Charlie Haden - RIP

I've seen online, without confirmation, that bassist/composer Charlie Haden has passed. Let's assume he hasn't, because that would represent a major loss to the firmament of American music and would make me very sad, but allow me to share my experiences with him assuming it's not true.

When Bad Livers were out there all by our lonesome, charting new courses out in the music world, we had the occasion to run into Mr. Haden more than a few times. He was always gracious, cordial and friendly and took a real interest in my playing, giving me much needed encouragement. When we first met we were both backstage at a street festival in Atlanta. He came from a folk music family and he told us how he appreciated what Danny and I were doing to live within the music, yet propel it forward, making it relevant to contemporary audiences. On one occasion in NYC, he was to be interviewed by the Jazz DJ and we were playing a live set for tail end the Folk DJs show.

At that time Danny and I had stripped the live show down to just banjo and bass, with long stream of conscious jams, weaving together our tunes with material Big Bill Broozy, Monk, Jimmy Martin and Sun Ra. Going out on  limb every time. There he was, behind the glass standing up as to catch the scene. Dark glasses in the middle of the day, with a huge smile plastered on his face. "Man, that was out of sight guys." he told us as we were packing up to make way. "You were cookin'." He was a bit of a gear freak, as many bassists are. "Hey man, I see you got Golden Spirals on your D and G. Good choice. So, hey, uh you got anymore?" LaBella stopped making these nylon wrapped gut strings a few years earlier and no other string on the market then was even close. "Why yes sir, I do." I reached into my case and pulled out a brand new-dead stock G string I had found in ratty box of odd strings in Lawrence KS just the week before. "With my compliments," I said as I laid it on him. I reckoned he could make better use of it than I.

I guess I should also mention that I saw Charlie many many years earlier, but had no idea what I was seeing. I had come to see the minutemen in Santa Monica in 1984. Still not sure what I saw however.

I'll be dialing up "Steal Away" tonight and remember a really class act.

Embarking on a new Adventure (Bassists take note!!)

A new adventure begins...

I honestly cannot recall when it struck me, but I leapt out of my hotel room bed and wrote it down so I wouldn’t forget it. I was once again out on tour, this time across Europe, schlepping a BBb tuba and my Eminence Bass. I was headed to the airport in the morning and I’d had a flash of an idea.

It had been almost 15 years since I’d responded to some guy named Gary’s posting that I had put up on a bass players chat list. I’d asked if anybody had come across a travel electric upright bass that was really worth a damn. My band had reached the sort of level where air travel was going to be the mode of transport and I had nothing but expensive horror stories shipping my $600 bass in a $3G flight case and paying extra for the pleasure of having it arrive damaged. Gary noted from my tour schedule that I was passing by a shop that had one of his basses for sale and bade me to check it out. I did, and I was completely knocked out by it. (And if you are reading this, you know exactly what I’m talking about.) I gladly bought it and made it my main traveling ax. However, I was still getting hit with oversize and overweight charges, which kind of nullified the very reason you get a travel instrument. From talking to baggage porters and airline counter folks, I realized that the only way to get your gear on a plane safely was to not stick out - to have it look just like the normal kind of bags they see every day. I found that golf bags fly with no oversize charges. If the Eminence could be made to fold up somehow, it would handily fit in a stock hard sided golf bag carrier.

I shared these ideas with Gary who was, as it turns out, very happy to get feedback from actual touring musicians and recognized the problem immediately. After batting back wacky ideas and much independent brainstorming, Gary came up with the detachable dove-tail joint neck block that makes the detachable Eminence possible. Now the bass flies for free and incognito. I played the hand built prototype for many years and then was lucky to beta test the production models manufactured by Christopher. After quite a bit of initial static (and quite a few snickers), the sound, playability and ease of transport of the detachable Eminence won over nearly every serious bassist I ran into. Bluegrass legend Marshall Wilborn played mine at IBMA’s conference and promptly put in an order, as did globe-trotting Stu Brotman of Brave Old World who commissioned a 5 string model. The detachable neck Eminence Bass is now ubiquitous on stages around the world and in every imaginable style of music where a string bass is found. It is the most influential product, besides my music, that I have ever been lucky to be involved with and it literally swells my heart every time I see one onstage.

