Meet 12 - Feb 2004

Date : 24th February 2003
Venue National School of the Arts, Braamfontein.
Attendance : 25
Apologies : Herbie Tsoaedi.

Martin opened by welcoming everyone in this first of our monthly meetings for 2003. He spoke about last year and how SABPC is growing. Also touched on some of the slower aspects, like people being part of the collective but not signing up as members. Martin then encouraged everyone to take up responsibility for the success of SABPC.
Martin brought our attention to the sad news about Martin Mitchelle (ex Rush Hour bass player). Martin is in hospital and is partially paralysed. He cannot speak, even though he can recognise people. Unfortunately he prefers not to be visited by many people. Martin then suggested that as SABPC we should send him a card of love and that seemed to be welcomed by all. Martin Simpson will visit him and let us know how he is doing.

Llewellyn John took over from Martin and welcomed new members. He also briefly looked back at 2002 and the different things we did as South African Bass Players. Llewellyn touched on how far the web-site has come, what a success networking has been, especially between professionals and less experienced bassists. How the exchange and flow of information is beginning to empower members. He then introduced Jason Green, who was to give a workshop on the Boss GT6B effects unit for the bass.

Jason Green, who is lecturing at the National School of the Arts, took over. By the way, it is through Jason that we can hold some of our meetings at NSA.

This was an informative workshop, especially for those who are into gadgets and are more experimental with sound. It was quite a quick glimpse into this “whole new bass world” unit. However, for one to really get into it, one would have to spend quite a bit of time with it. Jason suggested that we visit T.O.M.S.(That Other Music Shop) to try it out or visit him at the school and explore the Boss GT6B more.

Jason then took us through a few basses and amps from T.O.M.S., playing through each amp and explaining their individual sounds. At the end he invited everyone to try out the basses and amps. So the evening ended with a bit of playing and trying things out.

So this was our first meeting for 2003. We are looking forward to a great year of serious growth, not only in number but also in the impact we would like to make in the music industry.

The first S.A. Bass Players compilation CD is underway. We would like to release it before the end of this year.

We would be lying to say everyone in the industry has been excited by this SABPC initiative. We still come across those that see no point in this venture. Sadly, some of them are bass players. However, we are starting to see results in the line of networking, finding work through the internet and international interest from other bass and music bodies and musicians. We trust that other instrumentalists in South Africa will see a need for this structure and form theirs. All these smaller structures will eventually give birth to stronger ones, which will make our industry a manageable one and a united one.

Concord

Meet 13 - March 2003

 
Date : 24th March 2003
Venue Marshall Music
Woodmead.
Attendance : 12
Apologies : Concord, Kai, Llewellyn, Glenn and Lucas

Kerry started things rolling and suggested we have drinks and snacks at our meetings. Well received! She continued the drive for strings (4 Africa) and cv’s (for the website). 12 bassists were at the meeting and the question was asked – why should we join SABPC? Log on to Bassplayers.co.za and see why!

Kerry talked about “jam nights” at Country Pub in Kyalami (the old Sheilas & Roos) and at The Showcase on Sunday nights. Kerry will be playing at the new Barnyard Theater in Fourways from April 2nd, Kerry, as most of you know is a bassplayer.

Theo brought up a pertinent point : Service, or rather, lack of service at T.O.M.S. T.O.M.S. continues to sell top quality equipment and therefor cannot afford to let this stigma affect their business. The general consensus at this SABPC meeting was that they didn’t want to shop at T.O.M.S. anymore. The wake up call to T.O.M.S. should be that Andy McGibbons, Marshall Music etc are spoken of in glowing terms.

None of us would recommend to a student to shop at T.O.M.S. T.O.M.S. should heed this concern as, if they disregard it, they continue to harm their reputation.

Theo again brought up a point: What is it like going to a SABPC meeting and what should it be like? You can hang out with the great players and learn from their experience, however, Doggit said it would be better if there were more workshops etc. Yes!!!!! I suggested having a panel of players fielding questions from everyone about playing, licks, scales and experiences live and in the studio.

Nippy expressed the same sentiment but with more attention to detail. He suggested that that I do a workshop when we meet at Allenby on May 19th. Come and see what I plan to do – it will be a jam packed evening with a lot on show. We need to take the meetings to the next level. We must do it together. The next meeting will be back at NSA in Braamfontein on April 14th and Andy McGibbon’s Guitar World will be doing a presentation.

Thanks to the die-hards who made it to this meeting and many thanks to Dayne and Marshall Music for hosting us and enticing us with all their beautiful and glorious (and expensive) equipment and low end machinery!

Regards till next time
Graeme

Meet 14 - April 2003

South African Bass Players Collective – Events of Bass Evening 3 2003

Date : 14th April 2003
Venue N.S.A.
Braamfontein.
Attendance : 24
Apologies : Kerry Hiles, Graeme Currie, Concord, Glenn Veale and Danie Burger

21 Bassists Present: Theo Klassen, Doggit, Llewellyn John, Aggi De Aguiar, Martin Simpson, Dave Askes, Bert Askes, Mando Silva, Barry Irwin, Frank Pantland, Quinn Hawley, Ashley van Wyk, Roland Westgate, Luis Cardoso, Steve Crozet, Trevor Muller, Gito, Jason Green, Nick Cook, Dylan van Zyl and Johan Joubert

A phone call from Graeme in the afternoon telling me he was suffering from burn out came as a great blow. In one shot we had lost our minutes taker and photographer for the evening. I picked myself up off the floor and nominated myself as the evening’s minutes taker and a quick call to Theo and we had a replacement chairman of the evening. Theo took to the task with his usual professional eloquence and you’d never believe he was tackling the task for the first time.
Theo kicked things off and chatted to us for a few minutes about some issues we had discussed at Marshall Music three weeks previously. Theo thanked Jason Green for once again supplying the facilities and made mention of the snacks that Andy had brought to the meet – this was one of the subjects we had spoken about last month.
Jason came forward and made an announcement about the Rock School Syllabus and mentioned that it was quite an easy course. They’re looking for 100 – 200 students to make it a viable venture- the good thing is that the certificate is recognised overseas. The Festival of Fame was also mentioned. N.S.A. is putting on a Battle of The Bands competition and the winning band will get 2 days in the NSA recording studio and will open for Cutting Jade at a gig – no more than 16 bands will be allowed to take part in the competition.
Theo continued, reminding us about the facility of a website link with Bassplayers.co.za He mentioned that we need bio’s and pics for the site and also mentioned the subject of workshops and recitals etc etc at Bass Evenings. Have your say on the website about what YOU want out of the club. Theo brought up the subject of subscriptions (at the moment it’s R300 per annum) to enable us to get more things done. Snacks were mentioned again – we need more subs to enable us to provide snacks. Gito mentioned that he’s in favour of a higher fee. Barry mentioned that we should co-ordinate the mags with the meetings, advertising forthcoming events, which was well received. Theo mentioned that musos other than bassists should get involved in our meetings to open up the focus. The bottom line is that funds are needed. We must put the question on the website to ask people how they feel about an increase in funds, also to let people see what the value is in joining the club and what we can achieve with more funds. Aggi spoke about young rock bassists feeling intimidated and not attending meetings. We need YOUR suggestions – we are trying our best to accommodate everybody. Aggi went on to say that the vast majority of bassists that come to his shop are females. Barry said the problem was exposure! Theo brought up the subject of bassplayers talking to each other and said he felt that the collective would eventually find its feet. A very good suggestion was made (by a drummer) to put the website address on the front cover of The Bottom Line. Aggi suggested advertising our bass evenings on the radio, which was well received.
Andy took over and thanked Theo and myself for the evening. He gave us a brief history of Guitar World and spoke about their narrow focus and the success it’s bringing. Andy would welcome letters of criticism about their service.
Barry Irwin gave us a very interesting chat about Fender basses and began demonstrating the gear that was on show. All the basses were played through the EBS set up. First up was a Fender P.bass that Barry put through its paces and next up was another Fender (the light blue one). Barry commended this bass and his talk about it led him logically to the sunburst Lakland that belongs to Roland Westgate. Barry mentioned that this was a serious axe and also spoke briefly about the EBS cab with its 13-ply construction. Barry then let rip on the Lakland and impressed us all. Up next was the Paul Reed Smith bass. Barry asked us what we thought the bass could be used for and pulled Llew up to play it through the EBS set up. Barry took over and played the PRS through the pedal board – awesome sound – awesome performance! The pedal sang! Incredible sounds were produced – and the fundamental bottom was still there throughout. Barry gave us a Reggae demo on the Paul Reed Smith and cooked! Up next was the Pedulla, owned by Steve Crozet. Barry gave us a talk about Pedullas before playing the bass. Steve got busy taking pics of Barry playing his bass – will we ever see them in these pages? I hope so!!!! Up next was the Brian Moore 5 string bass. Andy mentioned that Michael Tobias was involved in the design of this bass. Brian Moore is the ex design chief at Gibson. Barry mentioned to Gito that he’d probably enjoy playing this bass because of the high-end sound. Barry rocked out on the B.M. bass and sang its praises. Aggi’s Lakland bass was up next. Aggi tunes the bass BEAD. Barry talked us through this bass first before playing it. Barry sang the basses praise and put the bass through the octave pedal – the Earth shook below us. Barry then gave us a talk about which equipment we should be buying and who NOT to buy from – Uri, who owns a shop in Jan Smuts Ave was mentioned as being BAD NEWS.
Andy pointed out that the Hughes & Kettner set up was at the meet for the guys to check out. Barry closed by giving us a little story involving Gary Willis having to sell T-shirts every evening – a lesson to us all not to be too proud to stuff like that. Thanks Andy, Aggi and Barry for making the 14th of April one of the best (if not the best) bass evenings we’ve ever had – please don’t leave it too long before you come back.
Regards till next time
Martin

Meet 15 - May 2003

Date : 19th May 2003
Venue Allenby Campus.
Bramley.
Attendance : 23
Apologies : Martin Simpson
23 Bassists Present: Theo Klassen, Doggit, Llewellyn John, Dave Askes, Bert Askes, Quinn Hawley, Ashley van Wyk, Steve Crozet, Graham Green, Philip Raath, Kerry Hiles, Graeme Currie, Juan Smit, Christo Groenewald, Kai Horsthemke, Greg Moonsammy, Concorde Nkabinde, Michael Philips, Eugene Theron, Heath Cooper, Glen Haggis, Sylvester Majola & Danie Burger

Coffee and biscuits were a treat marvellous!
What a joy it was to see so many new faces! Welcome to Christo (Cape Town), Eugene, Gregory, Michael... hope to see you all again.

Graeme started the evening at 7:30 by welcoming everyone to Allenby and had a gentle gripe about the evening's potential entertainment being a "conflict of interests" initially, an AMPEG display and Graeme's Honours recital were on the cards, but then a TOMS gear expo was also planned, as well as a recital by Kai and Doggit all on the same evening. Discussions ensued and it was decided amongst those present that there is time enough for everyone to "do their thing" throughout the year. It was also emphasised that COMMUNICATION between various parties is the key to success. The greatest communication tool the bass club has is the website and a quick survey proved encouraging, with most of those in the room regularly checking www.bassplayers.co.za for news/gig info/gear details.

TOMS' expo was postponed and Global Music was unable to provide AMPEG gear due to inventory and budget dealings (despite ample forewarning), so Doggit and Kai were left to entertain. And entertain they did! A two bass project, started to provide inexpensive live music at a 50th birthday party, that sees Kai on 5 string fretless Samick and Doggit on his Pedulla 5 string fretted sing through songs that they have each penned or freshly arranged. Adam's Apples (Doggit), arrangement by Kai of Claud Debussy's Clare de Lune (originally arranged for a trio, but rearranged for two basses), Decadence Blues (Doggit as he says "it's nursery rhymish. Think of little girls on swings...with beers in their hands!"), and Wide Awake in Ullapool (Kai inspired by a family holiday in the Northern Scottish Highlands) featuring some fabulous slap chordy groove thing by Doggit left us all begging for an encore. Kai's Heartland (dedicated to the memory of Alan Hunter and Martin Mitchell) was the piece chosen what a fitting ending. Well done, you marvellous musicians! A brief question and answer session followed.

Graeme applauded the diversity of talent and musical background present amongst all the players in the room and stressed the importance of exploring these differences at future meetings. Newcomer, Christo, suggested that demonstrations not necessarily be limited to the once monthly meetings, but that it might be possible to host a demonstration in the comfort of one's home, for example, every second week. Doggit raised the question of which channel does one use to ask people for demonstrations? This sparked a barrage of demonstration suggestions: tone and how to get it, fretless workshop, slap workshop, upright workshop, metal workshop...and that all attending should be encouraged to bring their basses along. Concorde reminded everyone that a committee has been selected to deal with the allocation of subjects to cover all aspects and accommodate everyone, whether giving or receiving demonstrations.
A related topic: please get your biographies in to the website ASAP as this will allow everyone else to know what your strong points are and whether or not you'd be in demand to give a demonstration. This means signing up as a member and paying your membership fee of R300pa, or entering competitions and winning your annual membership!

Concern over potentially brutal editing by the new Bottom Line editor, Julian, was expressed as most people feel that the appeal of the mag is that anyone can contribute anything at anytime. Others felt it was time to edit judiciously as certain articles were getting too long to maintain interest. The point was raised that the editor should, wherever possible, attend the monthly meetings, and that there should be an article on whoever is gracing the cover of the magazine. If anyone has subsequently read the first page, you will see that "this month's...next month's...and July's cover artist have already been interviewed...so it's really just 'catch up time'".

