Bob's Bass Corner

List is long, huh? We've got giants, past and present, on the electric and acoustic bass, giants like Charles Mingus to Chuck Rainey to Jaco Pastorius to James Jamerson to Tom Kennedy to Victor Bailey to Willie Dixon to Ray Brown to Jerry Jemmott to Bob Babbitt to -- the one who might be king of them all, the illustrious, delicious, space making, thunderous, balls to the wall -- Max Bennett.

At 80 something -- aw, Hell's bells! Age has nothing to do with this monster. The man PLAYS and plays better and harder than many three times less his physical age. To me, he sounds like an energetic teen. And he's so relaxed! His study of Ray Brown surely must have impacted his ultra laid back style -- but he isn't laid back, see? He's driving the mother straight down your throat with ultra simplicity and space. One great example is on the Crusaders' "Street Life." Absolute perfection, as perfect as a Bob Babbitt session.These guys define perfection in my lowly opinion. I should 'a stayed in school....

Here's the rub -- I've only heard Max on certain records from around the middle 60's -- the records he recorded for the Monkees, Partridge Family, Zappa, Crusaders, Joni Mitchell, LA Express. However, they are absolute must hear, must study, pieces of perfection. In my opinion there's only a handful of bass players who ever achieve what I might consider perfection -- perfection being defined as "free from fault or defect." But Max's playing is way beyond that. I'm talking about the kind of musician Max is -- he's way out there, in the stratosphere, playing amongst the clouds for the angels. There's so much joy in his playing and he picks the music and musicians who can do the same thing to work and record with. One such CD is Max with guitarist Dan Carlin. WHERE DOES MAX FIND THESE GUYS? Carlin is exceptional guitarist! Larry Carlton contemporary styist but MAN!

Anyway, go out and FIND his recordings, sit back, and let this monster bass player take you away into the stratosphere and along the way, you'll find yourself laughing with joy.

I should stop myself here and now from commenting. But I can't. I just can't. I don't get whatsoever why anyone should win this or any other award for doing and sounding like hundreds of other acts complete with all the vocal effects and same exact beats and same entourage of dancers and idiot melodies which are just monotones. Any real advances in music who might get a Grammy are completely marginalized -- jazz, classical, folk, ethic, etc. Grammys are all about selling products and corporations have tyrannically oblitherated choices based upon which cookie cutter act sells the most Coca Cola or something. So, we get garbage, sameness, uninspiring performances, nothing that stirs the soul, by a bunch of clowns in weird expensive clothing.

This isn't to say there isn't talent there. But where is it really? Hidden between lights, explosions and choreography of every one of these acts doing the exact same thing. Why are there awards from this? What makes any disctinction from one mundane boogie bootie crotch grabbing schtick to the other? The Grammys are nothing more than a steady parade of negroes all trying to pretend to be in outer space or something. Soulless tripe, bad for people across the boards. But the corporations won't relent. They've got their shareholders to please and they run our madhouse called "American popular culture."

I can sum up the entire, over hyped, overblown, raucous, predictable, crass CMA event thusly -- send in the clowns.

Truly there has never existed such a massive gathering of mass produced clowns than what is called "country music." Even hip-hop, as redundant as it is for the past 30 years, is far more original and vital than "country" music which is mass produced, everyone sound, behave like the act before him or her. Lauryn Hill's performance of late shows why hip-hop makes "country" music look stupid. Hill let it all hang out for no commercial interest. She let all her love and rage meet at the same time. A marvelous performance as great in it's own as to any Miles Davis performance. Hill is jazz. Country music is schtick. And the most self-agrandizing one at that, where mediocre talents, all squeaky clean white people only (a few druggies in the mix like my younger brother John Marcus of the Dancehall Doctors, the most neurotic mess you'd ever wanna meet who is a doper to end all dopers and a mediocre bass player at best who lucked into his gig because he's a joker, degrader and fool people by his overbearing social personality) and none have any originality I can see beyond being individuals. Seems there's some contest to find out who can be and sing and act just like some other act or singer or such who just walked off the stage.

