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NAMM over for another year




Me and Lee Sklar

Originally uploaded by solobasssteve.

Wow, a crazy NAMM weekend – very little time for anything outside of NAMMness, hence the lack of blogging, but a great weekend nonetheless. One of the things I did this year that I always forget to do was to take a few pictures with people I like, such as this one with Lee Sklar – Lee’s an incredible bassist, and very very lovely man, who has been very complimentary about what I do for a long time. A great bloke and an amazing musician. go and check out my other Flickr photos for some others, including one of me with Alex Webster, the bassist from Cannibal Corpse – a lovely friendly guy who bought a CD and I gave an impromptu lesson to… completely at odds with the utterly sickening lyrics on a lot of their stuff… Never judge a book by it’s cover, or a bassist by the twistedness of his band’s album covers (sensitive readers are advised not to do a google search on CC’s album sleeves)…

OK, let’s catch up on the last few days – Thursday daytime was spent playing on the Looperlative and Accugroove booths, then the evening was The NAMM Bass Bash, where I was playing with Trip Wamsley. I was told it started at 7, but I got there at about 6.30 and TRip was already on stage playing!! So I set up next to him and joined in – we did a rather cool spacey version of Behind Every Word, which went into a huge sprawling ambient thing that briefly morphed into Radar Love… not sure what happened there. Still, Trip was on top form, playing beautifully. The rest of the evening was spent with friends – Doug and Vida, Claudio Zanghieri, Jeff Schmidt, Todd Johnson and Kristin Korb (whose duo set was amazing), Steve Bailey, Gary Husband and others… Much fun.

Friday day was more playing for Accugroove, Looperlative and Modulus, and in the evening a bit of a bass player hang for dinner with Peter Murray, Claudio Zanghieri, Dave Freeman, Chris Tarry| and Yves Carbonne – all great musicians and lovely people. Then late night I drove up to Hollywood to see Doug Lunn and Alex Macachek play with Terry Bozzio’s trio, which was excellent as always.

Saturday back at the show, yadda yadda, and in the evening was invited to play a house concert with the delightful and truly wonderful Vicki Genfan, which as with most of those kinds of gigs involved playing gorgeous music and wonderful people in a great house. What a fun night!

And today, the last day of the show, demoing the Looperlative, playing with Claudio at Modulus and catching up with more friends that I hadn’t seen over the rest of the weekend. All good nothing bad.

So all in a great time – here’s a partial list of the lovely people I got to catch up with, albeit briefly in the case of some of them – Claudio Zanghieri, Peter Murray, Kerry Getz, Anderson Page, Chris Tarry, Dominique Di Piazza, Hadrien Ferraud, Jonas Hellborg, Markus Setzer, Trip Wamsley, Jeff Schmidt, Gary Husband, Vicki Genfan, Thomas Leeb, Doug Wimbish, Yves Carbonne, Stu McKensie, Scott Panzera, Todd Johnson, Kristin Korb, Jake Kott, Mark Wright, Bob Amstadt, Lowell Packham, Jerry Watts, Doug and Vida, Lyle Workman, Jeff Campitelli, Lee Sklar, Leo Nobre, Alex Webster, Lynne Davis, Ron Garant, Justin Medal Johnson, Ed Friedland, EE Bradman, Bill Leigh, Terry Buddingh, Jean Baudin, Jeremy Cohen, Max Valentino, Norm Stockton, Joe Zon, Seth Horan, Marcus Miller, Monster, Steve Bailey, Alessandra Belloni, Joe Perman, Muriel Anderson, Alain Caron, Tony Levin… the list goes on and on, and I’ll add to it if you email me and remind me that we met and I’ve left you off – it’s 1am and I’m getting sleepy!

So, NAMM over for another year, lots of follow up to do now for gigs, teaching and new friends. All good nothing bad.

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Yet more time-zones…

So, I’m now in Newport Beach, California, staying with the oh so lovely Kerry Getz. Flew here from NYC yesterday, and am, it has to be said, in love with New York.

Spent the last few days in New York being v. lazy and ill. Walking in Central Park, going for dinner in Greenwich Village, going to see Jeff Taylor then Ron Sexsmith play, but having to leave Ron’s gig due to feeling really rough (sad, because he was great… the support, Kim Taylor, was utterly magical too), having lovely times with S & N in their Manhattan palace, taking L. to the hospital with suspected Strep throat, but finding out the expensive way it was a non-serious and pretty much untreatable viral infection requiring salt water gargling and rest, cooking dinner for S, N, L and Janek, playing through a load of Janek’s songs with him on guitar and voice, me on bass which sounded v. lovely, going to see Chris Tarry‘s amazing band featuring Keith Carlock on drums (one of the greatest drummers I’ve ever seen) with L. and the lovely Susan… so much done, while not really doing anything, in a great city, with cheap cabs and 24 hour subway (that’s transport not sandwiches).

And here I am in California, got a gig tonight in Santa Barbara, and then tomorrow i need to a) finish my column for BGM, and b) submit my tax return and pay my bill! eeeek…

but for now, New York, I miss you – California, we’re old friends, so you’d better for on good form…

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Michael Brecker dies…

After a long battle with Leukemia, Michael Brecker has died. If you’ve ever hung around with any saxophonists for more than about, ooh, two minutes, you’ll know just how important Brecker is to the instrument. Just about every saxophonist I’ve ever met at one point wanted to play like him. The tenor sax colossus is obviously Coltrane, but post Coltrane, the standard bearer was Brecker – he took the instrument to new places, he wrote and recorded some incredible music, and gave saxophonists something to aim for.