More topics covered: Have we alienated upright players? Please think about this. And how to cure it if that is the case.
Also, everyone needs to get more actively involved in the bass club! If you don't know when the next meet is ask. If you want other people to get involved tell them what's happening. Again COMMUNICATION IS THE KEY! Newcomer, Gregory, has access to a call centre so will be mass emailing, sms ing and calling all members of the club in future. Thank you for this very kind and useful offer.

Remember 21st July @ NSA. 7pm. See you there!
Kerry Hiles.

Meet 16 - Jun 2003

 
Date : 23rd June 2003
Pretoria Technikon.
Attendance : 16
Apologies : Kai, Llewellyn, Concord, Andre Abrahamse, Graeme Currie and Kerry Hiles

12 Bassists Present: Theo Klassen, Doggit, Dave Askes, Bert Askes, Eugene Theron, Martin Simpson, Nippy Cripwell, Mark Duby, Johan Kruger, Lowell Jeffery, Christiaan Lombard & Rossouw van Aarde

Moday, 23rd June saw 7 Joburg bassists make the trek north to the second bass evening held at the Pretoria Tech. Marc Duby warmly welcomed us all and we took our seats in the music room. Marc briefly informed his students about the collective and I got busy putting sets of newsletters together to give to the new faces while Theo took over from Marc and informed everyone of the Collective’s achievements to date. Marc began his presentation which was actually a continuation of his workshop that he started last year when we had our first meeting at the Tech. Marc’s presentation, which included sound snippets of the featured artist’s work was very interesting and it looked like everybody enjoyed it immensely. After about 70 minutes of talking, Marc wound up his very informative workshop and I gave the guys (and girl) a quick chat about coming back in November if they were interested in having us – all said they were and the new faces thanked me for the sets of newsletters that they were eagerly clutching. For the second time, we had no camera so we still haven’t had any pics taken of any of us in the music room, which is a very nicely designed room. Maybe we’ll have better luck when we return in November. Hopefully more people will make the trek up to Pretoria for our last meeting of the year and together we’ll make it the biggest bash of the year (like we did at last years November Bass Evening held at the National School of Arts Braamfontein) Nobody actually sat taking the minutes – we were all engrossed in Marc Duby’s presentation but these few lines basicly cover what went on.

Remember the date for our next Bass Evening 21st July @ NSA. 7pm. See you there!
Martin

Meet 17 - July 2003

 
Date : 21st July 2003
Venue : N.SA
Attendance : 14
Apologies : Graeme Currie, Kerry Hiles, Ashley van Wyk, Glenn Veale, Theo Klassen, Lowell Jeffery and Fred Hayward

11 Bassists Present: Martin Simpson, Johan Kruger, Concord Nkabinde, Kai Horsthemke, Dawie Beukes, Dylan van Zyl, Phillip Raath, Danie Burger, Jason Green, Heath Cooper and Quinn Hawley - Martin had to leave earlier.

It is great to see that even in winter the bass spirit still prevails. I guess, with the kind of motivation that we get from these meetings, one can’t help but come back for more. For those that have not yet made their way to these meetings, you are missing out. The meetings are not formal at all and yet we walk out with something to think about or to take home and practise. So I would like to encourage you to come along and develop yourself and others. Come and enlighten yourself as to what other bass players are doing.

Even though Martin had to leave early, he came early to distribute the newsletter and to see that the meeting kicks off smoothly. Thanks mate.

We had a special visit by Ben from T.O.M.S. (That other music shop). Quite a gentleman he is. Basically, Ben introduced us to T.O.M.S. in a fresh way that made us realise that it is more than just ‘that other music shop’. For those of us who had not been to T.O.M.S. for a long time, it was time to re-connect with a store that has been an import part of this industry for a very long time.
Ben talked about their instalment system of payment and how it works. He also spoke about the vision they have for development of the music industry. Finally, he asked us to fill out a questionnaire on what gear we use and what we would like them to offer.
T.O.M.S. also provided refreshments for the evening. Thanks guys.

Jason then took over, and demonstrated some gear from T.O.M.S. There were a few amps (SWR & Roland). There were also a number of Ibanez bass guitars. We had a great time trying them out and even had a bit of a jam session.
Jason also introduced us to some books that cover many aspects of bass playing and music in general. These books are imported into S.A. by Betsie Pretorius.
Jason then handed things over to Betsie Pretorius, who briefed us on her involvement with importing music books through EDUMUSIC. Basically, through Betsie you can order any music book and she can get it for you. The world is indeed getting smaller. She can be reached at edumusic@icon.co.za. You can also visit www.edumusic.co.za

Concord introduced & played his newly released CD : CONCORD – “The time, the season” and 5 copies were bought on the spot. Apart from the local CD outlets, this CD can be purchased on the internet from www.oneworld.co.za

This was yet another great meeting. Do pop in next time to enjoy & learn with us.

Meet 18 - July 2003

Some pics taken on the evening

Meet 19 - September 2003

Some pics from the event...

Meet 20 - October 2003

 
Date : 27th October 2003
Global Music (Yamaha)
Illovo centre JHB
Attendance : 30
Apologies : Kai Horsthemke, Dave Askes,
Trevor Muller

14 Bassists Present: Martin Simpson, Carlo Mombelli, Steve Crozet, Ashley van Wyk, Hendrick Rust, Lenny Padyachee, Graeme Currie, Anthea Buys, Doggit, Lionel Naidoo, Mervin Naidoo, Glen Haggis, Nippy Cripwell and Quinn Hawley

Mike Hardy Brown welcomed all Bass Players and hopes we can continue this relationship into the future by having workshops at their venue. Mike and his staff showed their hospitality by providing soft drinks and snacks to everyone’s delight. Being in a music store provided an additional delight with an abundance of musical equipment. Yours truly, G.C. , thanked Mike, his staff and Yamaha for their courtesy and hospitality. Global Music is very committed to music and the musician and sponsor and promote music through their brands; those being Yamaha (guitars, basses, keyboards, brass, drums & percussion) Ampeg amps, Crate amps, studio gear and P.A. systems.
I then introduced Carlo Mombelli who was this month’s workshop clinician and warm host, while Martin Simpson, his usual self, distributing the current issue of The Bottom Line, bustled about in the background. Carlo “wowed” everyone with his alternative unique style and voice. He spoke with true passion – an absolute master and accomplished musician, Carlo’s knowledge is incredibly thorough yet simplistic and to try to reproduce his profound teachings and insight in this column would be redundant. Go to him for lessons!!!!!!
If you weren’t there, you missed out!!!! Absolutely, incredibly astounding. It was like meditation – a glimpse into man’s soul.

An Evening To Remember

The next meeting , a party on November 27th with DVD’s, video’s snacks & drinks and atmosphere, will bring to an end, an exciting and fulfilling year as regards the growth of S.A.B.P.C. Thanks to all who made the effort to attend the meetings (64 guys and gals this year – Martin)

Sincerely
G.C.

P.S. Thanks to Glenn Haggis who supplemented with extra photos as my camera ran out of film!!!!!
 

Meet 21 - Nov 2003, the Annual Christmas Gathering

Pics From out Christmas Gathering

Meet 22 - February 2004

Date : 23rd February 2004
School of Performing Arts
29 York rd Kensington
Attendance : 20
Apologies : Marc Duby, Theo Klassen, Concord Nkabinde, Kerry Blewett, Dennis LaLouette, Mario DeCamillis, Llewellyn John, Adrian Lay and Mark Wood

17 Bassists Present: Martin Simpson, Dave Askes, Bert Askes, Dawie Beukes, Roelof Beukes, Wesley Chetty, Jason Green, Kerry Hiles, Bruce McLachlan, Gito Baloi, Nick Cook, Kai Horsthemke, Graeme Currie, Doggit, Mervin Naidoo, Nippy Cripwell and Robbie Riebler

2 Guitarists Present: Gerrie Lubbe & Ralf Globisch

Twenty of us turned up for the first meet of the year (Gito’s friend, unfortunately, didn’t sign the makeshift register I handed out). The weather was pretty awful (actually, being English I was really enjoying it) and taking that into account, it was a great turn out. Graeme pitched up to take some pix (good lad) but couldn’t stay as he’d been on the go all day and needed to get something into his stomach desperately and get a bit of shut eye so he did what he came to do and disappeared into the stormy night!!! Kerry volunteered to take the minutes for the evening as I wasn’t really able to do so (good lass) and I got things underway around 19H30.

I ran through one or two minor things (blah blah blah) and told everyone about the guitarists putting their own club together and about an idea I had where we have a joint meeting with them later in the year – around June or July @ Allenby Campus in which we could have an evening of recitals – soloists, duets, trios etc. Some bands could come down and do their tunes ‘unplugged’ and if we really get ourselves organised, we could record the whole event and maybe use some of the performances on our bass compilation album.

Before I introduced Gerrie Lubbe to the guys, Jason asked if he could just say a few words and went on to remind us all that Johan Kruger is still making top quality basses – 4 string, 5 string, fretted or fretless whatever you desire – cost, of course, is dependant on what you want him to build for you. Jason went on to give us a quick chat about the Performing Arts Campus and the courses they offer – they teach up to N6 in Engineering but of course the music classes are what they’re all about. Jason certainly seems happier now that he’s left the National School of Arts!!!

Gerrie stepped up to the front (of the class?) and he proceeded to inform everyone of the S.A.G.P.A.’s (work it out for yourself what that stands for - Mart) objectives and thanked us for the inspiration we provided for him to attempt such a venture. Gerrie thanked me personally for taking an interest in what the guitarists are trying to achieve and for putting the first 3 issues of their newsletter together. The guitarists have had 3 meetings @ RAU (in the Electrical Eng dept) so far and will probably have their next 2 meets there, but Gerrie has shown an interest in also holding future meetings @ the Performing Arts Campus. Gerrie also spoke about the ‘Cross Polination’ that he hopes to nurture between S.A.B.P.C.& S.A.G.P.A. for our collective benefit. Gerrie mentioned that us Bassists probably have our own ideas about guitarists actually being musos and made a ‘tongue in cheek’ apology from his side.

I’d just like to mention here that Gerrie has attended the last four bass evenings we’ve held and has a genuine interest in us – hopefully we can reciprocate!

Kai began his ‘mini workshop’ on his own approach to fretless bass playing which was very well received by us all – what a muso!!! Kai said that it would be very subjective but even so, it was still a wonderful workshop – all those that didn’t turn up missed something very special. Kai went through some of his own tunes to show us the various techniques he employs and then we had a short question and answer session. Nippy told us of the beauty of the pure music you get from playing fretless instruments – all very informative stuff!!!!

Kai called me back up to the front to field questions about the state of the newsletter and the bass compilation album project that seems to be dragging on for too long now. I spoke briefly about the problems we’ve had putting The Bottom Line newsletter together recently and mentioned that Kai, Julian, myself and Graeme must sit down and have some heavy talks about the direction it’s going in and the irregularity of it’s publication. I also mentioned that the onus is on all of us to contribute something towards the rag and then it may be seen more regularly. Steve Crozet (my greatest critic) has made many a mention in various places that he’s fed up of reading so many articles by me, but without them, there wouldn’t have been a regular publication even when I was putting the newsletter together so everyone must get involved and stop looking at Julian as being the problem – the main problem is that I’ve stopped contributing so much material (to keep Steve happy) and now there’s not enough material each month to produce anything meaningful.

I informed everyone about the status of the bass album. Trevor Muller has recently put a track together for the project and Logan Byrne has sent a track up from Durban so the material is continuing to come in. We should be able to put it out this year.

I also spoke about the need to carry on with the Strings 4 Africa project – Kerry suggested we collect more than just strings for the next phase and this was well received by everyone present – so come along everyone, bring any old equipment as well as strings (straps, picks, fuzz boxes etc etc) that you’re not using anymore and we’ll find a good home for it.

Denny’s recently stolen six string bass was talked about – everyone is very concerned about it getting back to its rightful owner. Let’s be honest here – nobody in this country is going to play it as well as Denny can so it may as well be returned to him ASAP!!!

Till next time Happy Bassin’

Martin

Meet 23 - Early May 2004

Date : 3rd May 2004 Allenby Campus Bramley Attendance : 17 Apologies : Bert Askes & Kerry Hiles 17 Bassists Present: Martin Simpson, Dave Askes, Wesley Chetty, Bruce McLachlan, Kai Horsthemke, Graeme Currie, Nippy Cripwell, Victor Masondo, Gerrie Lubbe, Clarence Davidson, Johann Kruger, Chriselda Brits, Juan Brits, Colin Deacon, Bongani Madide, Quinn Hawley & Philip Raath After an extremely disapointing turnout of only five people at our last meeting in March at the School of The Performing Arts due to a major communication breakdown, the S.A.B.P.C. guys bounced right back and seventeen lucky people enjoyed a great evening at Allenby. Gito’s death hung over our heads and people wanted to talk about it but the atmosphere was still one of vibrance and togetherness and though I’m speaking for the other guys, I feel that Gito would have approved of this. We all arrived at Allenby by 7:15 and after quite a long chat session between old mates that hadn’t seen each other for a few months, Graeme got started with his presentation of site reading but not before we had a photo shoot of the guys with their basses. The S.A.B.P.C. members organised themselves for some shots that will appear on the front page of the website in the coming months (and hopefully, next year’s calendar) and we even got some non-members to participate in a group shot of their own. After the photo shoot it was time for Graeme’s presentation. As is usual with Graeme’s presentations, we all sat transfixed with his knowledge and the manner in which he shares it. As is becoming a custom, Nippy imparted some of his vast knowledge to everyone present – we’ll have to convince the man to do a presentation of his own one day!!!! Everyone got involved in the presentation, clapping out the beats that Big G chalked up on the board and in what seemed no time at all it was 8:45 and just enough time left for me to run over some subjects regarding the website and the lack of its use by the county’s bassists. Graeme brought along a card for Gito’s family that we all signed and I’ll take this along to next weeks guitarists meeting to aquire more signatures before handing it over to Erika. Our upcoming joint meeting of the South African Bass Players Collective and The South African Guitar Players Association on 23rd August at Allenby was spoken about in depth and Graeme suggested that we kick off the evening of recitals at 18H30 to enable us to get a full two and a half hours worth of entertainment laid on. We’re hoping that this will be just the start of many collaborations between the two clubs and will strengthen the bonds between us. All those people interested in taking part in the evening of recitals must let me know their full intentions (number of tunes they intend to perform – maximum of two - and their titles) before 11th August as a programme needs to be drawn up for the evening’s events. The Next meeting will be held at Pretoria Tech on May 31st where we will enjoy a presentation by Marc Duby. Directions to the venue will be posted on the S.A.B.P.C. website in the next few days. Till next time Happy Bassin’ Martin

Meet 24 - Late May 2004

Date : 31st May 2004
TUT Pretoria
Attendance : 14
Apologies : Graeme Currie,
Kai Horsthemke

14 Present: Martin Simpson, Wesley Chetty, Nippy Cripwell, Gerrie Lubbe, Johann Kruger, Concord Nkabinde, Jesse Mogale, Sizwe Magwaza, Pule Makona, Oupa Mlangeni, Lehlohondo Monangane, Dave Broido, Ernest Mothle & Marc Duby

We started with a photo session of Bassists with their basses, for the web-site. Thanks to Johann.

