Sunday, December 31, 2006

Ode to the P-Bass

Well, I guess I have to admit it's tuba that got me into bass clef. I was a happy trumpet player in Junior High, but got my growth spurt early. When the band director told me I'd been "selected" as a tuba player, I protested feebly, then went meekly about the business of dealing with a mouthpiece the size of Alaska. However, not all was lost. The tuba led to upright bass, the upright bass led to Bass Guitar and not too much later to Leo Fender's masterpiece, the Precision Bass.



Yes, the venerable P-Bass has been my faithful bass clef companion for aobut 35 years of my bass clef experience. The first one was purchased about 1971 at Manny's music in NYC. Set up at a nearby bass shop with Rotosounds, and I've been round wound ever since. Unfortunately this bass was sold in the late 70's when I 'got out of music' - a self delusive phase that lasted almost 5 years. Fortunately, I found the twin of the original instrument in Cambridge MA.



Happy New Years!

Monday, December 11, 2006

Musing

Well, since I promised musings, here they go:

Favorite Klezmer Piece: Miserlou
Favorite Artist: Hankus Netsky & Klezmer Conservatory Band

Most Hilarious Klezmer Piece: Miserlou by the Looney Tunes
(equal parts of surf rock and klezmer)

Civil Rights Vignette: Passing through a gas station, maybe Mississipi, perhaps Louisiana during the late 60's. My New York plates get me a police tail in Huntsville, but not here thankfully. I meet Charles Evers, a cousin of Medgar in the gas station, he's driving a classy but well used early 60's black Cadillac, but relates his frustration. Across town, there'd be an assumption there was some hard work, rewarded by some trappings of success. For him, its a never ending justification of his right to drive a car he worked to buy. I hear well meaning folks say they never encountered discrimination. I wonder high tightly shut they have to close their eyes and how completely they have to plug their ears. Ever stop at a Stuckey's in the South?

Sunday, December 10, 2006

It was 30 years ago today (more or less)

...in a group permuted from an earlier group Thursday's Children untimately renamed"The Pointing Hand Group", I somehow ended up on this album, which I didn't know existed until the 1990s (Thanks Laura!)

http://apoxonrox.blogspot.com/2006/11/thursdays-children-thursdays-children.html

Bass Clef Musings

...40 something years ago my band director conned me into switching to Sousaphone. What followed is a meandering musical journey through tubas, string basses, electric basses, and finally back to tuba and (no longer string) double/upright bass.

...more to follow: and I promise it will include detours into R&B, rock, folk, klezmer and bluegrass with related topics thrown in for good measure (hmm, maybe civil rights and politics to name 2)

...remember, if you can't take a whole step forward, try a 1/2 step. Its only the 12th root of 2 higher than where you are now.

...tuba_bass_clef