Where country music was once about quality, refinement, taste, tradition, honor for one's fellows, sacrifice, living and dying, lost love, etc., is now mostly about being assholes about Jesus, machines like cars and trucks, guns, cowboy hats indoors, screaming, not listening, loafing, drunkeness, undressing women, women as sex objects strictly, men being emasculated by bulldyke type women in uniform -- this is today's vision for whites, apparently. The problem is one gets what one postulates. So, the suits of country music must be postulating a bulldyke militarism, military worship (the privatized military complete with private military contractors who get their jollies murdering unarmed peasants abroad in the name of honor, democracy or something, where men are marginalized, homosexuality is the new norm, women are reduced to sex objects strictly, drunkenness, weapons, murder of one's fellows for merely walking on one's bank owned property ... etc.

Aside of all that, every single country act looked like clowns. A nation of clowns, all mass produced by wealthy white elitists who are there to sell the idea being stupid, unemployed, lazy, drunk and queer are virtues and that you must suck it up and learn to love your lot. This message drilled into your skulls by the same handful of musicians who are making a killing playing nothing but major chords to a pre-programmed formula day after day, laughing all the way to the bank. They have nothing to do with these silly awards. They're the puppet masters. Puppet masters don't mix with the little people, see...?

 Partly because of what I have to say falls on deaf ears. The country is lost. Proof: Glenn Beck's March on Washington yesterday, bellowing about "honor, God," and, of course, the new "respect" for military as our people are used to massacre peasants abroad for nothing in return except lifetimes of pain, horror, nightmares, psychiatric "care" and wheelchairs. For the peasants abroad, lifetimes of misery, decimation to their farms, livestock, communities, as big corporations then move in to make everyone a McDonald's burger flipper. Such are the streets of Baghdad -- they look like any US suburb with Taco Bells, Burger Kings, WalMarts, etc. This is "democracy?" That's how the US sells it to its own via corporate media and charlatans like Glenn Beck who is the resurrection of Billy Sunday. Yawn.

Funny, Beck stood at the exact same place Martin Luther King, Jr. stood where King gave his "I Have a Dream" sermon. Funny, too, is how Beck, in calling King "a hero," neglected or purposely omitted all references to King's speeches against the Vietnam war. Against all war, actually. King spoke out against US imperialism. Beck glories in it via the ruse of "honor." Funnier is how Nashville music/political machine wratchets up all babble about militarism, soldiers, yada, yada, self reliance, yada yada, guns, step on "my" property (owned by a bank for sure) and I'll murder you, yada yada, ad nauseum. Without China made garbage, where would all these "self reliant" rednecks get the things to live in squalor? Like their beer, the sacred brew of Redneckia. Of ManipulatedLandia. Of Mind ControlledVille. You get the idea.

Let's babble God as Tea Partiers continue to rail against the poor and as they babble how the private sector is going to solve all the problems this nation faces. Because of "faith" and all that. Faith never brings about much. Action does. So does doing. So do the decisions to act proir. Above all, the willingness to help. Beck didn't talk about that. God only manifests in the things man does to help his neighbor, not in the things man destroys out of some madness over "we're right and you're wrong." We all survive together or none survive at all, really. And it is the artists and musicians who, once again, set the tone for things to come.

Look at Brad Pitt to understand. The guy is out there getting things done for people in New Orleans. He made the decision to help because he has the influence, the smarts, the compassion, and because he's an artist which is the dreamer of what is to be. The homes he helped get built are masterpieces of efficiency and don't straddle the poor with expensive appliances which serve to enslave people to their bills. His designs and materials actually PAY the homeowners in terms of electricity used. Wow! What a dream for this country, which slips further and further into decay, poverty, stupidity because of the Glenn Becks in this country. Billy Sunday never built a high efficiency house for anyone, did he? But he sure took money from the desperate, huh? There's Glenn Beck = Billy Sunday resurrected. Oh, well.

Point being, changes which much come about must begin with the artists deciding to push these ideas and dreams to the people. Music in particular is the fast track to the spirit. It's everyone else in their politico babble who gum everything up so nothing can get done properly.

1) Show up.

2) Have some decent equipment.

3) Be willing to listen intently to everything going on around to you determine what to play.

4) Play in a manner that compliments the others.

5) Drive that sucker home.