Welcoming by Concord Nkabinde

Gerrie Lubbe :Shared about the progress of The Guitar Players' Association. He spoke about the importance of interaction between the two ‘collectives’.
Learning from each other's worlds & perspectives -"cross pollination" he called it.
The idea of having one membership fee for both collectives was explored. Which means members of both collectives can benefit from both and attend meetings and workshops by both collectives.

Marc Duby: (Head of Dept. Music, Pretoria Tech) - Welcomed everybody to the Technikon.
Marc shared with the group about the Double Bass Department that has been started at Pretoria Technikon. That department is small but is surely growing.
He also talked about a few issues around difficulties with playing/owning/travelling with an upright bass.

Marc then introduced Ernest Mothle, who was guest speaker for the night. Ernest is also part of the new Double Bass Programme at the Technikon.
In introducing Ernest, Marc gave a bit of background on the Pretoria history of Jazz and what could have been, if segregation laws were not in place. Today we need to be grateful for the strides and sacrifices that have been made by musicians and other South Africans in dealing with those kind of policies.
This led to Marc talking about his connection with Ernest, years ago and briefly spoke of plans they together have.
I will get Ernest Mothle’s impressive biography, and we will put it on the web-site.

Ernest Mothle:
Ernest, who has a great deal of experience from working over-seas with some of the best jazz musicians of all time, shared with us difficulties of not being able to read music when working with musicians overseas. A number of South African musicians who went into exile years ago(of which Ernest was one of them) went through a lot of frustrations by not being able to speak a musical language that European musicians could understand. This limited them when it came to sharing our music with the rest of the world. Bra Ernest (as he is fondly known) spoke of great memories of playing with pianist Chris McGregor. Chris wrote Mbaqanga (South African traditional popular musical style) arrangements and he, Ernest, could not play them because he could not read music. He is concerned about the lack in development of reading skills, particularly among young musicians. Sharing this information and skill with young musicians is something he emphasized. If this is not done, then we are never going to effectively speak to the rest of the world about our lives, nor will we be able to analyse and learn from others’ experiences. These concerns have led Bra Ernest to initiate a programme of 3-months full-time camps for development of reading, harmony & improvisation skills. He will keep us posted as to the developments and how we can get involved.

Bra Ernest’s passion for music education opened an interesting discussion. Some the questions that came up were:
How do western influences, ways of writing & reading music affect the indigenous sound and it’s development. The young musos who are getting western-oriented type of training, are they missing out on ethnic/indigenous development? What is important for them to learn if they will be playing in American-type-jazz bands or R & B or Hip-Hop bands. Is formal training good or not? Is it relevant today to study towards a full degree? Does music education do anything for the muso?

We also had a lengthy discussion on sight reading - the importance of it, the set backs, the fears. He shared stories of musos who struggled overseas because they could not read. In some cases it resulted to frustrations that led to substance/alcohol abuse.

Whatever our thoughts and sentiments around these issues may have been, one point that came out strongly was that, the struggles of musicians of yesterday should give us lessons so that we don’t have to go through them again, at least not in the same way. We should focus and conquer the struggles of today. The process does not end there. It is our responsibility to ensure that the next generation is enlightened by our present struggles, so they as well can deal with challenges of their day. If todays musicians are still not able to confidently express and interact with the world, speak and understand the international musical language, then we are failing somehow, because these were the same struggles that limited our musicians 20 – 30 years ago.

Marc Duby then thanked Bra Ernest and thanked everyone for making an effort of coming to the meeting.

So these are the sort of discussions we have at these monthly meetings. Other times we have performances and workshops. We encourage everyone to come and bring suggestions as to what they would like to see happening in the South African Bass Players Collective.

Meet 25 - June 2004

  Date : 28th June 2004
School for the Performing Arts
Attendance : 13
Apologies : Theo Klassen, Dave Broido.

13 Present: Martin Simpson, Wesley Chetty, Nippy Cripwell, Gerrie Lubbe, Johann Kruger, Nick Cook, Chriselda Brits, Gerhard Kok, Adrian Lay, Greg Gibb, Glen Haggis, Steve Crozet, Sylvester Majola and Jason Green.

Just as the last two months, we started with a photo session of Bassists with their basses, for the web-site. Members only first and then a mix of members and possible members to be. Thanks to Johann once again for doing camera duty in Graeme’s absence.

Welcoming by Martin Simpson.
Points addressed were to let the people present know that there’s a ‘new kid on the block’ a local website for drummers – www.sadrummer.com - the brainchild of drummer, Rob Watson and Michelle Smith who works at Marshall Music. Check it out.
Mention was also made of the up-coming joint meet of bassists and guitarists for an evening of recitals at Allenby Campus on 23rd August.
Mention was also made of a workshop the following evening (June 29th) with Denny Lalouette and Neil Ettridge at Music Mate – Jason interjected here to say it would be nice to have joint bass and drums workshops on a regular basis on club nights and to encourage some jam sessions which it seems is what is happening overseas at the moment.
Martin also mentioned that the time is now upon us to say '‘no more submissions for the bass album project” otherwise it’s going to drag on endlessly.
Martin also requested that guys could do interviews of each other for the site and newsletter. He told everyone present that due to his untimely death, Gito wasn’t ‘captured’ for the website and newsletter so we’d better concern ourselves with interviewing each other during the time that’s left to each of us – yes, it’s a morbid subject but one that needs to be faced!!!
Finally, Martin requested that photos of local bassists be sent through to him for framing and putting into the galleries section of the website.

Martin handed the floor to the Green Machine, Jason Green

Jason immediately handed out music scores that no doubt scared the pants off of most of those present and proceeded with his presentation on walking basslines. After a short talk, Jason set the click on beats two and four and went through a short passage that was in most people’s grasp and then went on to demonstrate more complex walking patterns. Jason explained to those present that a lot of people play the various scales without fully realising exactly what each scale’s musical content is and that failing would show itself when someone who knows how to ascend is required to descend. Because many players don’t fully understand music theory they’re unable to descend through the various modes because they’re totally in the dark.
Jason then put a piece of music on with the bass part omitted and proceeded to play the written bass part along with the music – with a bass solo and a drum solo no less!!! The idea, other than to show the walking lines was to demonstrate that when taking a solo, the player still needs to follow the written part to know exactly where to go back into his part and also to follow the music through the drum solo even when he wasn’t actually playing so that he could return to the music in the right spot. Jason’s performance brought about a round of applause for his performance.
Jason gave us a little more of a talk and then proceeded to play his last performance of the evening which also brought out a round of applause.

Martin returned to the floor to thank Jason and to make mention of one point he’d forgotten to mention earlier. He asked if there was any interest in having a Chiropractor come along one evening (possibly in October) to give us a talk about how we must look after ourselves with correct posture and warming up exercises. Those present were very much in favour and Gerrie Lubbe suggested that we ask that same question on the website to be sure that we get a good turnout that evening which was agreed upon.

Adrian Lay came back for his first meeting since our very first meeting in February 2002 and brought with him a Victor Wooten video which he says we could all watch one evening if we organise ourselves a screen and video machine. This was a fine gesture indeed and if we receive enough requests to see the video, we’ll organise something. This may even set a president for more events of this nature to be carried out.

All those people who are interested in a Chiropractor coming along to a bass evening and to see the Victor Wooten video are urged to contact Martin to let him know their wishes and the evenings will be organised. After all, we’re here to give you what YOU want not what we say you’re going to get.

The evening ended at 21:15 and most of us went home to do a bit of woodshedding.

Meet 26 - July 2004

Date : 26th July 2004
RAU
Attendance : 12
Apologies : G.Currie, C. Mombelli.

12 Present: Martin Simpson, Wesley Chetty, Nippy Cripwell, Gerrie Lubbe, Johann Kruger, Greg Gibb, Anthea Buys, Philip Raath, Trevor Muller, Simon Marcus, Kai Horsthemke and Dave Askes

Tonight’s meeting was quickly re-scheduled after a blackout in the JHB area caused the meeting last Monday to be postponed. None of the twelve bassplayers in attendance were aware that South African bass legend Sipho Gumede had just died from lung cancer.

This was our first meeting at the venue where the South African Guitar Players Association’s Jo’burg branch hold their meetings and hopefully, it’ll be a venue that we come back to on another occasion.

It was nice to see Trevor Muller again after a long absence from bass evenings due to a gig he’s been holding down on a Monday evening. It was also nice to see Anthea Buys making her second appearance at a bass evening. The evening’s events got underway with a photo session which Martin and Johann organised . This went relatively well considering that the guys love to use this as an excuse to muck around.

Martin got up and did a quick presentation on the status of the Strings 4 Africa project. This project has recently been re-born thanks to a healthy donation of Elixir strings from Concord followed by a wonderful contribution from the late Gito Baloi’s wife Erika which has filled one and a half collection boxes. Martin went over the history of the project and brought everybody up to speed with what was happening. It’s hoped that we’ll make a donation to a worthy cause before the end of the year.

Martin handed the floor to Nippy who had agreed to do a workshop on sight reading. Nippy immediately made the point that it wasn’t exactly sight reading that he wanted to speak about but actually soaking up the geography of the chart in the 60 seconds before lauching into it.

Nippy handed us all some sheets that he’d printed for us and it was then that we realised that we were in for the ride of a lifetime. With the words 60 SECONDS TO GO, we were left in no doubt that this was going to be one of those workshops that we’ll file away in our brains and refer back to when the occasion demands.

The first thing Nippy went through was setting yourself up. A good music stand (as wide as possible) fixed at a height that allowed your bass and the music to be in your line of sight so that you didn’t have to continually lift your head – taking your eyes off the score, to be able to see the conductor. A pencil and eraser as well as a comfortable chair or stool were aslo essentials here.

Now, you have to understand, that only about a third of the guys (and girl) in the room could actually read but this wasn’t an obstacle in soaking up a lot of information.

Nippy went through the checklist of info that had to be soaked up in the 60 seconds before lift off. These included the key signature – Major or relative Minor. Time signature 2/4, 4/4, 12/8 etc etc. The feel /groove/genre – Funk, Latin, Rock etc etc and lastly, the geography of the score – which got pretty involved!!!!

Nippy went through the ‘Golden Rules’ which included playing from top to bottom, not stopping for anything, keeping the timing and groove, locking in with the drums, keeping it simple (STUPID) and grooving hard.

The grand finale was Never to look back, it’s too late – start checking out the next tune.

The most incredible thing about this workshop was that Nippy spoke shop to us in laymans terms and spiced the whole thing up with little snippets from his vast (and past) experience and all this was done without actually writing a note on the greenboard (ok, we did have music scores to follow) behind him and No Bass!!!!

All in all, this was a magical evening and it’s a pity that only 11 of us had the sheer furtune to be there to listen, but one thing’s for sure, we can’t leave things too long before we get Nippy back to give us another workshop. So many things he said made so much sense to all of us.

An evening to remember!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Meet 27 - August 2004

 
Date : 30th August 2004
Allenby Campus
Attendance : 30
Apologies : D.Broido, D.Lalouette

Present: Martin Simpson, Gerrie Lubbe, Johann Kruger, Greg Gibb, Philip Raath, Palesa Sibeko, Lereko Ntshona, Piers Steenkamp, Kai Horsthemke, Graeme Currie, Kerry Hiles, Doggit, Danie Burger, Nick Cook, Bevan Gauld, Barbs Kasl, Peter Ypenburg, Dawie Beukes, Luke v/d Merwe, George Hakim, Wade Williams, Marlise Botha, Jason Green & girlfriend, Judy Foxcroft, Dave Jenkins, Gary Potter, Colin Deacon, Mike Besseling and Dave Askes

The first joint meeting of the SABPC and the SAGPA, which actually took place a week later than originally scheduled, happened in the shape of a recital evening on 29th August 2004 at Allenby. The attendance was a little disappointing but the musos present were too eager to get the evening going to worry much about that. Proceedings began fairly close to the advertised time of 18h30, the changeovers from act to act were swift, and the whole (excellently organized) event finished well within the stipulated time frame of two and a half hours.