That brings me back to my jumping up out of bed. You see, it’s many years later and the nature of air transport has changed here in America quite a bit, becoming less musician friendly all the while. Further cash strapped airlines are looking for any way to boost the bottom line. It would just be a matter of time before they started charging oversize on the golf bag carriers too. And I had heard anecdotally about guys getting charged when TSA inspectors revealed, right in front of the ticket counter, that there was something other than golf clubs in the case. It was time to think proactively.

Was it possible, dare I even think it, that the Eminence could fold up even smaller? Small enough to fit in a standard hard-sided piece of luggage? Can the - it’s hard to even write - can the fingerboard come off? That’s what I wrote down on the hotel envelope. When I called Gary, he didn’t even blink. “Let me think on this.” Which is, not coincidently, precisely what he said to me when I commissioned a detachable neck. Just recently he called me to say “I’ve got it.” I can’t wait to see what he came up with.

Details to follow soon, so check back often.

Bad Livers @ Pickathon X

The tune "Dallas TX," with Bad Livers, just outside Portland OR.

..


Listen to the whole set here, simply click on a tune and listen in.
(Fiddler Darol Anger sits in on the last 2 numbers.

..

Introducing Csaba Novak

In my opinion, Hungary's greatest dance band bassist, a regular collaborator with Cimbolm master Kalman Balogh. Csaba and I were to "team teach" the bass clinics at Klezmer Summer Weimar which have to date basically been Csaba doing the following while I stare blankly in awe...

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. The bass? He made it. He builds basses in his "spare time." This particular model was as fine a soundsing and playing bass as I have yet encountered, and remember, I work at a bass shop. I'll be putting in an order soon.

Reality - do you think maybe too much?

My friend Andy Moritz, lately bassist with Cadillac Sky and a great bass educator forwarded me this little exchange with a 14 year old who wanted his advise on how to "go pro." Kids who ask me usually have to go home and find a thesarus and a history book to devine the message I give them. Andy, a much nicer fellow than me, did the following:

"A kid sent me a message on Myspace about wanting to be a pro bass player. I don’t know why, but I just couldn’t resist a reality check, especially after his getting such an off-hand remark about going pro from another road guy.


From: >XXXXX< style="font-style: italic;">[he’s 14 now] and everybody says I could go pro. XXXXX XXXXX also told me this but I don’t think so could u please give some advise so I can get better? I really would appreciate...
=]

And here was my response:

Hey XXXXX,

Great to hear from you! If you just want to play for fun and profit, then work on your intonation, be familiar with the basic bluegrass keys, and work with a metronome. If you want to be a pro, certainly go for it, but you'll want to want to have a bit more backing up your playing -- such as...

TO START WITH...

Learn all your scales, learn all your keys, learn common practice theory and jazz theory and how to apply it to your playing, learn how folk music styles are different and how to apply that to your playing, learn how to play jazz standards and folk standards in multiple keys, learn about time and how to play in it and with it and around it, learn to play with the metronome on beats 2 and 4, learn how to make your bass sound like several different players, learn how to solo in various standard styles (in every key), learn as many tunes from memory as you can and then learn a whole bunch more, listen to as many records and songs from as many styles and genres as you can and STUDY THE PARTS (who's doing what, when, and how), learn how to play your way out of a paper bag so that you can save the tune if you or anyone else completely messes up, learn how to amplify or plug in and get your sound for at least two different applications with a couple of backups in case something breaks, and be able to do all of that without ever hearing yourself in case the stage sound is terrible.

AND THEN...

Learn how to do anything on little or no sleep, food, or during illness; learn how to sleep anywhere; learn how to wash your clothes in an ice bucket and dry off with a wash cloth; learn how to get along with anyone, when you won't be able to, and when you shouldn't get along with them; learn to fix your own stuff with a butter knife, string and a paper clip, and learn how to pack 7 days worth of clothes into a backpack.

WITHOUT FORGETTING TO...

Make sure you have your schedule, itinerary, routing, gig clothing, gear, back-up gear, contacts, contracts, financing, and provisions taken care of at all times.

AND FINALLY...

Learn how to listen and learn from those who have been there and done that before you. We're all just dwarfs standing on the shoulders of the giants who came before us...

Make sure you REALLY want to do it before you do it. It's an awesome and amazing job, but WILL BE your job.

Best wishes!
Andy Moritz"

No word yet if there was any response.......