Let's break this down. No. 1 -- Show up. As Woody Allen so eloquently said, half of life is just showing up. What state one arrives in (stoned or sober) is another matter altogether. I've shown up both. Another story altogether. But show up!

No. 2 -- arrive with some equipment. Why else would one show up if not to play in a group? The ones who do who have no equipment are either singers or groupies or girl/boy friends who should be put to work carrying equipment for the players of instruments. I digress.... Bring equipment which can produce the proper sound you hear in your head for starters, but by which others can hear you, too. It isn't all about volume. Tone has everything to do with how you are heard and experienced. McCartney, for example, had a very deep but punchy and clear tone. One can hear every "pluck" of his strings and in the most full bodied way no one before him had ever sounded like. His sound, even on the old records, could nail you to a wall. In fact, as a sub-lesson, get some old Beatles records and listen to his bass. On that note, get some old 45 records from the 50's through the 60's and listen closely to the bass on good hi-fi equipment. Then, with your own stuff, work to approximate those sounds and styles. This will broaden your own repertoire or library of sounds and artists at your disposal. It's a pop thing, man. Being able to bring any bassist or artist to the table is a wonderful thing. Might not get you work, but it could be very satisfying when in create mode with others playing or writing material.

No. 3 -- be willing to listen to everything going on around you. Remember -- as the bass player, you're role is to make mud into gold. You must transform the ideas of the others and give them power, form, drive. Laying back is a great technique to give one enough space to allow the other players to express their ideas in at least four measures of music. Most popular music is in 4/4 time. Hopefully the people you're with aren't a bunch of "those guys" who "transcend time signatures" or some other ooga booga ... another way of saying "I can't count to four!" There are some masters at that, but one has to work up to that level in my opinion or have a God given ability to play free-form.

No. 4 -- play in a manner which compliments the others. "Laying back" is a technique whereby one is playing right along with everyone else, but by which one is more reserved about what one plays so as to allow one to listen closely to what goes on around to determine what to play. The greatest laid back bassist I have ever heard is Max Bennett (Crusaders, Zappa, Joni Mitchell). He basically plays on the "1" and "2 and" "4" with a superior eighth note feel which allows him to listen and respond accordingly.

No. 5 -- drive that sucker home. Bennett, playing on the "1" and "2 and" "4" of a measure in 4/4 gives the sound of "push" or "drive" especially playing with an eighth note feel. One can subdivide that up into 16th note riffs as appropriate along the lines of how drummers play fills which are traditionally at the end of a two or four bar phrase. Bennett plays very syncopated (definition: A shift of accent in a passage or composition that occurs when a normally weak beat is stressed). The other way to drive is what jazz musicians call playing "on top" of the beat." This is strictly the human quality regarding how one conceptualizes time in music. It's all about "feel" at this juncture. One either feels the time slightly ahead of the note, right on the note, or slightly behind the note. To really hear what "laying back" is all about, listen to Duke Ellington's horn sections play against the rhythm section -- the rhythm section plays very on top of the beat and the horns and soloists play very behind the beat. It's quite a feat to be able to have that much command over time. Guys like Little Richard in his original band understand and incorporated the best of Blues and Jazz, perhaps Elvis' original band did, too, especially D. J. Fontana, the drummer. Guy was a great jazz drummer or, if not, understand the styles which preceded rockabilly which always had a swing to it. That swing has virtually vanished from popular music but when a group can do it right, crowds continue to go wild or will at least stop drinking long enough to look up at you once in a while....

Well, that's pretty much it for the Bass Corner today. Let's hope you budding bassists will be able to get with others who can teach you about time or, in light of that, you'll bury yourselves into old Duke or Little Richard records and get that swing thing down. It's still the the thing which strikes at the core of a person's being ... especially young girls. They know instictively who's cookin' and who isn't.