First up were the LNLs, featuring Gerrie Lubbe of SAGPA on guitar and vocal, backed by Marius Liebenberg on bass guitar and Martin Nel on drums. The opener, If I can change the world, set the tone for the set, a bluesy, Claptonesque affair (albeit with more chords) that showcased Gerrie’s Strat and high voice and also included versions of Before you accuse me and Sunshine of your Love.

SABPC’s Phil and Dawie were on next, on guitar and bass, backed by Martin Nel. The old guitar had a South African Ventures-type vibe, and Ressano Garcia was all Stratty reverberant surf-pop.

Going all-original was Kerry Hiles, on bass guitar and vocal, backed by fellow SABPC member Doggit on steel-string acoustic guitar and backing vocal. Bartholomew Street (dedicated to Kerry’s aunt and a Grahamstown street) and Lover’s Knot (featuring a swing feel and bass intro) were from Kerry’s recently-released mini album (or ‘quickie’), to which Doggit also made a substantial contribution. Kerry sings like she speaks (which is meant as a compliment!): effortlessly and naturally, with a voice that is reminiscent of Fairground Attraction’s Eddi Reader, with shades of Edie Brickell and Portishead’s Beth Gibbons. The lyrics are intelligent and the music is sunny. Responding to calls for more, Kerry rightly suggested that those interested purchase the album. (Which I did.)

Summersalt’s Bevan Gauld played his Gibson Les Paul over backing tracks (‘because the band couldn’t make it’). Boogie Solo was ‘old school’, while Hendrix Vibe (‘hopefully a newer kind of thing’) was conceptually closer to Satriani than to Hendrix.

After a blues jam, in which Martin Simpson, Gerrie Lubbe and Martin Nel were joined by Piers on harmonica, it was time for the first real bass feature. SABPC’s Martin Simpson presented The Quarterican, tapping his four-string (hence the title) bass that was ‘capoed’ with a hairband that acted as a string dampener, in this all-too-brief feature.

Officially last up were bassist, luthier and SABPC member Johann Kruger, who played his own fretless and fretted basses, and his Opportunity Band, featuring guitarist Luke van der Merwe (a personal favourite of mine for almost a decade now) and drummer George Hakim. Penned by Johann, Part B came first (clearly), sounding like Manfred Eicher had commissioned some left-of-centre spaghetti western music for his ECM label, and was followed by Part A (clearly), which was more reminiscent of Jeff Beck and featured some blistering interplay between the three musos. A thoroughly enjoyable set!

The evening ended with another blues jam, featuring Mike Besseling’s Tele work and fine vocal, backed by Marius Liebenberg and Martin Nel.

The evening’s events were recorded and it is possible that a CD will be made available in the near future, for those who are interested.

Bring on the next evening of this kind!
xx
Kai
 

Meet 28 - September 2004

Date : 27th September 2004
Global Music
Attendance : 17
Apologies : Kai, Concord & Graeme

Present: Martin Simpson, Gerrie Lubbe, Johann Kruger, Philip Raath, Kerry Hiles, Doggit, Trevor Muller, Glenn Haggis, Steve Crozet, Gerhard Kok, Denis Lalouette, Dylan Wassersall, Stephen van Heerden, Victor Masondo, Bryan (Global Music), Barry Turner and Dave Askes

Global Music Hosted a South African Bass Players Collective meeting for the second time and although the day (27th) was the same, the month was one short of a full year since Carlo wowed everybody with his in-depth talk on his practice regimen. Unfortunately only 17 people turned up this year and we’ll just have to wait and see if Global will be prepared to host another evening next year. Global Music showed their hospitality by providing soft drinks and pizzas to everyone’s delight. Being in a music store provided an additional delight with an abundance of musical equipment on display.

Victor arrived at the store around 19:45 having hurried across town from a recording session but having made his apologies, quickly got into tuning up his basses and sorting out his equipment so by 20:10 he was composed and ready to begin the workshop.

Vic had previously given us a workshop at the National School of Arts (Braamfontein) back in 2002 and kicked off this year’s workshop with his trusty TB 1000 four string which he also showed us at that previous workshop. You could see (and hear) immediately that Vic knows every nook and cranny of this bass and it was marvelous to see man and instrument blend into one musical organism. Vic demonstrated the importance of holding the bass at the correct height and at the correct angle to allow this merging of human being and stringed instrument to take place – too high (ala Mark King) and the blood circulation in the arms gets interrupted, too low (ala Duff McKagen of Guns & Roses) and certain notes become unreachable. Vic was full of juicy stories and went back to his beginner days when he played a Dia bass which he had to extract a decent sound from by getting extremely creative with his hands and it was this that started him on the road to depending on his own two hands to give him the tone he requires – even now!!!

After going through various fingerstyle techniques he got onto some serious slapping techniques using the left hand to produce three notes for each right hand slap and then reversing things where the right hand was doing the majority of the work. At this point, Vic quipped, “you get off the stage whilst you’re ahead”

Vic then got a pick and went through some local grooves high up the fretboard and had us laughing at his stories whilst executing some demonic picking sequences that he’s been asked to play in the past.

Vic put the four string bolt on necked instrument down, picked up his frettless 5 stringed beast and hit us with a completely different set of sounds and techniques which showed off his complete mastery of our chosen instrument.

Vic made two interesting statements. The first was that you don’t need to have callouses (or blisters, as he calls them) on your fingers to play bass – in fact his fingers are very soft and this helps to give him more idea of what’s happening when he’s playing. The second statement was that you can boil your strings in water once or twice to get the grunge to come off and give them a new lease of life. Our Mr. Kruger once wrote an article in which he said DO NOT boil your strings – sounds like just the right material for us to have a serious debate one evening!!!

By 21:15 the attendees thought he’d finished the workshop and gave him a round of applause to which he reacted, “would you like me to demonstrate the silent bass?” and off he went to fetch one that was standing by the door.

Off we went again with Vic showing us his double bass playing prowess and questions were being fired at him from all angles.

We finished off the evening with an informal chat between the various bassists and by 21:45 Vic and I were the last to leave Global Music.

Thanks again to Global Music for their hospitality and hopefully we’ll be invited back next year.
Martin
 

Meet 29 - October 2004

Date : 25th October 2004
The School for the Performing Arts
Attendance : 8
Apologies : Kai, Kerry & Graeme

Present: Martin Simpson, Concord Nkabinde, Jason Green, David Jenkins, Johannes van Heerden, Marcio De Brito, Carlos Benargo & Nick Cook

Tonight was a first for the SA Bass Collective. Our multi-talented Concord, not only took the minutes, but also took all but two of the pix. Is there no end to this man’s abilities?

Nippy actually popped along to the venue but couldn’t stay as he was on a tight schedule. He did however, renew his yearly subscription to the Bass Collective for a third term – Thanks for the support Nippy.

Martin

Martin Simpson opened the meeting and welcomed everybody. Martin spoke a bit on how we should not loose sight of the purposes of the collective because of lack of attendance in big numbers. He added that we should keep going and in due time more and more bass players will realize that their involvement will be beneficial for them, not only for the South African music industry but internationally as well. Through the website the collective has been receiving a lot of attention from bass players and musicians overseas. With cross-cultural collaborations taking place across the world, some people are looking at what is coming out of South Africa quite closely. We can’t afford not to step onto that world stage and be a part of the new move that is taking the world by storm. The website, through the biographies, contact details, photos, interviews, gig guide, etc. can help us to expose our creativity to the world.

Martin also spoke and reminded us about the STRINGS FOR AFRICA project, whereby we are collecting used and/or new strings so we can donate them to those that need them badly. In some of our neighbouring countries bass players are using wire or curtain hanging strings for their basses. We would like to help them with strings and your help will be valuable to them.

Martin then introduced Jason Green to us. Jason is the bass guitar lecturer at the School for the Performing Arts.

Jason gave a workshop on ways of approaching different styles of music as a bass player. This is a crucial issue but largely ignored by many. Some players think if they can play one style then they can play any other.
So Jason took a chord progression and used it for all different styles. He touched on ways of locking with the drummer’s bass drum in different contexts. He also talked about playing soft and hard, how that affects the sound.
Towards the end he touched on a few issues around professionalism. Why some players get called back again and again and other don’t.
He then invited us to come and jam with a drummer, Marcio De Brito, who also lectures at the same school with Jason. It was fun and interesting to experiment with all the different styles after discussion about them.

This was really an eye-opening session, for the students and the professionals. That is what the South African Bass Players’ Collective is all about, to learn and grow together. Everyone’s point of view is treated with respect and listened to. We trust that more bass players will get involved, have fun and learn.
Concord

Our final meet for the year will be Another first. It’ll be the first time that we have a gathering in the southern suburbs of Johannesburg. The meeting will be held at St.Pauls Church in Mulbarton and is another recital evening – this time with the focus being more on the bass than the guitar. Hope to see you all there – it’s going to be a very special evening so come along and enjoy the performances.
Martin

Meet 30 - November 2004 An evening @ St Pauls

When Martin first mentioned the 2004 year-end bass recital and that it was to take place at St Paul’s Church in Mulbarton, I had visions of approximately 13 members of the Bassplayers Collective sitting in a huge square room belonging to an architecturally dubious place of worship, of the kind that are usually reserved for after-service tea and biscuits, with dreadful acoustics, and applauding hesitantly, all the while thinking, ‘I could have done a better job of that tune’.

Come 29 November and the feeling of disquiet was enhanced by the dismal weather that had been troubling the Gauteng skies all day. Off I was, then, to what was sure to be one of the more forgettable gigs in South Africa’s recent cultural spectrum. Imagine my surprise, then, that the directions were accurate, St Paul’s turned out to be an attractive church conveying a feeling of ‘history’, there were a huge number of cars parked on the church grounds and even parking attendants present. I was sure I’d made a mistake and somehow managed to arrive at the wrong place. (So much for Martin’s directions.) I left my basses in the car and sceptically strolled up to the entrance of the building, where a teenager was welcoming visitors with a pamphlet advertising … no, not the order of service, which hymns were going to be sung etc, but the evening’s musical line-up! The young man also assured me that the venue was, indeed, the actual church, not the tea-&-biscuit chamber next door. And the place was rather generously populated, too.

What can I say? It turned out to be a delightful evening. The acoustics, onstage and inhouse sound were more than satisfactory, the audience was loud and appreciative (it actually did feel like ‘preaching to the converted’) – and the tea and biscuits at the halfway mark were very happening. I felt really warm and fuzzy inside, clapped and cheered – and no, listening to and digging Victor, Concord, Martin, Bert and Dave, I certainly couldn’t have done a better job of the tunes.

Kai Horsthemke

P.S. The evening’s events were recorded and a cd has been burnt. This cd will hopefully be made available once all the legal stuff concerning copyright and composer credits has been sorted out

Martin Simpson

Meet 31 - Feb 2005

Date : 21st February 2005
Time: 19h30
Venue: Global Music, Illovo, Johannesburg

Attendance 62 plus:
Sean Liebenberg, Stephen Liebenberg, Steve Crozet, David Houghton, Lionel Naidoo, Johannes van Heerden, Phil Raath, Arlyn Culwick, Quinn Hawley, Lex Futshane, Concord Nkabinde, Kerry Hiles, Doggit, Bruce Hyland, Denny Lallouette, Graeme Currie, Croje van Niekerk, Melissa, Glenn Haggis, Michelle Ohlhoff and husband, Dylan Wassersal, Kai Horsthemke, Jurgen Risse, Lucas Senyatso, Tlale Makhewe, Carlo Mombelli, Basil Byrne, Kate Hill, Anilia Reddy, Bruce McLachlan, Marcello Aramu, Peter Miller, Ike Onwuagbu, Elaine Michell, Cathrin Cumming, Roche Fecre, Darreth Fourie, Rob Farragher, Darryl DuPlooy, Gregory Oliver, Vaugh Michell, Avzal Ismael, Neill Ettridge, Sheldon D’Aubrey, Nick Gibbs, Eladio Gasper, Craig Son, Philip Kraft, Dave Askes, Franco Magongwa, Sylvester Majola, Mlungisi Gegana, .Sinta Spector, Martin Simpson, Anthea Buys, Justin Taylor, Trevor Muller, Marius (Global Music), Nippy Cripwell, Justin Maree, Gerhard Kok, Gerrie Lubbe and a few others who’s names on the register were illegible,
Apologies : Glenn Veale

As always, Martin Simpson was there, at the door, to welcome everybody. He also distributed past and new newsletters of SABPC. The turn out was great and there were many new faces. Global music guys had prepared the place very well for the meeting. Thanks to them for letting us use such wonderful space.

Concord welcomed everyone to the South African Bass Players’ Collective for 2005. He explained the purpose & goals of the SABPC. We then looked back at 2004, at the bass players who passed away and observed a moment of silence for them : Gito Baloi, Biza Maphumulo, Sipho Gumede, Eddie Jooste and Art Kelly.

Kerry Hiles then came up to talk about the “Strings for Africa” project. She explained how SABPC is collecting bass strings (even guitar strings, drum sticks,etc.) to donate to musicians in serious need of them, both locally and in our neighbouring countries like Mozambique, Zimbabwe, etc. Kerry also mentioned that for Mozambique we now have a contact person (Nuno Maia) who frequents South Africa, and is willing to take the strings over. So if anyone knows of musicians who could benefit from this initiative, please let us know.

Gerrie Lubbe from the South African Guitar Players Association, came up as well to share about their programme. He mentioned how they have enjoyed interacting with SABPC and trust that we will continue to work closely. Gerrie then distributed their newsletter for free, so everyone could get an idea of what the guitarists are doing.

