Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room

Do we have any musical people on DC?

<< < (63/65) > >>

mouser:
The best part is now that I'm going to these things as a player,
--- End quote ---

Cool!!!!

Tell her to take some video of the next jam and post it.

Vurbal:
@Vurbal - that sounds pretty awesome. And your wife reminds of my own lady a little. Sounds like a keeper.
-40hz (July 29, 2016, 08:22 PM)
--- End quote ---

She certainly is! And I'm not saying that because she just bought me a set of Sadowsky Black Label flatwounds for my birthday... well not just that.  :D

Unfortunately, that band doesn't look like it's ever going to completely come together, but, as it happens, I've got opportunities coming out of the woodwork now. A couple weeks ago, a guitarist I've played with quite a bit got me an invite to a private get together with a local drummer who's looking to put together a 60s and early 70s R&B/Soul group. It was a great afternoon, and I apparently impressed everybody there by blowing through a bunch of songs I didn't know (all but like 2 songs we played) by just picking up on the groove and running with it.

The R&B project doesn't have a timeline yet, since the drummer is recuperating from a health scare he had a couple months back, but he would like to be playing out by the end of September. But another drummer who was there invited me to possibly do some recording with him on an originals project he's doing with a guitarist. They call it prog, which it really isn't. Mostly, it just has slightly oddball time signatures, like 9/8. However, it's interesting enough for me to spend a couple hours every weekend working on bass lines, and recording is another mountain I was looking to conquer eventually anyway.

The most exciting one for me, though, is this. Since my wife and I started going to the Sunday night jam, I've gotten a lot more stage time, since very few bass players show up. By the end of the night, the host band's bassist and I usually end up taking 3-4 songs at a time. After a lot of playing time together, a very good guitarist who's been sitting in with them, mostly just to fill up his musical calendar, wants me to work with him on an originals project - sort of a late 60s style power trio. He's apparently been looking for a bassist for months, but couldn't find anybody who played melodically enough. He also invited me to come sit in with him at an open mic night he hosts about 15 minutes away from my house.

Of course, the downside, as any musician (or music lover period) who has sat through enough open jams can tell you, is listening to the same handful of standards being butchered almost weekly. There are only so many times you can hear They Call It Stormy Monday played without feeling before you snap. Don't get me started on Cissy Strut or Shakey Ground. Let's just say that some people should not be allowed to play funk in public.

Not that I'm claiming to be perfect. A friend of mine showed up one night and wanted to sing Me and Bobby McGee, which she does very well, even when both the guitar and bass are off key, as it turns out. Since the guitarist and I had both played it in the past, we just looked up the chords as a refresher before hand. Unfortunately, we didn't look closely enough to remember the key change after the first verse. :o We spent most of the rest of the song giving each other funny looks, since neither one of us could figure out exactly what was wrong. Fortunately, the singer is a real pro, so we only made ourselves look stupid.

mouser:
There are only so many times you can hear They Call It Stormy Monday
--- End quote ---

Speaking of which, here's a fantastic version of Stormy Weather by John LaPorta and Charles Mingus:

wraith808:
That Stormy Weather rendition, while I love the vocals, so missed that, is definitely excellent from an instrumental standpoint.  It brought to memory one of my regrets.  My father was very big into Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and many more performers of that era.  And he was really into musicals- Gershwin, Rodgers and Hammerstein, etc.  In fact, I remember my proudest moment was giving him the complete selection of Rodgers and Hammerstein on DVD when they first came out.  A pretty penny, but the look on his face...

Now that he's gone, and I've started to appreciate that music, I kick myself, and it makes me sad.  I never took the time to cross to his side of the street until it was too late, and I find myself wondering what he thought/would think about certain renditions, or composers, or dancers that I was never interested enough to ask him about.

sigh

mouser:
Now that he's gone, and I've started to appreciate that music, I kick myself, and it makes me sad.
I know the feeling, that seems to be how it goes for many of us.. As Joni Mitchel said, "don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone..."

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page