Sunday 19 September 2010

Is it wrong to love another man?



This video replaces the original one that I posted, removed from YouTube for some reason or other.  It's the same performance, but you need to go to about 1:25 to find it.  Or you could just watch the whole thing.

I love Pino.  If you're a regular here, you should know this by now.  Here are some of the main reasons I love him so:
  • He is a bass player;
  • He is a bloody good bass player;
  • He is playing a Fender Jaguar bass here, which is, let me tell you, very cool;
  • He's quite unassuming and nice;
  • The variety of music he plays is - in all honesty - truly staggering.  If you've got spotify, you may like to have a goosey gander at this.  If not, then you'll have to take my word for it;
  • He looks a bit like Jasper Carrott;
  • He's Welsh.

Enough said.

This track is from a live performance with French "smooth jazz" pianist Philippe Saisse and session drummer par excellence Simon Phillips.  PSP is a trio they formed to express themselves a bit and write material to showcase some of their strengths as players.  OK, it's a bit cheesy.  OK, it's a bit nerdy.  But, do you know what?  I don't give even the slightest bit of one.  And nor should you; this is brilliant music and brilliant musicianship, even if it is probably the direct inverse of cool.  Pino's playing is stupendous; the way he uses his right hand - one finger on each string with thumb on the E - is ridiculously hard to do without sounding like a sponge being hit with a slightly gone-off cucumber, but he manages to get attack and power all the same.  Amazing.

He doesn't over play.  He doesn't show off.  He's a proper bass player, not one of those "LOOK AT ME!" players.  He sits in the pocket, keeping everyone in order, doing his job.  But, every now and then, he sticks in a fill or flourish that is truly breathtaking.  I shall resist and not list them all with a ludicrously geeky description of each like the last time I eulogised Mr Palladino.  Just watch and find them for yourself.

(Though, if you ask me, I will tell you.  That is a warning you ignore at your peril.)

The other two dudes are pretty good too.  Well done them for providing a context for the king of all bassists to perform.  I salute them.

6 comments:

  1. It be rather funky without loads of slapping! Very cool - he does look a bit naked with his one bass as the keyboard player and the drummer look like they ram-raid a large music shop. I would not like to be their roady!

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  2. Nor me! An interviewer asked them about set up times once. Drums took 2 hours to set up, keys an hour and a half. Bass tech took 20 minutes to get the rig up and plug the bass in through the pedals. No self respecting bass player would fail to smile at that! Who needs all that stuff?! As the great Victor Bailey said, it should all come from your fingers, man.

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  3. Pino is, undoubtably, a good bass player, but this kind of prog-jazz-rock leaves me a little cold; Give me a Pastorius speed-hook, or some crazy Flea pogo-funk any day! These are the men I go a bit gay for...

    (can you tell that I've just discovered your blog Leroy? Note the use of semi-un)

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  4. Good to have you on board Mr Norie! I'm happy to have you wandering about with your semis on...

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  5. "Open your mind and put aside your issues of taste or preference - attitudes that seem to me to be routed in self regard and narcissism anyway. It may not be your cup of tea. You may be a jazzer that distrusts anything too loud and simple, or an aficionado of way out electro art ensembles, but I want you to empty your mind, as much as it is ever possible to forget the part of you that is nurtured, of your preconceptions, tastes and learned habits and just listen and appreciate. Trust me: you can do it."

    Well that put me in my place.

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  6. LOLZ!

    Norie, you are a music guru. That statement cannot possibly apply to you. Me and the missus regularly listen to your Skintight playlist on Spotify. I now, and will always, bow down to your cultured and impeccable tastes.

    ReplyDelete

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