Concord then introduced the guest for the evening, Denny Lalouette. Denny is a highly in demand bass player in South Africa, in all types of music. He has performed and/or recorded with many well respected artists such as Andy Narell, Trevor Rabin, Louis Mhlanga, Shirley Bassey, Joe Henderson, Izio Gross, and many more. Denny, who is originally from Mauritius, has lived in South Africa since 1970. You can hear in his playing that he has embraced South Africa whole-heartedly. We were very honoured to have Denny come and do a workshop for us.
Denny invited two musicians he works with regularly to be a part of his workshop: On Keyboards - Avzal Ismael and on Drums Neill Ettridge.
Denny covered a whole lot of issues that are of concern to many musicians, especially young musicians. He talked about:
- Attitude: Understanding your purpose (Foundation & Inspiration)
- Reliability: Time, proper arrangements, not just pulling out of gigs.
- Technology: Embracing it.
- Aural Development: Copying recordings and help develop your ear.
- Reading music: Learning to play by ear first, get basic reading knowledge
So you can figure charts out, develop it over time.
- Practice: What to practice, Posture
- Studio: Submitting, giving ideas, honesty with your recordings (takes),
What’s right for versus what’s right for the producer/artist.

Denny actually covered more issues as there was time for questions at the end. We really benefited much more from this workshop. This was only the first one for 2005. We surely will have more during the year.

Concord then thanked Denny, Neill & Avzal for a great workshop and a great evening. He then talked a bit about membership and benefits for joining up. The meeting was then officially closed, even though many stayed to chat to Denny and to interact with other members.

Meet 32 - March 2005

Date : 14th March 2005
Time: 19h30
Venue: Performing Arts Campus, Kensington

Attendance 32:
Steve Crozet, Phil Raath, Concord Nkabinde, Kerry Hiles, Doggit, Glenn Haggis, Kai Horsthemke, Basil Byrne, Dave Askes, Sylvester Majola, Martin Simpson, Trevor Muller, Nippy Cripwell, Gerhard Kok, Gerrie Lubbe, Coleen, Jason Green (and girlfriend), Dawie Beukes, Andre van Zyl, Dylan van Zyl, Dewald Alplumb, Ken Byrne, Mike Meiring, Michael Brown, Gabriel Olusegun, Vernon Hodgetts, David Jenkins, Judy Foxcroft, Kathy van Rensberg (and friend) & Mario De Camillis

This was a first joint meeting with the South African Guitar Players Association (SAGPA), for 2005. This was also the first recital evening of a series of recitals planned for the year.

Gerrie welcomed everybody on behalf of SAGPA & SABPC. He spoke a bit about how great it is that we have a broad representation in terms of musical styles & backgrounds. How beautiful it is to share and learn from each other in this way.

Gerrie then introduced the first Performer, Kerry Hiles. Kerry is a Bassist/Singer/Songwriter who has been involved in many musical productions around the country. She is great with singing whilst playing intricate bass lines. Kerry has a beautiful & unique singing voice. She performed material from her debut solo CD which she has just released, independently. CDs are available directly from Kerry.

Gerrie then introduced the next performers, Philip Raath & Dawie Beukes. From the word go. you
could tell they were going to have fun, and fun is what they gave. The material they chose was from the “boeremusiek” genre of music. Philip played mainly melodies and Dawie held down the rhythmic and harmonic structures. The music went through serious & funny moments.

The final performance that Gerrie introduced was Kai Horsthemke & Mike Meiring, with guest appearance by Kathy van Rensburg. These are quite experienced musicians, who have played all sorts of different styles. That also came through in their selection of material and the execution thereof, which went from Blues to Jazz to Folk and anything in between. The pieces were all original and involved a lot of improvisation. They experimented a lot with dynamics and moods.

This was the first of many more recital evenings to come.

Martin Simpson then gave a vote of thanks to performers of the evening and to all who had attended. He also made an announcement regarding the next meeting.

Meet 33 - April 2005

Date : 18th April 2005
Time: 19h00
Venue: Damelin Campus, Bramley

Attendance 33:
Steve Crozet, Phil Raath, Quinn Hawley, Concord Nkabinde, Kerry Hiles, Doggit, Glenn Haggis, Kai Horsthemke, Carlo Mombelli, Sylvester Majola, Mlungisi Gegana, Martin Simpson, Anthea Buys, Justin Taylor, Trevor Muller, Justin Maree, Gerhard Kok, Gerrie Lubbe, Nick Cook, Wesley Chetty, Jessica Clarke, John Clarke, Imogen Clarke, Fred Clarke, Trevor Smith, Schané Coetzee, Ashwin Ashley, Greg Gibb, Sheggy Olusi, Ashley van Wyk, Arthur, Michael Phillips & Michael Brown
Apologies : Dave Askes

Martin Simpson welcomed everyone and immediately introduced Carlo Mombelli who, in turn, introduced one of his students, Fred, who would provide an entrée to Carlo’s workshop. Although apparently a ‘fledgling’ bassist who has only been playing for 18 months, Fred impressed with a dazzling technical display that included slide bass playing, side-handed slapping, popping, string-bending, natural and artificial harmonics, rapid strumming and chording, de-tuning and tapping. The performance was warmly received: Fred is a huge talent who will undoubtedly also discover the joys of thematic development, melody and space.

Then Carlo began his workshop on improvisation. He started by emphasizing ‘being young’, nurturing an ongoing willingness to strive, to progress, to learn. As an example, he mentioned his own desire to investigate the double bass – at the ripe age of 45. He next mentioned the importance of daily practice. It won’t do to practice 15 hours once a week; it’s much better to set aside time on a daily basis and to establish a routine, even if it is only 15 minutes of dedicated practice. In the same breath, he mentioned practicing composition: the more you practice, the better you get at it. Turning to improvisation, Carlo contended that the biggest threat to improvisation, especially improvising in front of people, is fear, mainly the fear of making mistakes. In this regard, he emphasized the imperative of not trying to show off: ‘It’s much more important to touch people than it is to impress them.’ On the same subject, he referred to the value of technique, not as an instrument to dazzle but to ‘help to bring out what is inside’. While acknowledging the possibility of being an artist with no or hardly any technique, he claimed that technical facility helps to express the innermost, to share it with others – and also to recognize the quality of something, even if it isn’t one’s taste.

Carlo began playing on a fretless 4-string acoustic Vester bass (‘a cheap piece of balsa wood from South Korea’). He explained that he sees everything vertically rather than horizontally, when practicing, and spoke of the importance of practicing everything over at least three strings. When moving horizontally, Carlo advised ‘jumping’ with the first two fingers rather than with the ring finger or pinkie, as this would impact negatively on accuracy and intonation, especially on a fretless: ‘Practice slowly, in order to build up a library in your subconscious’, a process Carlo referred to as the formation of ‘motor-ingrams’: ‘the bigger the library, the greater the possibility of intuition and spontaneous creation’. This he took to illustrate the adage, ‘For art to appear, you must disappear’.

Carlo then turned to the major components of practice and improvisation, harmonic knowledge and understanding and the groove – time and rhythmic confidence. With regard to the former, he stated that arpeggios ground harmonic movement, before embarking on ‘the method according to Mombelli’. This method involves both intervallic and scalar permutations. The former refers to the distance between two notes (1-3, 1-4, 1-5 etc), while the latter refers to a series of notes. Practicing these in ascending and descending patterns should include both ascending and descending movements within these patterns, an exercise that yields four different permutations for each intervallic combination. After emphasizing the importance of being able to sing everything one plays, not least for purposes of ear training, Carlo went on to working on scalar permutations, using the same ascending/ descending formula. He recommended practicing all seven modes, the pentatonic scales, as well as the symmetrical scales: chromatic, whole-tone, diminished and the diminished blues scale. On the subject of the chromatic scale, he mentioned the value of ‘playing away from the harbour’ (the tonal center), in order to create tension and maintain interest. As a third exercise along these lines, the same ascending/ descending patterns, Carlo suggested working on triads (three notes) and 7ths (4 notes). All these improvisation aids work not only in solos, but also in lower register groove patterns. The example used here was ‘Giant Steps’, with its ‘ridiculous’ demands on the bassist, both in terms of harmonic knowledge and flurries of 8th notes at high speed, not to mention its exigencies for the improvising soloist.

With regard to groove, Carlo repeatedly referred to the benefits of practicing with a metronome – in that it improves time. But it ‘should not lead to automatism’: ‘pulling’ and ‘pushing’ are essential elements in groove playing. Giving an example of what he calls ‘being in the state of artificial loudness’, a ‘zen-zone time exercise’, he suggested setting the metronome at a moderate tempo, playing the same note, altering the fretting fingers, but taking care to maintain the same attack and volume, in a kind of focusing or meditational exercise. Once in this state or zone, one would begin subdividing the beat, employing half-note triplets, quarter note triplets, 8th notes, 8th note triplets, etc before gradually ‘stripping down’ and taking the process back to the beginning. A useful exercise here would be to count the metronome beats as indicating ‘2’ and ‘4’, in order to make it ‘swing’. Carlo’s ‘zen’ approach proved to be the perfect finale to an illuminating and enriching workshop.

Those less (or un-)familiar with modes might have hoped for a more detailed demonstration of these, how they could be applied in improvisation, especially when negotiating changes, and perhaps for an account of ‘leading’ and ‘leaning’ notes while soloing and comping. But everyone would agree that we all got something out of the workshop that we didn’t know before. Carlo’s anecdotes and frequently self-deprecating asides made this a hugely enjoyable event, clear evidence that humour is the shortest distance between two people, in this case between Carlo and everyone of us.

Kai

Meet 34 - May 2005

Date : 23rd May 2005
Time: 19h00
Venue: Marshall Music, Woodmead

Attendance 15:
Steve Crozet, Kerry Hiles, Doggit, Carlo Mombelli, Martin Simpson, Trevor Muller, Michael Brown, Graeme Currie, Richard v/d Ordell, Laurence Sale, Johann Kruger, Dave Askes, Ike Onwuagbu, Rixi Roman & Dave Jenkins
Apologies : Concord Nkabinde, Kai Horsthemke, Wesley Chetty, Greg Gibb, Philip Raath, Gerhard Kok, Gerrie Lubbe & David Houghton

The meeting was held at the 4-day-old, newly expanded Marshall Music store in Woodmead. Dayne Marshall welcomed us all and thanked Martin for organising the evening. A little short of chairs in the new PA and Bass Amp section, Dayne invited us to "grab a combo" for seats if we weren't comfortable on the carpet. (Go check out the "new" Marshall Music store and feast your ears on a range of bass guitars and amps to suit every taste. In the Total PA section, bass amps will be set up so that you can test the sound of any make in-store, without even using the sound-room facilities. Like Dayne said, "Bass doesn't freak people out", whereas guitar and drums do. You see, further proof that the bass is just the bomb when it comes to touching the soul!)

The workshop on this particular evening was delivered by Graeme Currie with Lawrence Sale on drums, demonstrating some of the pieces Graeme had played for his Master's Recital in Durban. On his Fender Jazz Bass and through a David Eden 4x10 with a 400 head, he played a really tricky 15/8 piece that featured harmonics and a salute to Jimi Hendriks.

Graeme said that he wasn't comfortable with solo-ing or improvising ("I'm just a Bb meat-and-potatoes kinda bass player") and that every bass player finds improvising difficult, but that we all have to do it at some point. His whole approach to his Master's pieces was to challenge his own abilities and stretch his personal boundaries.

Advice from Graeme when improvising:
1. Learn the melodies and chord scales of the pieces you are playing.
2. Transcribing is the greatest thing you'll ever do - transcribe everything: the bass, horn parts, guitar riffs...this will teach you how to phrase properly, among other skills.
3. When practising, start your scales from the lowest note on your instrument.
4. Just learn all the lines and string them together.

The second number was a blues on the upright, through an Ashdown amp, and this song emphasised the need to "play from the heart". Graeme's opinion is that Blues has the most expression and emotion of all styles of music. His demonstration also illustrated the use of tension and tension-release notes in improvisation, as well as the concept of consecutive approach notes (approach from semi-tone below and tone above or tone below and semitone above).

Carlo Mombelli was very interested in the upright and had a lot of questions to ask, like: "do you see everything on the upright the same way as on the electric?". Graeme answered: "You know where your ears and knees are. That's how I know where Db is. "Other key notes about upright playing were that tone is produced in the hands
- the more flesh on the string, the more tone. Singing along and linking your breathing to your notes helps you to put everything into your playing.

Graeme said that in this country, to survive as a bass player, you have to be a jack-of-all-trades. It makes it difficult to carve your own identity, but it is possible. Also, he stressed that the most fundamental responsibility
for a bass player in a band is to remember the form. You are the glue that holds everything together, so you'd better know where you are! The most important ability for any musician to develop is the art of listening. If
you're lost - LISTEN. If you can't hear the melody, you're too loud.

A final number (Roxanna?) from Graeme on the electric and Lawrence on drums, and it was time to call it a night. A great evening all round, although I did hear later that Graeme felt he hadn't played well enough. That's not what it's about, brother bass player! The fact is, you got up there and we supported you and we all had a good time. Thank you for that! And well done to Lawrence too - great, sensitive playing! (He's missing playing regularly, so get his details from Graeme when you need a killer man on the kit.)

Meet 35 - June 2005

Date : 20th June 2005
Lovemore Music (Yamaha)
Illovo centre JHB
Attendance : 21
Apologies : Martin Simpson, Nippy Cripwell, Graeme Currie, Kai Horsthemke

Present: Carlo Mombelli, Steve Crozet, Doggit, Glen Haggis, Johannes van Heerden, Nick Cook, Nick Gibbs, Frankiz Clark, Philip Raath, Gerrie Lubbe, Lawrence Goss, Mlungisi Gegana, Dave Askes, Quintin Askes, Miles Askes, Julian Veldman, Michael Brown, Anthony Franklin, Dewald, Trevor Muller, Kerry Hiles.

