Duets

Its been a busy week for me. On Tuesday and Thursday I taught Theory, Harmony, and Ear Training to some unenthusiastic students at Musician's Institute, drove an hour to a gig in Claremont on Thursday and drove two hours to gigs in Orange County on both Friday and Saturday. Throw in my Fantasy Football drafts this weekend and it really has been a busy few days.

My gigs the past couple of nights have been duets; Fri. with a singer and Sat. with a piano player. I love playing duet gigs for a couple of reasons, first off it means a lot of playing and a lot of bass solos, and secondly it really challenges me as a player. There is a lot more harmonic and rhythmic responsibility particularly in duet with a vocalist where I'm playing all of my solos unaccompanied. That really exposes you and puts a lot of melodic constraints on what you're doing. But that sort of challenge is a lot of fun.

In other news legendary drummer Max Roach has passed. His death is a bit more meaningful as he was our last living bebop pioneer. He recorded extensively with Charlie Parker and lead groups with Clifford Brown. His solo piece "The Drum Also Waltzes" remains a standard in jazz repertoire. He will be missed.