I only saw him play once – at the Barbican in London. I went with Ben Castle, one of the many sax players who had spent years being massively influenced by him. Ben’s own playing has taken a fabulously unique turn since then, but he still had that uber-fan approach when we went to the gig. And Brecker was amazing – though on that particular gig, the opening act was the Roy Haynes trio with John Pattitucci and Danilo Perez, who played one of the greatest jazz gigs I’ve ever heard, so I came away singing their praises, whilst still full of the feeling that in Brecker I’d seen one of the greats.

To know what a place he occupies in my musical affections, you only need look at short list of his musical collaborators – Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, James Taylor – there’s the Stevie Holy Trinity of songwriters right there. the version of ‘Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight’ that he rerecorded with JT for one of his own albums about 4 or 5 years ago is one of the greatest things James has ever done. Breath-taking.

So he’ll be missed, hugely. An amazing musician, with an incredible legacy.

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NYC gig

So last night was my first ever New York gig, at Mo Pitkins – a fabulous lil’ venue in Manhattan. When I got to the venue (with Sue, Nigel and Lobelia), Chris McIntosh (AKA Grandfather Rock, radio DJ and tireless advocate for great music) and Kathryn (LA buddy, now in Pennsylvania) were already at the venue. Soon followed by more delightful and exceedingly lovely people – Janek, Chris Tarry, Suse, Susan Enan, Jeff Taylor, Amy Kohn, Laura from the Fringe, and a handful of other marvellous people.

I was still slightly jetlagged (my set didn’t start til 11.15pm), so the chat between songs was loose and at times probably total bollocks (what’s new there, eh?) but all seemed to go down well The Absolute highlight of the gig for me was doing three tunes with Lobelia – we did Black Hole Sun (in the arrangement that I did with both Cleveland Watkiss and Julie McKee) and then two amazing songs of her’s. She sang like an angel, and wowed our tiny but v. attentive audience. Much more where that came from, fo’ sho’.

The solo bit of the gig went – Behind Every Word, MMFSOG (with extended talky intro and stop in the middle to explain loopage), Scott Peck, Amo Amatis Amare… I’m sure there were others – did I really only do 5 tunes plus the vocal stuff? I certainly finished with Deeper Still… wow, maybe I did – I was talking a lot, that’s for sure….

Anyway, the people there seemed to love it, and it was great to catch up with so many great friends and musicians and to christen a new duo project in such a creatively successful way. I’ll post an MP3 as soon as I can…

So now, onto wandering around Manhattan, meeting lovely people, late night’s talking, late mornings lying in and generally having a fantastic time, before heading out to California for the madness that is NAMM. See you there!

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Start Spreading The News…

Ahhhh, New York New York – so great they couldn’t be bothered to think of a different name for the state and the city… New Yorkshire would’ve worked…

Anyway, I’m here, staying with the oh so lovely Shark and TH, in their palatial Manhattan apartment. This is going to be a marvellous week, a marvellous marvellous week, fo’ sho. Talking of Sho’..ws, I’m playing at Mo Pitkins tomorrow night, 11pm, $10 to get in – email all your friends in NYC and tell ’em to come on down!

More soon…

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Flying used to be so much fun…

As I’ve said before, I love travel. Love it.

However, airports are now stretching that resolve. Dubya and his made-up War on Tourism (brown people who do bad things in planes) have completely screwed up the process, holding people up for trying to take a tickle-me-elmo onto a plane that’s not in its box, and confiscating toothpaste… I guess you could overpower a pilot with a tube of toothpaste… if the pilot was less than 4 years old and had a severe toothpaste allergy…

The only upside is it might make more people realise what a great way to travel the train is (screwed up Irish Sea ferry things notwithstanding) – as the 80s advert said – this is the age of the train…

But anyway, if you are flying, please give a smile to the poor people who work in airports these days – it’s got to be a seriously thankless task, and one where they need to be obsessive to the point of it being clinical, about things they almost certainly don’t really give a shit about. So smile.

See you on ‘tother side of the atlantic!

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Anticipation…

I’m just about to go to sleep, in order to be up at 6am to leave for New York, which I’m very much looking forward to.

And this video clip makes me REALLY look forward to seeing the 2nd One Giant Leap film. The first one is magic. The second one, based on the trailer, looks just as good. Coming to a Soul Space service near you soon…

See you on ‘tother side of the Atlantic, Bloglings, xx

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Q – how do you get to the US without a passport?

A – you don’t.

So, for those of you that are of a praying persuasion, please say a few well chosen words on my behalf, while I continue to turn the house upside down.

And before you say it, yes this has happened before, no, I clearly hadn’t learned my lesson, yes, I’m sure I will this time. If only I can find the damned thing.

xx

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improvements in the canned music situation…

OK, the musak here in the port has taken an upturn – we’ve had ‘A Good Heart’ by Fergal Sharkey (written by Maria McKee, trivia-fans), ‘Young Hearts Run Free’ by Candi Statton, ‘Everybody Dance’ by Chic and some other cool stuff, with narry a ‘featuring Ya Kid K’ in sight. Hurrah.

the sad thing is that in order to find a plug point for my lappy, I’ve had to move across the waiting room, and now my old wireless connection is out of range, and the BT one I’ve just had to log into is twice the price!!!! Balls to BT.

Estimated departure time is now 2pm. Anyone want a bet we’re still in the port at 2.30?

x

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