June's meeting was held at the newly opened Lovemore Music store in the old Global Music shop in Thrupps Centre, Illovo. It was an intimate gathering, featuring only those brave enough to face the cold, or those who weren't suffering flu and other winter sicknesses.

Carlo Mombelli gave us Part II of his workshop on everything to do with playing the bass guitar.

ON PRACISING:
Never forget why you started playing. Your passion drives your music, but is useless without discipline. Practising IS a chore, but it is vital: army recruits don't get fit DURING a war...they need to know how to shoot and run before they go into battle. You never stop learning, and you learn most when practising. It is very important to know what to practise. Play beyond your comfort zone, on the "edge of wrong".

Carlo recommended a book called "Effortless Mastery" by Kenny Banner (published by Jamey Abersold) and likened effortless playing to eating with a knife and fork: something we don't need to think about anymore. It has become an unconscious action. We learnt to eat with a knife and fork by repeating the action at the same time every day. Our parents corrected our mistakes. It was a slow process, learnt over time. So it is with practising the bass. If you find you don't use what you've practised, that is because it has not yet become part of your unconscious, natural movement.

ON BECOMING A MUSICIAN:
You require tone, timing, taste (the more knowledge you have, the better quality of taste you will develop) and technique.Technique is the ability to show what's inside to the outside world. It is not about showing off (that is unspiritual), but rather about developing the ability to communicate.

You also require the ability to improvise, to find nice grooves and join the harmony of the piece of music you're playing. Develop your ears to hear intervals - singing along to your practising will help. Practise your scales musically and practise slowly. Cover arpeggios in your practise routine as bass players imply harmonies by using arpeggios.

Lastly, you must find your own voice. Try to play with musicians of a similar headspace.

IN GENERAL:
Don't be scared to stuff up.
In solos, add silence. You've got to breathe sometimes.
If you're lost in the form, open your ears and keep thinking where you're
going to.

Carlo got rather passionate about chords at one point and even stretched his fingers over a nearby piano to demonstrate certain ideas. As ever, he was most entertaining and informative, a wealth of knowledge and ability.

Go check out the new Lovemore store at Thrupps Centre - it's bursting at the seams with drool-worthy gear.

Meet 36 - July 2005

Date : 18th July 2005
Time: 19H00
Venue: The Centre for Diabetes and Endocrinology, Houghton

Attendance 16
Johannes van Heerden; Gerrie Lubbe; Phil Raath; Mike Brown; Venessa Brown; Dillon Govender; Kathlene Openshaw; Richard (Marshall Music); Dawie Beukes; Trevor Muller; Gerhard Kok; Julian Udeman; Ruaan le Roux; Lawrence Goss; Juan Brits and Evette;

Mike Brown from the Centre for Diabetes and Endocrinology, arranged for the S.A.B.P.C. to meet at a super venue just-off 11th ave next to the M1 motorway just North of Johannesburg city center.

Mike and Vanessa’s efforts resulted in everyone feeling very at home by organizing a fabulous classy venue not excluding tea, coffee and biscuits. Mike also provided all of the amplification equipment for the night. Many thanks Mike and Vanessa.

Martin Simpson was unable to attend and hopes to be ready for the next meeting. He has been ill for several months to this point in time. Martin requested Gerrie to take care of matters (taking the register and general organizing) for the evening. Martin and Gerrie agreed earlier the morning that an evening of jamming was to be encouraged.

Dawie and Phil did the backbone act by playing some of their numbers together. Gerrie played two Latin Salsa Jazz numbers and jammed a couple of blues ones with Bassplayer’s Trevor, Gerhard and Johannes. Juan also clubbed in on some of the numbers with guitar and Dawie playing acoustic rhythm guitar. Dillon played a piece on guitar backed by Gerhard. BP’s Trevor, Gerhard, Richard and Johannes, backed a few blues numbers that were played. Some piano-keyboard playing also went down by Dawie as well. Julian played a bit of keyboard too.

Mike generously offered the venue to the S.A.B.P.C. to use again in the future. The evening was different and all who stayed till the end said they enjoyed it – it was different they said…..

We all wish Martin the best and trust he gets better soon; he is sorely missed at BP’s meetings and otherwise.
 

Meet 37 - August 2005

Date: 22 August 19:00
Venue: School for the Performing Arts, Kensington

Present: Wynand Jacobs, Ruan Le Roux, Gregory Moonsammy, Moses Roman, Jason Green, Philip Raath, Nippy Cripwell, Gerhard Kok, Dave Askes, Quinton Askes, Miles Askes, Schalk Naude, John Rautenbach, Mike Brown, Trevor Muller, Julian Udeman, Johann Kruger, Johannes van Heerden

Apologies: Martin Simpson, Kerry Hiles, Concord Nkabinde, Dawie Beukes

Thanks to Jason Green for supplying the venue for the double bass workshop by John Rautenbach. Jason welcomed everybody and introduced John.

John started by giving a short bio and explained that due to a shortage of luthiers in the area where he lived, he was forced to learn everything about restoring an upright himself. He then carried on giving a very informative workshop on all aspects of the double bass.

Construction:
The double bass is a very fragile instrument, especially the older instruments. The top is constructed from sheets of soft wood, like spruce or pine as we know it. The sides and back are from harder woods like poplar and maple. The different parts of the bass are glued together using hide or bone glue as it is easier to loosen when repairs are needed. The bass is varnished using shellac to close the pores in the wood. Inside the bass body is a bass bar running under one foot of the bridge and a sound peg just behind the opposite foot, this helps with sound transfer as well as carrying the pressure from the strings.

Some of the differences between solid wood and plywood basses were discussed. As plywood basses are less fragile and much cheaper, it was generally agreed that plywood basses should be the choice for beginners and traveling musicians. Solid wood basses are very susceptible to weather changes and are scarce and expensive, but the sound is much warmer.

Strings:
Differences between string types were discussed. It seems like Pirastro is more used by classical musicians and the bow users, where jazz and pizzicato players prefer Thomastik. It was also mentioned that D’Addario makes a good, less expensive string. When changing strings, it should be done one at a time to make sure the bridge and sound peg stay in position. The bridge should always be straight up and positioned between the kinks in the f-holes.

Bows:
John also discussed the different bow types. German bows have a bigger frog where French bows are more like a violin bow. The bows should always be loosened after playing to relieve the tension on the bow. The frog should be lubricated only with carbon lube such as a soft pencil, never with oil. Only enough rosin should be put on the bow hairs to bite on the strings. Rosin should always be cleaned from the strings and the bass body after playing.

The meeting was concluded by Jason giving a bit of information on the Trinity College courses and exams. Nippy made a valid comment that if you’re going to spend money on tuition, you may as well spend it on an international qualification. Bassists are welcome to contact Jason about course material and exam registrations.

The 10th Bass Project : 25 November 2002

Date: Nov 25, 2002
Time: 19:30
Venue: National School of Arts Braamfontein

Bassists Present at the meeting:
Martin Simpson, Kerry Blewett, Mark Reuter, Marcus Kroutz, David Nunn, Llewellyn John, Larry Milner, Art Kelly, John Rautenbach, Nippy Cripwell, Trevor Muller, Carlo Mombelli, Colin Deacon, Quinn Hawley, Pierre Schenehage, Bert Askes, Gito Baloi, Graeme Currie, Kai Horsthemke, Doggit, Theo Klassen, Heath Cooper, Jason Green, Johan Kruger, Cajun, Jenny Chadwick, Steve Crozet & Jenni Wilkins

Apologies: Andre Abrahanse, Mervin Naidoo, Mike Dineen, Storme Campbell, Marc Duby, Judy Foxcroft, Concord Nkabinde, Danie Burger, Dillon Govendar, Kerry Hiles, Schalk Joubert, Dave Askes & Denny Lalouette

Thanks once again to Jason Green and The National School of Arts for the venue and thank you in advance for supplying the venue for February’s bass evening

Llewellyn started things off by playing one of the six Warwick basses on show – the “red” Maple bodied one (F & A) through the Warwick Pro Tube Pro coupled to a 4x10 and 1x15 cab. The “blue” car was next! Sorry Murray Walker! The Ash bodied Corvette 5 was smoother and warmer than the honkiness of the F & A. The Ovangkol wood 5 string Thumb bass spoke earthy, articulate tones. The Maple bodied, Ovangkol necked 5 string Fortress 1 was full and wooly - an old vibe sound. The new passive/active Jazzman, an Ash & aaa Maple topped, bodied 5 string is a beauty. As offered by Llewellyn – this bass speaks Music Man & Hotrod Fender with it’s plasticky tone trough the 4x10 cab. Sex with strings is how big L described the top of the range Semi Hollow bodied Infinity 4 string. Passive mode demanded attention and Active mode commanded it! P-bass sound deluxe. A few players at the meeting praised Warwicks and the after market support offered by Mashall Music. Prices range from R9,000 – R30,000 with discount.
The new Hughes & Kettner 600 Watt head and matching 2x15 cabs + 1x18 cab was a power mongers delight. R60,000 worth of fat, chewy, punchy, midrangy tone.
Some configurations of basses, heads and speakers brought down the house with some righteous tones – the 1x18, 4x10, Pro Tube 4 head and Corvette produced Grand Funk type nose bleeds!
Dane from Marshall Music thanked Llewellyn, Martin and members and offered an invitation to come and try out all their gear at the shop. He described other gear available in the range as demoed tonight.
31 people (28 bassists) attended this entertaining last meeting of the year. Great to see all you guys and girls. Art Kelly rocked in with entourage in true musician style. Read into this what you wish!!!!!
Doggit (Dave Manchip) presented an informative talk on ear training which he compiled. You can find the programme on our Bassplayers Collective website under his name. Download it free (+/- 180kb). This programme demonstrates an Aural / Visual method. Very helpful and enterprising.
Martin ended the meeting and thanked Jason for the venue once again. There are now 16 full members of the SABPC and a few monthly subscribers. Martin again urged members to write columns on anything bass/music related. We look forward to the launch at The Bassline in January and our next official Bass Evening on February 24th.
Here’s wishing you all a Merry Christmas and all the best for the New Year. I wish you health, prosperity, happiness and innovation in your playing. Regards
Graeme

The 11th Bass Project : 28 January 2003

The Official Launch of The S.A.B.P.C. and Website

A review by Graeme Currie

What a fantastic evening and a great success. As Bassplayers and members of our club we can be very proud of our achievement and the huge turnout at the Bassline in Melville on 28th January 2003 for the launch of our club and the website.

The evening was relaxed and somewhat informal. Guests started arriving at 7:00PM and by 8:00PM, The Bassline was buzzing. A thunderstorm provided that extra Gauteng edge and a rain-soaked Martin Simpson squelched in looking slightly bemused. He immediately got down to business though and excitedly and proudly began distributing current and past newsletters! Concord had organized snacks, which were served to the tables by the friendly staff. Yours truly was suppressing the urge to take photographs until after "The Speech!” It was heartwarming to see the exchange of hugs and handshakes between friends, long-time-no-see friends and acquaintances. That is the spirit that we as bassplayers generate – keeping things cool, happening and together!

As MC, Concord got the evening started by introducing Gito Baloi and his band, who wowed the crowd with his virtuosity, expressiveness and originality of his beautiful music. From musical highs to low’s, he tantalized the crowd with his buoyant compositions and melodic bass playing. Isn’t it typical of South African audiences though, that in the peace and tranquility of one of his ballads, you could hear everyone talking and not listening – a respect that we should adopt in line with International courtesy.

Tumultuous applause, Concord again took the stage to thank Gito and his superlative band and introduced me as one of THE BEST bassplayers (or was that THE BUSIEST!!!???) to take the stage and explain why we were all here. I gulped back my pounding heart and bounded to the stage in my inimitable, cool but well-positioned style. “Ooh he’s so tall and thin, he must be a bassplayer!” There was so much information to be relayed that I read most of my speech but spiced it with tidbits. Time up, let’s get outa here and PARTY!

As I left the stage JB Arthur said “…Quite the statesman eh?” and Denny made a double sided comment about “ Is this your first time making a public speech?” and I rebuffed by saying, “…So you think it should be my last!” Quinn asked: “Were you drunk?” Cos he said I was swaying. Looking at him later and with the company he was keeping, I think it was HE that was seeing things – just look at the photos of him at our meetings!!!!!!

My lady said, “It was a bit serious”, while others complimented me: “ Good speech!” Thank you to you all. Maybe the seriousness of the topic balanced out the fun we were all having – just to show we mean business and are serious and committed to what we are doing.

Gorgeous Jenni made the stage her own (and boosted our ratings considerably) and thanked Concord, myself, The Bassline and invited guests – and then jumped off the stage, leaving dropped jaws and wide eyes from a captivated audience. Concord, with red splashes on his shirt matching his red/black patterned shoes (I like that in a man!) concluded the formalities.

After a breather and a “refresher”, the stage was opened up to whomever wanted to jam. Who could ever forget the charming smile on the face of Victor Masondo as he grooved his way through some improvisation. He reminded me of watching Nathan East! Also, the way Concord rolled his eyes as chord changes went into “left field” – even though he held it down! Apart from Theo’s groove and commitment, that was it for me, as it always tends to get into “Thumslinging” – no judgement intended. Apparently, no “whities” jammed – no worries, we’ll have our revenge next time! I was rushing around blinding people with my photo taking. Thanks to all who indulged me – you look great on glossy paper!

