[Dixielandjazz] Electric Bass

[Stephen Barbone]

Pat Cooke wrote: (snip from an excellent post)

"Then we come to the sound tech, who will put a microphone in front of
your amp, and run it through his sound equipment.  After all your
considerations about strings, pickups, amp settings, etc, the sound tech
can
make your bass sound like someone hitting the s..t house door with a wet
mop."

List mates:

Again right on. We do, however insist that when playing large audience
outdoor gigs, that the sound man does mic the amp, of both bass and
guitar. Of course we get a little fussy about how much volume goes
through that mic and make sure the sound is correct.  Our guys insist on
going through their own amps and I don't blame them. They know what they
have for equipment and they insist that other amps destroy their sound
and make it more difficult to play. Plus, it eliminates the need for
monitors as the front line hears the amps of bassist and guitarist fine.

Luckily, our bassist uses a carved, wooden, German made bass circa 1910
and which has a marvelous sound and if you tell him he is out of tune,
you would be wrong. Our entire band always tunes electronically before
each gig and before each set. And both bass and guitar are dead on. This
is evident when we play a tune that has both guitar and lead horn
playing in unison. (which we do often) On of our inside band jokes about
out of tune players/singers is that "He/she, died from intonation."

One of the nicest compliments, from other musicians, that we get occurs
on "Hackensack" a Monk line on "Lady Be Good" when the first chorus is
guitar and clarinet in unison on "Hackensack"  bass & drum, and then the
rest of the tune faithful to the Gershwin line with the full band.
Invariably, other musicians, especially big band musos,  marvel that
clarinet and guitar not only have the odd Monk syncopation down firmly,
but that we are in as perfect tune as you can get.

We use the tune as our "mystery" selection and ask the audience to guess
what the Gershwin tune is, before the second chorus makes it evident.
Gets the audience involved, etc.

There's no business like show business. ;-)

Cheers,
Steve Barbone