[Dixielandjazz] leaders and bass amps

[john petters]

Sheik said
> The answer is that only the band leader has the right to give the orders,
>you take your marching orders from one person only.

Quite right. When ever I do a dep job and I see a bass amp and a row of mics
on the front line, I always start to feel depressed. It means I cannot play
quietly or dynamically. Last night was different. We played a concert of
hymns and Spirituals at Saffron Walden Baptist Church, nr Cambridge. I had
one microphone for announcements and vocals. It was a standard 6 piece band
with banjo, bass, drums rhythm section. I could control the volume of the
band by how quietly I played. So we could be roaring through a loud chorus,
with lots of riffing behind the solos and drop right down to an almost
whisper level. The banjo and bass were louder than the drums at this point.
If we had amplification - which was not needed - we could not have achieved
this.
Most musicians wrongly assume that their audience wants to hear amplified
music. This is not the case. When ever we play totally acoustic and I
announce the fact that they are hearing the real sound of the instruments,
it always brings a big round of applause. 

Amps have changed the way bassists play. The percussive attack of Welman
Braud and Pops Foster, Jimmy Blanton and Walter Page has been replaced by an
obnoxious thin twangy noise which sounds in many cases like a wasp in a jam
jar. The direct injection from bass pick-ups on modern recordings has ruined
many of them for me. If a band needs amplification, use a good microphone,
set it up and leave it alone and don't deafen your audience.

John Petters
Amateur Radio Station G3YPZ
www.traditional-jazz.com

-----Original Message-----
From: dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com
[mailto:dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com] On Behalf Of David W.
Littlefield
Sent: 12 September 2004 01:08
To: dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Ride cymbals

At 10:23 AM 9/11/2004 -0500, Patrick Cooke wrote:
>There is another problem...On the same gig, one guy will want me to
>crank it up, and another will want me to turn it down.  I don't have an
>answer for that one!


>     I guess you have to be a bass player to understand it fully.  I
>sometimes go on a gig, and before I'm even unpacked, the leader will come
>over and say "Don't crank up the amp, in fact you really don't need
>it...it's a small room."  I know I'm in trouble, because I do need it and
>tell him so.  As a drummer, I'm sure you have been told to keep it soft
>before you have even set up.  Its in the manual titled "How to be a band
>leader."  Bass players and drummers are always being told how to play by
>people who don't play either instrument;  yet I don't remember having ever
>told or even suggested how a horn player should play.
>     Pat Cooke

It's the band leader's *job* to determine the requirements of the gig and
client preferences, and then to instruct the band as to what these are.
When a leader tells you to play softly, he's not telling you HOW to play,
but WHAT to play, and that *is* his prerogative. If he tells you to play
straight 4/4 or 2-beat, that's telling you what, not how, to play. Same for
telling the drummer to play mostly brushes, and percussively rather than
soup-stirring; or hi-hat rather than riders, and simple straight 4/4 swing
rather than 50s Count Basie style. It's the leader's job and right to
determine the sound and feel of the band, which means manipulating the
individual pieces. You don't like being told what to play, ask the leader
how he wants it played before you accept the gig. And if you haven't asked,
then play it with a smile, and when you get your pay, tell the leader not
to call you again...

--Sheik 




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