For those who don't know about him, Spike Heatley is the grand old man of the double bass in Britain. Now 76, Spike had dinner with the best. He was formerly with the Jazz Couriers (Ronnie Scott-Tubby Hayes Quintet), the Tubby Hayes Quartet, Barney Kessel European trio, the Oliver Jones trio etc... As bassist with the Johnny Dankworth big band for several years, he worked with all the big stars. Spike is now retired and lives in France, not too far from me. He stopped playing gigs only recently. Now he sits at home, still practises his bass, and writes tunes.

Joe Magnarelli is on the road right now in spain. So he posts little words of wisdom over at the trumpet.jazzimprovonline.com. Here's his most recent post. I thought it was cool.

Just did a clinic in Llieda Spain, and realized that
when you get down to it, copying from the masters is the quickest way to get better.
You can study scales and patterns, that's cool, but when
stealing from the classic records you're getting scales and patterns too.
And you're understanding them in the context of a tune.
For example, check Fee-fi-fo-fum (spelling?)

I am working on playing a classical piece. I try to play it like I am performing. If I make a mistake while playing a slow line, should I try and correct it during the performance, or should I just let it be and continue on? If it is a fast line, I have no choice but to move on.

Thanks,
Barry

Music does not exist in a vacuum. As musicians we all need other people to appreciate our playing skills and our compositions. A musician's highest goal is to make music that will reach a large audience and maybe, just maybe, make a difference to those who hear us.

Let me know what you think of this. I was practicing Moments Notice today with the attempt of playing fluid lines and comping at the same time. The only realistic way for me to do this is to use both hands 'like' a 2 mallet player (still holding 4) but hit double stops with my left hand along with the lines. I've talked about this before. Well at the end of this lesson I added an excerpt from my practice session and I try to explain what I'm doing and the concept before the excerpt.

Hey everyone,

Tony will be playing in Amsterdam on the 4th of february. So this is a few days before the workshops. If any of you guys are coming to the workshop, maybe you should consider coming on thursday to catch this gig. It'll be fun.

Tony will be playing with some friends of mine that have a great trio. Check them out at: http://www.jurriaanberger.nl/ewohome.htm

TJ

Here it is my first public post on an etude Tony and I have been working on for some weeks, have to say it was a difficult piece to get together and it has taken a while to get it somewhat smooth, hope you like it, would like to dedicate this to Marie Noelle as its her favourite tune of all hmmmmm I should mention thats Tony's backing track and I played over it

I've been thinking about ballad playing, so I thought I'd put my thoughts down on video!

David sent this video over of him demonstrating to a student the idea of playing laid back. So now we get to check it out as well. It's a beautiful solo! I love his lines and his feel! -- Tony Miceli