CM : At what point do you feel you came into your own as a bass player ?
AC : Probably in my early 20s . I decided to develop my own sound working with different bass builders in Montreal , then I met George Furlanetto at F Bass . We ’ ve been working together since . Next I worked on my vocabulary , music language , and took private lessons mainly with piano players , arrangers , and sax players to dig more into harmony and improvisation concepts .
CM : A player is fortunate to find one distinct voice on bass ; you have two ! Your fretted and fretless voices are very different from one another …
AC : Well , I see the fretless bass as my main instrument ; it ’ s closer to an upright and a human voice . It ’ s the instrument on which I can express myself the best . I see the fretted bass more as a rhythmic instrument , although I ’ ve developed a technique that allows me to play melodic lines and improvise !
John Patitucci
Solo , Wayne Shorter Quartet , Chick Corea Elektric Band — John Patitucci is a true master of the six-string electric and upright bass . The gold standard in bass performance .
Alain Caron
CM : At what point do you feel you found your own “ voice ” or style on upright bass and electric bass ?
Solo , UZEB — French Canadian Alain Caron is highly regarded as one of the world ’ s top bassists . A national treasure .
JP : I think what happened was I just liked a lot of different kinds of music , so it wound up that I needed both [ laughs ] to play all these different styles . It was kind of like , “ Okay , this style really needs an acoustic bass ,” so I really wanted to learn that . And all the styles of music within each instrument , that was a big challenge , too . You know , dealing with all the different styles from funk to Latin music , and then Brazilian music later and Afro-Cuban music and Israeli music and all the West African stuff that I got into ... And then , on acoustic , the different kinds of jazz , and then eventually I studied classical in college for three years . I really got into that . That was a big deal in terms of my foundation technically , and musically and sonically . Learning to play with a bow became a huge part of my musical life as well – chamber music and writing stuff and even playing solos in symphony orchestras . So it ’ s a pretty schizophrenic life , actually , when you think about it , but a really fun adventure for sure .
CM : When you started playing the sixstring , did you run into any resistance ?
JP : I was fortunate because I was playing
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with Chick [ Corea ], who ’ s an adventurer , and he thought , “ Wow , this is kind of interesting .” And he not only embraced it , but he helped me – he advanced me the money out of my salary to get that first Ken Smith six-string that I got in 1985 . I don ’ t remember what it cost , but it was a lot of money for me . And I had just started playing with Chick , and I said , “ You know , this instrument , I think it ’ s really important , and it could be really great in the music .” And he said , “ Man , we ’ ll give you the money and we ’ ll deduct it from your paycheque for a while until you ’ ve paid it off ,” which I did . So I got my six-string bass . Chick was very patient , because at first , you know , Chick ’ s music is intense , and I was trying to sight read all his stuff , and I ’ m hitting the B string when I meant to hit the E string [ laughs ]. But he heard the possibility , and then , obviously when we started to do work on the music , and the six-string became a very special voice in the music , and it had the ability to function way down on the bottom and hang with all the synths that were happening in the ‘ 80s – all the synth players playing really low notes , lower than a regular bass could go . And then , also , it had this high C string which helped me sort of reach for this goal I had to get tenor language and trumpet language and guitar and piano language and bebop out on the electric bass . So it was perfect for that .
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