Andy Statman, Arkansas Traveller, excerpt

From the 2007 Klez Kamp staff concert, Andy Statman and myself work out a little bit on the old Arkansas Traveler.

Mad Cat Trio Sketch

Danny Barnes sent me this the other day. Didn't know the artist, but I dug how the scan was take right from his sketchbook.



Mad Cat Trio was a local, goof-off project that Barnes and I had with fiddler Erik Hokkanen. It was fun for a time and then it wasn't so we stopped. Did make a nice live CD that might actually get re-issued on CD Baby someday soon. We did the regular Thursday night gig at Jovita's, until they found some one desperate to underbid us by a third. Cornell Hurd and his 11 piece band has been down there ever since, god bless 'em. Good thing they all have dayjobs.

Both Erik and Dan are still out there slugging it out in the clubs these days, albeit in different time zones. You might do yourself a favor and pay to see them sometime. I'd be out there more myself playing that circuit, but the public has spoken about my contributions to the marketplace and I can't make the mortgage payments that way anymore.

Cool sketch though, huh?

Manifesto for a New Year, 5768

As we’re fast approaching the Jewish New Year and as is our custom, it’s time to take stock of the follow year’s events and then see how we can learn from our mistakes and hopefully better ourselves and relations to those around us in the upcoming new year.

Miscommunication seems to me my biggest personal foible of the last year. And when my agenda runs contrary to those I work with regularly, feelings tend to get hurt and no good can come of that. (My own selfishness and insensitivity rank up there high on that list as well, and these are all issues I have to deal with as well.)

With that in mind, here’s a window into my thought processes, so that everybody around me will better understand my decision making process, in regards to music making locally here in Austin.

If you see my onstage in my own hometown, then you are looking at someone practicing for a gig somewhere else. I have established a working reputation as a first call tuba player and string bassist, so I need to keep my performance chops up and sharp as I will be playing nationally and internationally with some pretty heavy cats on a regular basis. Austin is a great town to be from, but it’s not where a professional plys his trade. The places where my labors are rewarded are very far from here in fact. “A prophet is without honor in his own hometown” to paraphrase the Christian bible. The famed Taraf de Haidouks, having toured the world for nearly a decade, played their very first concert in their native Romania only last year. My own Bad Livers were a headlining draw in Toronto and Chicago before we got our first press clipping in the Austin Chronicle. Ultimately, being from Austin has far more value than being in Austin, as any touring musician can attest.

Ridgetop Syncopators

If you see me with anything other than a bass or a tuba in my hands, then you are looking at someone basically pursuing a hobby. I will share with you a little secret that I've never told anyone. Many years ago, when I was touring with Bad Livers as a duo, my partner Danny Barnes become unable to sing. Up to that point I had learned how to sing back up and how to talk to an audience, but I didn’t have the skills to lead a show by myself. I was deeply humiliated by the experience, which had happened on more than one occasion and in different musical settings. I vowed that I would never be in that position again, and set about to start my own ban which eventually became the Ridgetop Syncopators. Here it is years later and all my stated goals have been achieved. I can front any gig that comes my way playing a variety of instruments. I’ve since been hired to front other peoples bands, play banjo in Veracruz, and most surprising of all, take the Syncopators to the Kennedy Center, and the Calgary and Winnepeg Folk Festivals. Pretty darn amazing achievements given the original context of the project. For the record, as its mission as been accomplished, I have literally no plans that group. I am taking the dates as they come to me however.

Any gig out of town beats any gig in Austin. This should be obvious. Not getting a crowd in town? That’s because this market is over saturated. I’d rather play a gig in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, or hell even La Grange, than at any of the “hip” Austin venues as it creates actual traction and gets your project down the road. Additionally, if someone doesn’t want to tour, they are telling you essentially that they are not interested in music making as a career, which is fine for someone who just wants to kick around town playing music as way to blow off steam and have a little fun. Austin is filled to brim with these people in fact. However you’d do well to avoid them if you wish to prosper in music making. Truth is, there’s more than one bandleader I know who pays great money and is coming up on the industry radar simply by never playing in Austin, and concentrating only playing where people actually pay money for music.

