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.

The True State of Music

A few weeks ago I was browsing the musicians section on Craigslist when I happened to find Thomas Penders advertising for piano students and looking for work scoring music for film. Wow. Incredible talent. He is a classically trained composer and pianist from Holland. I spent an hour going through the pieces he has posted, both his own works and those of classical composers. His own works include preludes, fantasies, etudes, sonatas and concertos for piano and cello. Other works include chamber music, choral and orchestral pieces. The orchestral pieces are played using high end synthesizers and samplers so the sounds are sometimes a bit funky, but the music is fantastic. I got in touch via e-mail to express my appreciation for his work, and also to talk to him about how to present himself via the Internet. I am not an expert on the Internet (if I was, everyone would be reading my blog and buying my CD) but I do understand that how you present yourself is as important as your music. His website looks like it was created by someone in grade school. (Sorry Thomas. No offense intended to whoever did the work) The music however shines through. I intend to help him in any way that I can to get his music heard.

As I said at the beginning of the post I found him on Craigslist. I also like to follow the posts I find there by musicians complaining about playing in cover bands or playing their own music and having a hard time surviving or complaining about club owners that don't want to pay them for playing, or crying about this or that blah blah blah. I will sometimes respond by reminding them that the greatest musician in the history of Western Civilization (Mozart in my opinion) died a pauper and was buried in an un-marked grave. As I look at the current state of music in the world I realize that things haven't changed that much. The air waves are flooded with crap, great artists do TV commercials (Bob Dylan doing an ad for Victoria's Secret? What?) extraordinarily talented musicians live in obscurity. I know it's always been this way, but it really does seem to be worse these days. Rolling Stone ( a great magazine for political writing ) fills its' pages with articles on new bands that nobody will remember by the next issue. I understand that it is about selling CDs. It is also about sameness. Comparing one band I've never heard of to two other bands I've never heard of. Don't get me wrong, there are some talented people that make it. I finally heard some stuff by Amy Winehouse. Great voice and song writing. I figure she has a year or two before she overdoses on drugs, alcohol or both. In the mean time, God Bess You Thomas Penders.

Silk Road

Silk Road is a project that began about ten years ago. I began writing it after getting into using computers and samplers to write music. The eleven pieces were written over a two year period and used no live musicians. Just me and my gear in my studio. The project was inspired by my studies in World Music and Gamelan with American Composer Lou Harrison at San Jose State University. More about Lou in a future blog. The CD uses the Silk Road as a metaphor blending musical ideas from around the world in combination with more modern genres. The CD spent about a year on MP3.com and did quite well in the World Fusion category. It was also distributed in a small area in Northern California in music kiosks in Whole Foods Market locations. About two years ago I decided to re-record it using live musicians. I found some incredible musicians in the Bay Area including Shan Kenner on guitar, Ma Jie on Pipa (Chinese Lute), Nayo Ulloa on Andean Flute and Anne Hutcherson on Oboe and English Horn. I played Bass as well as keyboards. My wife Maria did the art work. I am looking forward to working with them on future projects. You can hear examples of Silk Road on my website at http://www.vincentflores.com/ The CD can be purchased at CD Baby. I hope you enjoy the music.