geddyflea83
(Glasgow)
Saturday 23 Jan 2021, 3:05am
...or anyone else for that matter. I'm always keen to engage with enthusiastic players of all instruments.
I'm a 37 year old bass player and I've been getting back into playing in a big way since lockdown one began. I really want to make an instrumental album that I'm deeply proud of, as I find it disappointing that I don't have such a thing from all my years of playing. Feel free to check out my lockdown demos on soundcloud (simon mclean) to get a feel for my bass playing, but the styles are not necessarily indicative of what I hope to create here. I suppose I seek to create instrumental music, probably fusion of some sort just because i feel like in terms of musicianship it's the ultimate destination for freedom of expression.
I've always loved jamming first and foremost, and would seek to create an entirely fresh batch of songs by listening back to improvised jams and picking out the bits that we like to evolve newborn tracks that way. I think you can always tell when a band writes their material by improvising together. When improvising in a group and it's going really well with everyone buzzing off the collective energy I think there is no better feeling to be honest. I think audiences love it too, and that it's becoming rarer in the virtual world of stem exchanges.
I have several good drummers among my close friends who are always up for a improvised jam - one being more funky/jazzy and the other being much more of a driving rock drummer.
Rather than seek a guitarist and have lots of fun as a classic power trio I'd really like to try something different, particularly since my bass tone (with split signals and octavers etc) can fill a lot of those mids. Something possibly melodic rather than harmonic, with a nice organic timbre and above all expressive. A virtuosso would be impressive to a point but I think being expressive in most important. I've not played with many trad type musicians but the ones I know give the impression of being accustomed to learning written pieces to regurgitate on cue. They seemed unfamiliar with the idea of 'having a jam'. I hope to find someone who is fed up with sheet music and wants to go mental and be a kind of jazz soloist. (I can read if asked to ever learn something though).
The ideas of instrumentalists I have so far:
Flute: I'm a massive Jethro Tull fan and would LOVE to meet a crazy flautist. I think those smooth soothing tones would juxtapose my agressive bass tone wonderfully.
Fiddle: I'm very keen on organic timbre in music and the fiddle must have the most gorgeous tone of any instrument. I'm also very partial to celtic music and I'm always curious to hear attempts to blend celtic flavours with other styles. I've always fancied a kind of celtic-funk-prog-fusion project. I really like Shooglenifty and Elephant Sessions, for whom I could definitely do a good job on bass. I've spent a lot of time jamming to funk, disco and dance over the years and have a great time doing it. A kind of Jamiroquai/Blazin' Fiddles fusion would go down an absolute storm.
Sax: There was a band in the 70s called Back Door that had a jazzy drummer, an amazing bass player called Colin Hodgekinson who uses the full sonic spectrum of his bass in a very rhythmic way and a virtuosso saxophonist. This band is partly the reason I thought I'd ask for flute, fiddle or sax players as their stuff is fantastic and so unique. I probably wouldn't want to be quite as jazzy and keep it a bit more funky (Meters style) but the idea of drums, bass and a solo instrument like sax has been shown to be done and I'm very excited to give it a go.
I think even a commitment of a dozen jam sessions or so over a six month period would definitely give us an albums worth of material to be performed and recorded even if as a one off (if it's terrible or we end up falling out). Possibly it could be something very special though.
simonmclean45@gmail.com