All bets are off when it comes to friends. There’s a maxim among the jazz musicians I work with in NYC use when deciding if they’ll take a gig or not. They call it the Gig Triangle. (It was even written about in Bass Player magazine recently.) On any date offered you have three major factors: the quality of the music being made, the amount of money being paid and then what we call the “hang;” best described as the joy one has with being around one’s friends. The theory is that you got to have at least 2 factors in the positive to do any gig. Therefore, if the music is inspiring and the folks are great but the pay is light, that’s just fine. But no amount of money will get me onstage playing crappy tunes with people I have no respect for.

All bets are off when it comes to culture. Music is a vital aspect of many cultures, some I’ve even a member of. When a member of my community calls me up to ask if I can play a simcha, I’ll do everything I can to make the date. Not for free mind you, as your own people should be made to understand the real value of your service. But if you wish to count yourself as a member of your own community, you really should work to fulfill the role in which your music was meant to be played. This is also why you’ll see me singing Czech polkas at the Kolach Festival in Caldwell, or playing Polish dances at the Wiesczonski’s anniversary party in Tomball as well.


And when I tell you “Your band sucks.” I mean it with love. Seriously, I wouldn’t have told you anything if I didn’t admire you and think highly of you. I just don’t posses a gentle, or even diplomatic, nature try though I might.

Hopefully with my intentions displayed as transparently as I can, my actions will not be misunderstood or misconstrued in any way. That is my humble prayer.

As humans, we’ve all been designed as incredibly complex creatures capable of both the greatest goods as well as the foulest of evils and I’m as capable of both ends of that spectrum as any other. Hopefully with the kindness of my friends, my family and the charitable nature of my compatriots and co workers, we will all enter into a New Year filled with only happiness and prosperity, baruch Hashem.

Essay for Bass Player

On Stands now:

Celebrate Brooklyn & a day with Andy Statman

Celebrate Brooklyn, Prospect Park, July 15
“What’s to celebrate?” would be the logical question for a Texas boy like me, and why would a confirmed southerner be involved? Frank London would be the answer to all that and to be the low end of his house band of his ambitious “Yiddish Carnival” show the hook that gets me up there. His local tuba man can't make the gig and thus he must import one. The idea is to come in for a full day of rehearsals on the 13th, play the big gig the 15th, stick around a day or two to rehearse with Andy Statman and then jet away to a Klezmer Brass All Stars gig in far off rural Slovakia. The gig is a something of a complete blur, four hours in running time with 10 separate set ups. I'll be on all but 3 of the acts, so it's a long day for me.
I don’t screw up Adrianne Cooper’s 6/8 Afro-Cuban arrangement of an old Yiddish ballad too awful bad. I dug in deep to Cantor Jackie Mendelsonn’s khazones. Jackie had a heart attack not too long ago and it seems to have both have mellowed his bluster a bit and deepened his already deep, deep groove. I was sorry he only had 2 numbers. Wolf Krakowski *, along with his fine guitar slinger Jim Armenti, put in a solid set with me on the electric bass this time. (Thanks to Klezmatic's guitarist Boo Reiners.) I got to rock out a bit and even threw down some of my best one-drop as well, working hand in glove with drummer Roberto Rodriguez, who by the way I would like to work with more often. (I can't believe I just said that about a drummer.)

Me and Wolf backstage

Got to see Art Bailey’s new band, working in a more Romanian-Jewish bag, which I enjoyed greatly even if Art was still pale from a long bout with bronchitis.

After the daunting experience of rehearsal, I bowed out of the Fyvush Finkel set letting Jim Guttman, the far better sight-reader and a man better acquainted with Yiddish pit orchestra playing take the chair. (At the rehearsal, I get hopelessly lost in the chart of Fyvush's signature tune "Ihk Bin a Border by Mein Wife" and simply played down the tune from memory. After the rehearsal, Ian Finkel, Fyvush's son and musical director who really requires his own essay in so many ways, turns to me with his xylophone mallets menacingly close to my chest and says pointedly "I know what you are doing. And it's not going to work. You have to play what I wrote, OK?")

Both Jim and drummer Rodriguez have to read from these ridiculously long, old school theater charts that allows no room for page turning, or really even looking away from the notes for even a moment. Not a strong point for an Okie bred folk bassist. Robert was pissed that he hadn't thought of finding a sub and was thus presented with this sight:
The Finkel boys are in fine form and even when Fyvsh strays from the arrangement, Ian’s firm direction keeps the wheels on and the audience is unaware anything is amiss. Did I mention he's a virtuoso level xylophonist? No really, he is.