 Anyone out there who reads my crap (all one of you ...) understand how the Mob had an iron fist on the music business in America? Early on in my formative years as bass player to many of the local and national groups who'd travel through the big hotels on Miami Beach during the late 60's and early 70's, I worked for the Mob. They controlled all the big hotels to include Fontainebleau, Doral, Marco Polo, Newport, Castaways and so on. But this was the waining days and things were changing. The Mob was losing control in Florida, a right-to-work state. None of the big hotel mobsters had control of the unions since one didn't have to belong to the union to find work. I was hired strictly on talent and not who I knew. Hell. I didn't know anyone, but I did come to know all sorts of "those guys" when I was coming up and working in the Mob's getaways like the Forge Restaurant on Miami Beach and Cy's Rivergate in Downtown Miami where I entertained such luminaries as Bob Hope to Lt. William Calley of the My Lai massacre (I swear I saw him eating a blood rare steak that night...).

The Mob's history in this country is utterly mindboggling. Their grip in our everyday lives is so pervasive, few have any concept of how deep. But it runs deep, folks. It is still entrenched in the music business in all the major cities, especially the Mob who pumps out their contrived "country" garbage into our society faster than a BP spills oil into the Gulf. And the latter is less harmful to less people, too.... I digress.

The Mob did, for many years, guarantee a certain level of quality which has all but disappeared at virtually every local level, and even the national level, too. The British Mob known as 19 Entertainment, Inc., for example, has made mediocrity a spectator sport and a lesson in bad politics for someone's profits via American Idol. This is the power of the Mob in our everyday lives with the help of other Mobsters called media corporations like Viacomm, News Corp., and the FCC. The difference is with these mobsters compared with mobsters of the past is there's less violent deaths. But there's deaths just the same manfesting as lost IQ, mediocrity as "great art," directionlessness as a culture and country, and a nation which has no singular identity which never existed anyway beyond certain points in our history during times of war. And even then....

Working for the Mob, I was able to watch the last of the best American had to offer and be a part of it as well. Despite the fact I had to belong to the union, we still had to pay a little kickback to the club manager to guarantee our gig in a right-to-work state of Florida. But the money was great, the talent was spectacular, the girls were most accommodating, the drinks poured like fountains, the dope was the best -- it was Goodfellas, man!

But the musicians worked and we worked hard. We were always on call, all day, all night, 24/7 and seven days a week to entertain anyone we were told to. We always had to enter and exit through the kitchens. We were never allowed to mix with the audience during working hours which consisted, really, of about six hours a night, six nights a week, two shows nightly. We dressed to the teeth (and had to buy our clothes as we were mandated, no matter how costly or how ridiculous looking). We had big burly tough guys watching over us like hawks to ensure we were always on time, ready to go and sober enough to do our gigs right. Trust me when I tell you some of the entertainers who got up on stage were so blitzed on booze and drugs, in any other circumstance they'd be passed out somewhere. But these guys performed, performed hard, performed great -- guys like Sam Butera and his band The Witnesses, O.C. Smith, The Miracles of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, etc. I don't know how these guys held it together being so smashed on stage, but they did. Me, neither, for all that's worth under the same circumstances.

But the Mob made men out of us all. Even the women performers like The Shirelles. These were tough babes, hardened by years of being on the road. But they were great when they hit the stage. The Mob guaranteed that. They didn't care if you were hurting. You'd hurt more if you didn't get up there and do your thing properly.

The new mob -- Wall Street, Clinton, Bush and Obama governments, big energy, GM, AIG, et al, doesn't bother with the entertainment business too much now days beyond the aforementioned. We all know where there's vast amounts of money to be made, there you will find the Mob. The trends now are towards the cheapest labor possible. Quality suffers. The quality of American art and music have deteriorated so markedly, there is no pop market anymore to speak of. Hence there's no leadership, no identity, nothing being dreamed of any consequence for the people of this nation. This is "15 minutes of fame" by push and shove. Proof: Lady Ga-Ga. American Idol. How many Idols are there now? 120? This is hat act after hat act, all SCREAMING about how proud they are to be mundane and subservient to ideologies and liquor and illiteratacy and laziness. It's sex, sex, undress, sex, sex, children and "values" which no one in the real world, especially at the corporate level, shares whatsoever beyond showing up at church and finger pointing at your neighbor.

No, the Mob influence might have been actually good for America duriing its heyday. There were standards. There was quality. There was hard work. There was achievement as long as one played ball. The real destruction came about through drugs, especially cocaine. That became the center of people's lives. And this is another topic for another time -- how drugs destroyed our civilization and the great culture which was America. It's never been the same since and America will never recover, I'm afraid. But have a nice day....

