude is, "I came here to play". I don't want to just play a 45 minute set and be done - I want to play all night.

I almost always enjoy the playing. It's the setup, trying to get the sound sorted, crappy load-ins/outs and the late nights that I could forgo. Once you're there and setup, playing longer (within reason) is fine.

Like people often say: I play for free. I get payed to cart all the stuff there and back and setup!

 

[bucephylus]

Also, FWIW, that black Sadowsky, which WL is playing in the OP vid, is 110% 220 Proof BADAZZZ!! As is the player. IMHO.

 

[Dr. Cheese]

Will Lee and Pat Metheney, both are University of Miami alumni and Will Lee’s dad wa the dean of music there.

 

[Michedelic]

I love playing shows and never take them for granted. It always surprised me when musicians on the gig would indicate that the shorter the playing time the better - as if they'd rather be doing something else. There's typically nothing I'd rather be doing and my attitude is, "I came here to play". I don't want to just play a 45 minute set and be done - I want to play all night.

For me, that is the whole point. Music is for sharing, and it validates my effort as a musician(not ‘just a bass player’)to make someone else happy, to elevate their spirits, to give them a good time. After all, it’s what drew me in to pursue this in the first place. I can never understand those who just stay at home, and piddle around with such a specific, ensemble oriented instrument.

 

[jerry]

Will Lee and Pat Metheney, both are University of Miami alumni and Will Lee's dad wa the dean of music there.

This album with his dad is excellent straight ahead jazz with electric bass.

 

[Dr. Cheese]

View attachment 7200815
This album with his dad is excellent straight ahead jazz with electric bass.

I will check that out!

 

[Dr. Cheese]

This showed up on my YouTube feed today. It is easy to forget what a great singer Will Lee is too.

 

[brianrost]

One of James' best performances: He's having a gas as it's not his band, and he's tickled that with all of his stops, starts, turning the charts on a dime, the band is on him like white on rice, and you can catch it in his face that he's VERY pleasantly surprised and having a ball. That's some full-grown-men backing him up.

Backing up front persons like that is easy.

I really hate it when they won’t move around and they can’t signal transitions.

 

[MultiScaleMale]

I think I liked the David Letterman Band when they were with NBC (I think) and smaller, just a 4-5 piece. But Will Lee has been one of my favorite bassists. And he can sing.

 

[jerry]

 

[bassbrad]

Same here. I always wondered if it would be beneficial to take time off of bands and learning songs to just concentrate on learning music in general.

Learning more about music is never a waste of time, it pays dividends when you can incorporate that knowledge on the fly on stage.

 

[jerry]

Dynamics, feel, groove, everything! Will and Gadd over fifty years of great music.

 

[lowfreqgeek]

Dynamics, feel, groove, everything! Will and Gadd over fifty years of great music.

I just saw that a few days ago. Simon Oslender is something special, too - as evidenced by his backing band!

 

[jerry]

 

[nixdad]

Thanks for posting!

However, I really hope Will is OK. There's a twitchiness which is very evident from the beginning of this interview that I've never seen with him before. I've seen several interviews with Lee over the years (and met him at NAMM several years ago,) so this was unsettling. I even reviewed interviews and performances with him from within the past year, and don't see any such behavior.

Sincerely wishing him well.

 

[Billyzoom]

Thanks for posting!

However, I really hope Will is OK. There's a twitchiness which is very evident from the beginning of this interview that I've never seen with him before. I've seen several interviews with Lee over the years (and met him at NAMM several years ago,) so this was unsettling. I even reviewed interviews and performances with him from within the past year, and don't see any such behavior.

Sincerely wishing him well.

I noticed that as well.