A totally enjoyable evening. I left at 11:00PM and it was still going strong. We can be very happy with our achievements. Until next Bass Evening, regards. 
Graeme

The 1st Bass Project : 18 Feb 2002

THE MINUTES OF THE BASS PROJECT MEETING

Date : 18th February 2002
Time : 19h30
Venue : Bassline, Melville, Johannesburg

Bassist’s present at the meeting :-
Adrian Lay, Andre Abrahamse, Andrew Lester, Bert Askes, Carlo Mombelli, Colin Moorkey Concord Nkabinde, Dave Askes, David Nunn, Denny Lalouette, Gito Baloi, Glen Veale, Graeme Currie, Jerome Bezuidenhout, Marc Duby, Marcus Kroutz, Martin Simpson, Nippy Cripwell, Roland Westgate and Trevor Muller

Apologies:-
Julian Thorpe Fairall, Kai Horsthemke and Lucas Senyatso

Martin Simpson opened and introduced the vision and concept. The concept is rather a much broader one if looked at on a long-term basis. However, the purpose of the meeting was to kick-start a process that will hopefully grow into a phenomenon that will impact the music industry, significantly. The main two areas that Martin covered were the Recordings (CD’s) series of South African Bassists and the establishment of a Bass Players Club. The ideas were then thrown to the floor for any suggestions that people had. The enthusiasm and interest from the house in the whole vision and concept was really encouraging.

SOME OF THE IDEAS:

- After the album is out, we should form a Bass Player’s ensemble that will play the material. This would be done as a way to market the CD and the series. Even though this might still sound a rough idea, when refined and well planned, it is hoped that we can start having Bass Concerts/Gigs around town.

- As a Bass Club we need to have regular meetings. Whatever the format, discussion or playing together. One suggestion was to meet once in a month, which seems to be what we are doing now.

- We need to have a database of all bass players, with their contacts. Hopefully we can also have a database of Bass Players internationally available, for networking purposes.

- Also suggested was a fee to join membership, in order to have members listed on the database. The fee will also allow members discounts at certain music shops and CD outlets.

- A web-site would be a must for a club of this nature. Already there are 2 people who are professional web designers who have volunteered to help in that regard. It was also suggested that the site should also help with educational aspects (BASSically and Musically), whereby different bassists can tutor on particular topics.

- When we get together, it was suggested that we have a featured bassist who would be interviewed on their musicianship, styles of playing or any subject to do with their bass playing.

- CD Recording project: There were extended discussions on style, length of pieces, solo/duets and of course the process of choosing pieces that will eventually go onto the CD. The selection process is not going to be an easy one, especially since it was raised that it is crucial that we come up with a project of great standard. "Great standard" might vary from one musician to another. We hope that, sensitive as these decisions might be, we can handle them in a building and gentle spirit, yet an honest one. Hopefully the songs that don’t make it on to the first CD can be on the following ones. This will mean all of us helping each other to develop to greater heights. There was a suggestion to choose a selection committee that will have non-bass persons too. Decisions on length, style and deadlines have not been finalised yet. That will be dealt with in meetings to come. Victor Masondo and Joe "J.B." Arthur, who have a record label that has been doing great work in exporting S.A. music overseas, are keen on being involved in the project. If they do get on board they could also help in the selection process from a production point of view. However, nothing has been decided yet, as to who will distribute the CD project. At the moment Victor and Joe have offered their studio for those that still have to record their ideas for submission. However, the house felt that we should save that studio offer for the final recordings, so that what will go onto CD will be Prof. Studio quality. So, for those that cannot afford to lay their ideas down, they’ll be assisted by those that have studios or home studios. Marc Duby offered his studio. Any others that can help record demos for other bass players should please let us know. Even if you can only help one person, that would be great. Submissions of demos should be done quite soon so we can get this thing going. Andrew made the point that it’s crucial to finalise a deadline for submissions otherwise the cd project will go on forever without end

- Much as it might seem that the talk is mostly about the recording and the CD, the meeting felt that the emphasis should be on establishing the bass club. Developing Bass relationships that are lasting and effective. This would hopefully create a positive impact on the music industry. Our role has got to be more than just laying and shifting root notes to the music. We have a much broader calling and responsibility.

These were the issues discussed at the meeting. The doors are and will always be open for more ideas that will build this idea and bring this vision to reality. Even though Martin might have come up with the idea and made sure it takes off, this will only work if you and I take it as our own baby.

LET’S MAKE IT WORK !!! 
Concord

The 2nd Bass Project : 18 March 2002

Date: 18th March 2002
Time: 19h30
Venue: Bassline, Melville, Johannesburg

Bassist’s present at the meeting :-
Andre Abrahamse, Carlo Mombelli, Concord Nkabinde, Dave Askes, Gito Baloi, Graeme Currie, Martin Simpson, Trevor Muller, Kai Horsthemke, Peter Sklair, Kerry Blewett, Victor Ntoni & Alex Davison

Apologies:-
Julian Thorpe Fairall, Lucas Senyatso, Danny Burger, Jerome Bezuidenhout, Victor(Not Bailey but Masondo), Joe Arthur, Bert Askes, Marc Duby, Nippy Cripwell & Glenn Veale.

Attendance was far less than at the first meeting. However, that did not seem to dampen member’s determination and enthusiasm.

More time was spent discussing the CD and the process of selection. Some of the points raised were:

- Diversity Vs Uniformity, in terms of the whole album sound. More people feel it should be as diverse as possible. Our aim is not to appeal to a specific market in order to sell millions of units, but to appeal to as broad an audience as possible. That could actually create more exposure than targeting a specific market.

- Quality in production was also mentioned. The overall feeling is that, diversity, should be consistent even in terms of production. Good production should not mean a product recorded in a "state of the art studio", rather the level of creativity and colour should be the priority. If someone decides to record a piece "under a tree" (as Andre put it) it should not be thrown away because of that, but be listened to for what it contributes to this beautiful sound of diversity.

- The selection process is still not decided upon. Some feel it should be the Broader body deciding on the pieces, some say it should be a committee, some say both but at different stages. An idea was muted of CDs without titles being made available for members to choose anonymously.

- Most of the above will be sorted out as submissions come in and as we get Closer to the closing date for submissions.

CLOSING DATE FOR CD SUBMISSIONS
It has been disappointing that submissions have been coming in very slowly. We understand that the guys have hectic work schedules, but so has everybody else. The meeting agreed that the final date for demo submissions would be end of July 2002 (In other words, THIS YEAR). The meeting again agreed that by the end of September 2002 all FINAL recordings should have been made. If we don't make these deadlines, our children's children will still be talking about the release of this CD.

ADDED SUGGESTION FOR THIS BASS THING
We need a name. Members are encouraged to come up with ideas for a name
For the "bass club" and for the CD if different to the club name.

Andre Abrahamse will make some inquiries about members writing bass/music
Articles for other publications nationally and internationally.

We need to work at bridging the gap between the older/experienced bassists
and the young/vibrant cats. Our educational contributions should also offer aspects that are generally not covered in existing institutions.

The next meeting will be on the 22nd April, at the Bassline.

We were also honoured to have Bro Victor Ntoni at the meeting. We know how much he and others have contributed to South African bass playing. Sadly, he has just had a break in and everything including his Bass was stolen. It is in moments like these that our commitment to each other will be tested. Are we going to be there for each other not only as Bass players, but also as human beings?

Concord

The 3rd Bass Project : 22 April 2002

Date : 22 April 2002
Time: 19:30
Venue : Bassline, Melville

Bassists Present at the meeting:
Andre Abrahamse, Concord Nkabinde, Martin Simpson, Trevor Muller, Kai Horsthemke, Victor Masondo, Andrew Lester, Kerry Hiles, Llewellyn John, Nippy Cripwell, Fred Hayward, Lucas Senyatso, Mlungisi Gegana & Alex Davison

Apologies: Bert Askes, Julian Thorpe Fairall, Marc Duby, Graeme Currie, Denny Lalouette & Matt Stolk, Jerome Bezuidenhout

Martin opened by welcoming everyone, especially new Bassists. Every meeting has had new people coming in. Even though we have to keep going back to up-date new members of what we have been doing, it is good to see this vision grow every month.

Joe Arthur & Victor Masondo, who have an independent Record Label, have shown interest in this project. They came to the meeting to advise and brief us on ways to approach the CD part of this project. Basically they explained how the royalties (Pro-writer share) work on a collaboration project like this. They emphasised the importance of maintaining ownership of the project. They have also offered to assist those that need to have their own publishing set up. Vic and Joe also have a Recording Studio, which they offered to let us use especially for the final song for the album. A strong suggestion was also made for us to do a series of these recordings in volumes. It seems to be a common thing that the later volumes released, tend to boost the sales of the earlier ones.

They also advised us to target not only the Bass/Guitar Centres for marketing, but also every possible outlet. Let this not be a strictly Bass Players indulgence album. Thanks to Joe and Victor for their input and for taking part in the rest of the meeting, giving advice even on issues outside the CD discussion.

The issue on the selection committee for the CD project came up once again. It still hasn't been decided how we are going to do it. There is no rush at the moment to decide, and further discussions on the issue are welcomed. An added aspect was that of including retail personnel on the selection committee. That would also be a way of establishing ties and interest with other role players in the industry.

More time was spent on a Web-site discussion. More inquiries are still
going on the best route to take. Andrew Lester was very helpful since most of us had very limited knowledge when it comes to the technical aspects of the Internet. Andrew will check out some reasonable possibilities and give a report back.

We decided that at this stage we do not need to register a company, but
just have a name and open a banking account. Martin will report back on the account and the working name. At a later stage we will look at registering. This would have a lot of involved aspects like tax issues and so on.

Generating income has been a concern since monthly meetings at Bassline cost us R150, 00. So far Martin and Concord have been carrying that expense. Added to that, when the Web-site is up and running we will need funds to pay for monthly subscription. For now the house decided on a R25, 00 per month membership fee. This will entitle members to benefits that non-members will have to pay for or pay more for. This would include special workshops with national and/or international musicians, discounts at selected Music and/or CD shops, having members biographies on the Web-site data base as opposed to only having a name and contact number. Other benefits will come up as events come up.

Since we plan to have workshops at every meeting, we decided to have a R10, 00 charge for non-members that want to attend that particular meeting. This begins on the 20th May 2002.

A suggestion was also made to actively look for sponsorship for the club. This could be in different ways. One is through advertising on the web-site once it is up, running and in demand. We are open to any suggestion in this regard. Even though this is not a money making endeavour, it is important that we generate as much income as we can, as it will allow us do much more for Bass Players and the industry.

Other suggestions from members:

-We need to start now creating contacts and interest for the post-album
(CD) release.

Suggestions welcomed.

- For members, the Web-site database should carry brief biographies.

- We need to collect old strings, as they can be useful to others, especially in the neighbouring Countries. We need more suggestions as to other similar 
courses. Our calling is much broader than playing basses.

- Some members have transport problems, but since as members we cover almost all of Johannesburg, Pretoria and East Rand, we will help with a lift arrangement for those that Need it.

Andrew Lester has added his name to the list of guys that have offered their studios for those that need to record their songs for submission.
His contact is in the contact list and he is based in Melville. Others who have offered their recording studios are: 
Gito Baloi (Jo'burg),
Martin Simpson (Germiston),
Marc Duby (Pretoria)

IN THE NEXT MEETING:

We will decide on the Club name. Each person shall bring 4 names.

We will elect a working committee.

Next meeting 20th May 2002, at Bassline, Melville.

News Snippet - Peter Sklair recently broke his leg. All of us, I'm sure, will be wishing Pete a speedy recovery.

Concord

The 4th Bass Project : 20 May 2002

Date: 20 May 2002
Time: 19:30
Venue: Bassline, Melville

Bassists Present at the meeting:
Concord Nkabinde, Martin Simpson, Trevor Muller, Kai Horsthemke, Llewellyn John, Phillip John, Denny Lalouette, Lee Smith, Theo Klassen, Glenn Haggis, Nippy Cripwell, Fred Hayward, Mlungisi Gegana, Storme Campbell, Matt Stolk, Carlo Mombelli, Gito Baloi, Kerry Blewett & Graeme Currie

Apologies: Bert Askes, Julian Thorpe Fairall, Marc Duby & Jerome Bezuidenhout

Martin opened the meeting by
Welcoming new members, as it has become
a common thing to do. Let’s hope this does not
stop, at least not now.

MONTHLY NEWS LETTER
Martin suggested that members write
Brief articles for each month. It could be a review of a concert, a song or programme on TV/Radio.
It could be a CD/Album review. We can even interview one another on aspects of the Bass or Music in general. Of course our main interest should be around the Bass and other aspects that relate to it. It would be great if those articles could be submitted way before the following
meeting, so that Martin can have enough time to put the Newsletter together. On that note, we should really thank Martin for the time and for the material he has been using to put the newsletter together. We can also advertise gigs and albums on the newsletter. Remember, there
are more people that read it than those at meetings. The meeting decided on the title 
“Bottom Line” for the Newsletter.

CLUB/WEB-SITE NAME
We still haven’t decided on the name for the club and/or web-site. We had more suggestions for a name coming in. We decided that the next meeting would be the final date for us to decide on a name. Remember that we do not necessarily have to have the same name for both the Club and the web-site. However, it was voiced at previous meetings that it would make administration much easier if it were the same name for both.

CLUB’S BANKING ACCOUNT
The club now has a banking account. We decided to keep it simple and make it a savings account for now. The 3 signatories are Kai, Martin and Concord. REMINDER: Membership is R25,00 per month or R300,00 per year. It is recommended that members use the yearly subscription option. It will help if there is always money in the account to keep the web-site going.
It also makes administration smoother, so as not to make different types of membership cards
every month.