The Brothers Finkel

I get to sit out sets by the Klezmatics and my old pals the Klez Dispensers, but then it’s back on stage with a tuba this time for longer sets with Joanne Boarts, the Klezmer Brass All Stars and then the grand finale featuring a northern Brazilian drum ensemble, Maracatu NY. “A happening if ever there was one,” as Pete Socolow would say.

Here's a review of the event in the AARP on line magazine. Here's some Flikr pics I found online as well.

Not but 10 minutes after the final note and the threatened rain appears, scattering the crowd back to their homes. These Yankees do not linger around much I’ve come to find. They not big on moseying as well. If you get any socialization, the “hang” as we musicians call it, you’ll get it on the gig or the rehearsal. In my lifestyle, the gig is simply the part of the day that we musicians happen to be onstage; a day filled with hang, drinking, eating and basically talking shit and stuff. These folks up here seem to be all business, in and out and away to someplace else, all in the time it takes a bumpkin like me to pack up my gear. It was an odd tribe that settled here I guess, though I'll reckon they get more done in their day. I'll wager I may have a better time at it all myself.

Though I must say Mr. London is the exception to this rule. Noting the 4 hours of after gig jamming, ping pong playing and drinking that occurred at his pad after his set with a ethno-Jazz ensemble down the street at Mo Pitkins. There is a reason I think we get along so well, and this idea of musical relationships that flow over the obvious commercial motivations and leak over into the expression of every day lifestyle is one I can readily relate to. To my mind, we in the arts are never compensated enough for the REAL work that goes into our craft, so you better be having a good time while you are toiling. Otherwise, you might as well consign yourself to grinding out an increasingly meaningless existence tied to a cubicle somewhere. There you will find the financial and social security that that sort of labor engenders, but possibly devoid of the life experiences that give one a story worth telling. A conundrum at best, especially given the fact that I will return to Texas quite a bit shy of my mortgage payment, much less the electric bill. Sigh..

No matter, the next day find me rehearsing the with amazing Andy Statman. I wish to go on record here and state that I want this gig. Bad.
In Andy's music I have the first chance to fully express the totality of my musical experiences up to this point. To put not too fine a point on it, he is simply the best Jewish clarinetist working today and the finest Bluegrass mandolinist I have ever heard. Period. Heap on that wonderful original material, a genius level drummer-percussionist (Larry Eagle) and a really great cat to hang out with and you have the total package. And to put it as modestly as I can, I am simply the right man for this gig.

The fact that Andy is roundly ignored in the "klezmer" scene is your best example for why those folks are for the most part are completely and utterly full of horse shit. In many ways Andy's personal return of the music of his youth, he was a star pupil of Dave Tarras after all, was responsible for the whole "revival" scene years ago. (What were you doing in 1977 when Andy released his "Klezmer Music" LP on Shanachie with Zev, now Doud, he's a Muslim these days, Feldman?) No one on the "scene" can begin to touch his yikhes and I guess he's cut out of the spot light simply out of the obvious embarrassment.

I would think that Andy's inability to suffer poor musicianship presented as "folk"style and the whole cloth, made up "fakelore" of 99% of Klezmer theory (both staggeringly rampant in upper echelons the so-called Klezmer community) has placed him firmly on the outside. And guess what? Like he gives a damn. In other words, my kind of people.

So I wait for Andy to arrive at the little schul in the West Village where he plays regularly. Larry is running late, so Andy pulls back some tables in the basement, sets up his axes and then dives into an original number. He leaps into his music with the sort of two fisted, take no prisoners confidence that I have yet encountered amongst the Yankees. It was the sort of approch I was introduced to originally as a kid playing bluegrass back in Oklahoma, that I honed on the stages of honky tonks across Texas and that same hair-standing-up-on-the-back-of-your-neck kind of sound that I find in New Orleans and Serbian Gypsy brass bands and in Romanian Tarafs today. In other words, I am home.

My first show with the Andy Statman band is at the Lincoln Center in NYC, the evening of August 19th. (I turn 41 the day before, quite a Birthday gift.) We play again the following night, with special guest Ricky Skaggs, at Congregation Derech Amuno. Hopefully the first of many more to come.

* It is with great sadness that I report the passing of Wolf’s mother just a few day later.