 19 Entertainment, a private corporation from Britain, decided after success with their American Idol show over there to import it here complete with a non-talent named Simon Cowell whose sole purpose is to sit in judgement of Americans. Realize Britain hasn't produced a major talent since, perhaps, the Rolling Stones. But Cowell, an admitted non talent, is allowed to invade our airwaves (Sharon Osborne, too, another non-talent Brit who has been allowed to invade our airspace) and judge Americans on their talent.

Now, let's look at Americal Idol and certain aspects. First, the contestants for the most part are amateurs thrust into the spotlight and mandated to do material few if any are familiar with, much less identify with. Naturally most are gonna suck on "Sinatra night" or "Elton John" night because few, if any, are trained in those genres or have studied these people and their art. And yet here sits Cowell and the other assholes in judgement of people way out of their league. Recipe for failure.

Then there's the audience who wouldn't know good music if it came up and bit 'em on the ass. This show is basically a repackaged Miss America contest where the prettiest (beauty being in the eye of the beholder) gets the most votes for winking at the camera or something. And any audience person can vote over and over again. Just like in our own elections for political office ...!

Now, what does Ellen Degeneras have to do with art and music? What is the purpose of having her on as a judge? RATINGS, of course, because she's got a hit daytime TV show. 19 Entertainment doesn't give a crap about the talent (but does about non-talent given what is dragged out in front of us week after week). They only care about their pocketbooks and it is the American people who suffer this endless stream of super-hyped mediocrity.

Where there was any real talent, they've had their record contracts cancelled and have had to revert back to their former careers as dog catcher or short order cooks. Take the case of Taylor Hicks, the one winner who had his contract cancelled by Sony, Inc. 19 Entertainment tried to make Hicks into some sort of SCREAMO gyrating fool just like every so-called musician we see in the mainstream. The fact is Hicks is rooted in some serious American music roots but the Brits are too arrogant and self serving to have worked to nurture that. He could have been the next Ray Charles, perhaps. Not exactly, but he could have had Ry Cooder produce the guy or T-Bone Burnett and he could have created an incredible body of work. Instead the popular music machine turned this guy into mud and threw him out into the streets. Once again real talent is mocked, shunned and tossed out in their ear. What is forwarded are folks who won a popularity contest which only translates into fresh meat for the corporate machine. And the winners will get their 15 minutes of fame until the next popularity contest winner is selected by what would otherwise be called voter fraud.

Where I see the real problem is the mediocrity. It doesn't get any more mediocre than Daughtery. Sheesh! Just bash, crash, screaming bald headed guy who is just some Bowflex guy crunching gut muscles as hard as he can as an act. Trust me, there isn't a shred of dynamics with this guy just like Nickelback (what does that even mean?) and the tens of hundreds of other similar acts all out to destroy their voices and eardrums (and yours in the process) in the shortest possible time. Brett Michaels should know. And now he's all messed up whereas Diana Krall ain't never gonna be messed up like that.

Perhaps the worst victims of 19 Entertainment's path of destruction of America are the women and girls who throw themselves at these mediocre talents based upon hormonal responses strictly and nothing else, which is a tragedy considering what America has produced in it's once world leading cultural and sociological past. Well, the latter is checkered, but it has resulted in the greatest output of art the world has ever seen. Women are being dumbed down in America and around the world. The trends in fashion for men must be to look like a slob or a refugee from a tattoo and body piercing parlor. I watch all these girls mouthing the words to these songs like they're in a hypnotic trance, and as if to actually block out the performer. None are listening. Perhaps for good reason. What is there to listen to?

19 Entertainment should be banned from our airwaves. Foreigners should be more concerned with their own countrymen rather than look to exploit ours for their pocketbooks.