BANK : ABSA
BANK BRANCH : ALBERTON
ACCOUNT NAME : S.A. BASS PLAYERS CLUB
ACCOUNT NO. : 9093623927
TYPE OF ACC. : SAVINGS

ALTERNATIVE VENUE FOR MEETINGS
We have been blessed to have the Bassline for meetings. However, they are planning to start opening on Monday nights. So we need to find another venue quite soon. The crucial issue is, finding a place with enough parking and quiet enough for us to do our business. Your
suggestions are more than welcomed.

JACO (Jaco who? you ask) PASTORIUS WAS AT THE MEETING.
I am not sure about others, but I felt exactly like that. Carlo Mombelli did a great presentation on Jaco. The presentation had so much depth, yet was simple for all to grasp. Even if you were not a Jaco fan, or a jazz bass player, there was enough info about the role of the bass that Carlo shared, for all to gain from it. He went back to the beginning of the bass story, with the tuba. He dealt with many of the early bassists who shaped bass playing, all the way to the modern bassists and where Jaco fitted in the whole picture.
Whether you are a Rock, Jazz, Pop, or whatever bass player, this was for you. My only regret is
that we did not record the presentation. Thanks again to Carlo. We really appreciate the passion with which he shared his knowledge with us.
REMINDER : Anyone of us can do any presentation or facilitate a discussion on any subject that would interest bass players.
Just let us know.
Another REMINDER :
Submissions for the Bass Players’ album are still expected. A new idea came up from one of the
new members, that, some might only have compositions and need others to play them. So let’s keep that option in mind. The closing date for submissions is end of July and end of September
for the final recorded songs.

Next meeting : 24th June was suggested
but the Bassline has something on, so we are
back to 17th June ( a holiday) .

Check out Kalahari.net for buying music. It is much cheaper.
Concord

The 5th Bass Project : 17 June 2002

Date: 17 June 2002 Time: 19:30 Venue: Bassline, Melville Bassists Present at the meeting: Martin Simpson, Trevor Muller, Kai Horsthemke, Dave Manchip, Bruce Hylands, Steve Crozet, Marc Duby & Graeme Currie Apologies: Denny Lalouette, Kerry Hiles, Nippy Cripwell, Concord, Glenn Haggis & Andre Abrahamse Welcome It was a somewhat sparse Bass Players meeting, as there were only eight attendees, due  to the fact that it was a public holiday. A few players were on gigs out of town and out of the country. One of our members, Nippy Cripwell, was even running The Comrades Marathon (Nippy won himself a bronze medal – getting home in +/- 10 10 hours – Martin). Well done! Martin welcomed devoted supporters and three new members (Doggit, Bruce & Steve) and thanked me, Graeme Currie, deputising for Concord as the minutes taker. It is important that we continue giving of our time to these meetings in order to construct a strong following among our Bass brethren and create a camaraderie. Club Name It was decided that the next meeting would be more appropriate to choose / vote on a club name with more members hopefully Attending. In the meantime, as was suggested, we should come up with a club motto for a bit of added fun and originality. It definitely seems as though The South African Bass Players Collective is taking preference and that this should also be on the web site to save confusion.  S.A.B.P.C. = appropriate! Once the web site is running, we could establish links with  International bass players planning to tour SA, inviting them to give workshops or share knowledge and experiences with us and keep us up to date with the International arena. We need your cv’s / resumes for the website. Please Submit them. Fees Drive Although there are +/- 50 club supporters, the bottom line is that there are only six registered members i.e. those who have paid their yearly subscriptions. Please, we need your support in order to get the website running and continued administration of the same to pay for venues and / or barmen and sundries, stationary, etc etc. It was suggested that “The Bottom Line” newsletter take on a more professional look. This can only be accomplished with your financial support and submissions of articles, columns, reviews etc. So please, commit, get involved and pay your subs, whether it be the nominal R25 per month for now or the R300 per year (preferably). Let’s not only be good starters but good finishers too!! Venue With the collection of funds we can attempt to improve the look of our newsletter and thereby attract some “advertising” as was queried at the meeting. This will be discussed in greater depth at the next meeting, where we will also find ourselves in a new venue. Additional venues being offered include Pretoria Technikon and Allenby Campus. However, I think we’ll all feel more at home in a club with a bar, the true die-hards we are. Bear in mind, we may have to pay for a venue in future…. Of Note Marc Duby informed us of his meeting of SA Jazz Educators and its benefit of affiliation with The International Association Of Bass Players, which recently had its April conference in Hawaii. In future, a scholarship could be granted to a deserving player from SA to attend such a conference.  Should you wish to purchase EV 10” to 18”drivers for excellent prices, contact Terry Acres at Prosound. They have hundred’s gathering dust. It was proposed that at some stage, we should compile a photo gallery of members, with or without their gear, for prosperity and to show our grandchildren our humble beginnings. Et Al Time is very tight for cd compilation submissions. Get yours in now for selection by  the end of July. In September we go ahead, as proposed, with the cd. Anyway thanks for reading through my minutes (seemed like hours!) I managed to write this during a matinee performance of Cats, and didn’t miss one cue. On that cue, Ill say goodbye  till next time. Thank you. Yours faithfully. Graeme

The 6th Bass Project : 22 July 2002

Date: 22 July 2002 Time: 19:30 Venue: Coffee Café, Pine Slopes shopping centre Bassists Present at the meeting: Martin Simpson, Trevor Muller, Kai Horsthemke, Steve Crozet, Graeme Currie, Concord Nkabinde, Glenn Haggis, Theo Klassen, Andre Abrahamse, Sello Mtshali, Trevor Don Jeany, Peter Lambshed, Lewellyn John, Storme Campbell, Kerry Blewett, Kerry Hiles, Mike Dinneen, Heath Cooper, Gito Baloi, Fred Hayward, Nippy Cripwell, Alex Davison & Colin Moorkey Apologies: Lee Smith, Jason Green, Carlo Mombelli, Julian Thorpe, Johan Breda, Dave Askes, Dave Manchip & Bruce Hyland Martin opened the meeting and welcomed everybody. The meeting mainly covered business issues, again. When everybody starts taking these business issues seriously and do take up the suggestions, we can then move away from discussing business every time we meet. A lot of time goes into reminding members about things we are not doing yet. We need to move on to areas that really brought us together – discussions, demonstrations, workshops, playing, growth, etc. Membership fees still seem to be a problem for many. The house discussed briefly how important it is so we can take care of things like the web-site and paying for some of the venues we use for meetings. Album submissions.  We have reached the end of July, which was the cut-off date for demo submissions. It seems that some people are still working on some material, so please bring them in. However, let us not get too relaxed about it, because that will delay the September date for the final productions.  The Newsletter.  Martin has been putting in a lot of effort in making the newsletter happen. It is really developing from what it was when we started. An idea came up of making it more professional and selling it, so we can also generate some income. This does, however, seem a long term goal. However, we should take the current newsletter seriously, as it will help us sharpen our skill of writing and prepare us for the more professional one. Members are once again encouraged to write articles for the newsletter, no matter how short. We can help each other to edit and improve each other’s writing. Members can also interview each, write about each other’s gigs or sessions, review CDs, equipment, etc.  Gig update.  Members are encouraged to let Martin know of gigs ahead, so we can all know what each other is doing and support each other at gigs.  FINALLY the name of the club has been decided: SOUTH AFRICAN BASS COLLECTIVE  The web site is still under construction. The address that was agreed upon was: www.Bass.co.za   (registered as www.bassplayers.co.za - Peter) Members are asked to submit brief biographies of themselves for the web-site. A few suggestions were made for the logo of the club. The one with a double bass and a fender bass seems to be preferred.  Other suggestions : The launch of the web-site should coincide with the CD launch, and we can make a big deal of this baby.  We should make use of Andy McGibbon’s Guitar World to acquire info so we can write for the newsletter and we can also gain knowledge for ourselves. Concord

The 7th Bass Project : 19 August 2002

Date: 19th August 2002
Time: 19:30
Venue: National School of Arts, Braamfontein
Bassists Present at the meeting:
Martin Simpson, Trevor Muller, Kai Horsthemke, Graeme Currie, Concord Nkabinde, Theo Klassen, Sello Mtshali, Lewellyn John, Kerry Hiles, Heath Cooper, Nippy Cripwell, Art Kelly, Bert Askes, Dave Askes, Victor Masondo, Dave Manchip, Jason Green, Schalk Joubert, Jenny Wilkins, David Lackay, Jessica Brett, Phillip John, Quinn Hawley, Ryan Dyson & Zintle Oyiya.

Apologies: Lee Smith, Storme Campbell, Glenn Haggis, Marc Duby & Andre Abrahamse

Thanks to Jason Green and the National School of the Arts for the venue. Hopefully we can use it again in the future.

The meeting was mainly taken up by administration detail, which had to be dealt with. 
- The logo was decided upon.
- The temporary web-site was announced: www.geocities.com/sabassplayers. All members can get listed on this site, including a brief biography and a photograph. Once the real site kicks in (around 1st Oct), only fully registered members will get listed. So once again, we are encouraged to take up the yearly membership fee of only R300, 00. All biographies and photos can be forwarded to Peter Thomas at pthomas@netactive.co.za

THAT OTHER MUSIC SHOP (TOMS) have shown interest in what we are doing. Nothing has been finalised yet, as to what their involvement could be.

Andy McGibbon at ANDY McGIBBON’S GUITAR WORLD has offered advice on guitars and gear for our Newsletter articles. Also, when we are running some competitions he can help with prizes to be won. 

Jason Green, who is the bass lecturer at the National School of the Arts, shared with us about the bass studies programme the school is running. Basically, if you have students that you teach and want them to enter for a recognised examination. They can arrange that. They have a basic syllabus for you to work on and the exams are in October of each year. If you are keen and you want the best for your students or even for yourself, then speak to Jason Green (082 898-7892).

Kai presented a great talk on Charlie Hayden. What an informative presentation, with lots of depth, not only into the music of Hayden but into his life too. Thank you so much to Kai and we hope to dig more from your bag soon.

Members are once again reminded that they can submit articles for the Newsletter. 

Next meeting: Pretoria Technikon, hosted by Marc Duby, 23rd September 2002. 

Suggestions :
It was proposed that we invite someone from the South African Music Rights Organisation (S.A.M.R.O.) to address us on music copyrights and intellectual property. I will make a follow up on this.

Concord

The 8th Bass Project : 23 September 2002

Date: 23rd September 2002
Time: 19:30
Venue: Pretoria Technikon
Bassists Present at the meeting:
Martin Simpson, Gito Baloi, Marc Duby, Graeme Currie, Heath Cooper, Jason Green, Algernon Loxton, Jesse Mogale, Storme Campbell, Johann Kruger, Richard vd Ordel, Anton Beukes, Steve Crozet & Silver Snook

Apologies: Kai Horsthemke, Concord Nkabinde, Llewellyn John, Nippy Cripwell, Trevor Muller, Kerry Hiles, Theo Klassen, Dave Manchip, Dave Askes & Andre Abrahamse

Thanks to Marc Duby and the Pretoria Technikon for the venue. Hopefully we can use it again in the future.

Welcome by Marc Duby at Pretoria Tech School of Music. Thanked Martin for being the driving force behind the SA Bass Players Collective. Hear! Hear!
Martin took over and suggested we have a look at the website and for all of us to submit our CV’s, Resumés whatever in our individual pursuit to become famous. You never know, someone may like what and who you are and hire you – internationally too!!!

The album project is on track – nearly 3 CD’s worth of submissions. All we have to do now is listen and choose the finals. This is not a “winner” thing, it’s representative of what we, as South African Bassists, do! The follow up CD’s will continue this tradition.

We are urged to pay our subscription fees. R300-00c for twelve months – the thirteenth month free if this fee is paid as a whole! Otherwise R25 per month. This money is necessary to continue our one of a kind club in SA. Register, put in your subscription fees to make this club stronger and have your say.

Bring all your old strings for our brothers in the rest of Africa. They battle to get them – give these strings to either Kerry Hiles or Andre Abrahamse – much appreciated.

One of our new attendees (and a past student of mine) LG (Algernon) suggested members or educators demonstrate practical theory lessons on a CD and/or in the newsletter or on the website – or even in video format.

Another new attendee Jesse Mogale introduced the ISB (International Society of Bassists) to us. Their next convention is in New Jersey in June. Their publication is tri-annual and is aimed at classical and jazz double bass players. For one of the instructors to address us eg Rufus Reed or Francois Rabbath, they would need an affiliated club in SA – SABPC. We need all your support.

*Doug and Storme bought sandwiches (cucumber) for everyone ‘coz they were late! But no note!!!!!!!!

Marc Duby entertained us highly with his workshop on Eberhard Weber and his concept of Bass playing and composing. You missed a great talk and a world of info as imparted by a passionate and intensely well informed Marc, if you did not attend.

Jason Green introduced Johan Kruger – bass maker and “the other six string” instrument maker. Johan discussed his concepts on bass making – not innovative just basic, continuing the tradition using the best concepts of the top bass makers’ worldwide. These are some of the best basses I’ve ever heard. I want one!

It was great to see some old friends and some new – and for me especially , a past student, Silver, who stars in Richard Lorings ‘Girltalk’ on bass!

The idea is that the meeting in November be the last meeting of the year. We hope it will be well attended. Let’s show our strength, commitment and conviction. The first meeting in 2003 will be February 23rd (venue to be finalised)

We hope to have our official launch of SABPC somewhere towards the end of January. Plans will go ahead to organise this.
Thank you to all who made the not so long trek to Pretoria. See you all next time.

Concord will be absent in favour of gigs for the rest of the year so it will be my duty to be the minutes taker for the next two meetings. I hope this coming season sees us all working satisfactorily if not furiously. Good luck and good playing. Regards
Graeme