Beautiful Bass (not the fish)

I've been a bassist for 40 years. I've played with some really fine musicians and consider myself pretty good. I've played bass in most styles of music that use a bass. Everything from classical to country. I'm a decent soloist, but it is definitely not my strong suit. Ive seen people like Victor Wooten and Steve Bailey solo with the whatever ensembles they are playing with and been blown away. In the last few years there has been a growing number of solo bassists. They perform on stage as soloists with no backup. They play on everything from 4 to 12 (and more) string basses. There is a fairly large community of them. I've heard quite a few but I haven't heard anyone better than Jeff Schmidt. I found him on the internet while searching for websites where I could put my own music for download. There was no information on him at that particular website, just his music. At first I thought he was playing guitar in some sort of different tuning. I found his home website after a Google search. That's when I found out he is a bassist. Wow. My first thought? "I'm never playing the bass again." I listened and watched his video clips for perhaps an hour. I literally had tears in my eyes and chills down my spine. This guy is brilliant, a true master of his instrument. I watched him do things with a bass that I never would have thought of. He plays left handed and upside down. Jimi Hendrix played his guitar the same way. Solo bassists remain fairly obscure. It may not be the kind of music you are interested in, but you really should check out Jeffs website to see someone who has spent a huge amount of his life in mastering his art.

I am continually amazed by how many great musicians there are to be discovered on the internet.