 Anyone of my fans (all one) who wants to understand exactly where I'm coming from musically must watch the film "Standing in the Shadows of MoTown." That and listen to King Curtis records to include "Soul Serenade" and "Memphis Soul Stew." Just listening to the bass monster, the Groovemaster Jerry Jemmott's thundering funky, funky ultra and uber and joyous unto the Lord bass lines actually taught me how to play the Fender bass. Anyone who wants to learn the electric bass, lock yourself in a room with a record player and listen to "Memphis Soul Stew" over and over and over and over again until you cognite how the Fender bass is to be played! And, that's it!

All that being said at the end of the film where the Funk Bros. are being interviewed after dining at a fine restaurant and the question was raised about what each of these fellows listen to today?

The answer was astounding. Nothing. Most just watch TV rather than listen to today's so-called music. I'm with them 100% on that.

Not that there isn't interesting stuff being produced, because there is. I love some of the ambient music and electronic music because it's SMART POP writing and the sounds just take one away to other planets and universes. But they don't get me jumping and screaming out loud like good ol' soul music -- the music of my life. I've spoken with others, too, who've noticed that quality is utterly missing from today's music. Many have tried since MoTown to recreate those elations, those joys of complete creation and all have failed, even the Philly sound didn't get it. Probably because they didn't have James Jamerson or Benny Benjamin or Bob Babbitt or any of the other Funk Bros. Like Earl Van Dyke. These men were giants and their shoes have yet to be filled.

I guess I'm just a "forward, into the past" sort of a guy like Ry Cooder who delves into the past to create in the present. I guarantee those Bandmix hacks I mentioned earlier have never seen the film, know who the Funk Bros. are, have listened to (I say "listen" in the most extreme sense as in "study") MoTown's catalogue to any degree whatsoever, but they've all got their little natterfest community of the inane and mundane rather than spend their time STUDYING the thing they claim to be doing which includes lots and lots of listening, practicing, writing, reading, transcribing and BEING that voice. No, these folks don't remotely understand that and will never, ever arrive. That is what seperates out real musicians and artists from hacks.

I must be the hopeless romantic. I use Craigslist frequently to scope out and connect up with others in the musicians catagory. I am stopping short of calling them musicians because, factually, most aren't. They're hacks.

Now, what makes a hack. Conversely, what makes a musician? Well, we can rule out that someone who merely owns or possesses a musicial instrument. They're instrument owners. To play an instrument one has to learn something about it. Basic stuff like where and what the notes are all the way up and down. One should learn the language of music which exists on several levels -- written and, in modern times, forms written or known like Blues forms which are the basis for modern Western and popular music. One must also know how to count -- simple stuff like 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and, and so on. And count these things in their correct time and space (also called tempo and pulse), the latter being perhaps the most misunderstood concept as evidenced by the utter lack of musicianship at the local level.

Then there's the no. 1 reason hacks are hacks -- they don't listen nor know how to listen. Yet this is as basic to life as breathing. One might ask, "Well, how do you do that?" My answer -- first, SHUT THE HELL UP, AND LISTEN! Completely! To everything without a shred of interruption. Then one will KNOW what is going on. Call it the Zen approach or whatever, it is a simplicity of simplicities which music actually is, far less complicated than any written or spoken language. Music is a language unto itself which requires one listen utterly and respond accordingly at the same time. It is a live artform. It involves living in the present -- something too many citizens of Earth look like they're doing but aren't really. Because of the joy factor, perhaps.

The creation of music is far different than other artforms with the exception of dance which is similar in that it takes place in the present and involves the present utterly. One has to really be there in the moment and in the structure and emotion of the piece in order to communicate effectively with it and within it. I always recommend to someone just learning to play a couple of things -- first, learn "Louie, Louie" by the Kingsmen, then listen to John Coltrane's "Live at the Village Gate" and work to figure out what is going on because there is all the logic there ever could be in that playing. One should come to the realization that what sounds like total chaos and cacophony and dissonance has actually come about by total LISTENING to each other and every single note played by each player. It is perhaps the extreme, but it is also the basic of basics, like the evolution of life put to music. Music is life. It must be played from a place of being there perceiving and nothing else. It does not come from tattoos, clothing, shaved heads, sunglasses and other extraneous superficialities. Although it is funner than Hell to doll oneself up when one has the other down pat. Then you're in what is called "show biznezz...." Yah-ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta-ta-tah.... Send in the men in lobster suits....