Glad to see that post helped a few folks, and hopefully we have exposed ourself, er, I mean, more people know about us now. Bookmark away, people!
And for those of you who don't know who he is, Damian is the Pacific Northwest's secret weapon on bass. Well, not so secret. He is one serious cat (to use the parlance of our times) on bass. He has an instantly recognizable rhythmic and harmonic style that includes chords and some quantifiably viscous funkosity. He grooves is what I am telling you. He has been playing six strings for quite a while (but is just as deadly on a 4 string) and has a signature six-string bass by Skjold that is up there with any custom bass you could get. His latest album "So to Speak" was released in 2010 and has some serious latin, funk and jazz grooves on it in, how shall we call them, non-standard time signatures? 13/8 anyone?
He also gets to play with some heavyweights - Jeff Lorber, Gino Vannelli, Tony Furtado, and appeared with the whose-who of bass playing in the Gospel Chops bass video (along with his uncle, Peter). Check that groove out.
Damian has recorded a trio record with Peter Erskine on drums (yes, its his uncle, I just said that) and Vardan Ovsepian on piano and it is set to be released later this year. Can't wait for that.
He also writes for No Treble, an online bass magazine, and he just released a method book called "Right Hand Drive" that goes into detail about his very cool right hand 3-finger technique. If you were moping around because you just couldn't find a book that had grooves in 15/8 and included chords in the bassline, well, quit your mopin, today is your lucky day my bass playing friend. Check out Damian's book.
And since no good deed goes unpunished, I am going to post a link to a trio gig Damian did from several years ago with Chris Mosley from Porland Jazz Jams. Even though it is older it is a great video because you get to hear him play entire tunes and take solos in a tight little trio. There is a classic public access interview for about 9 minutes (out of the total show of 28 minutes) before they start playing, but after that you can check out Damian in action. He gets a couple of great solos in, and always grooves, and the TONE oh the tone! Check him out on the 6 string Modulus.
This site does not appear to stream the video, but if you have the free player VLC (for mac, windows or linux) all you have to do is copy the link below and choose "Open Network" from the File menu (command-N on Mac) and paste in the link. I like using VLC for longer stuff instead of my browser, it just is more stable than plug-ins I find, but role the dice, just clicking the link may open it with a plug-in for you. You can also use "Open URL" in Quicktime Player, which is on every Mac.
http://media.libsyn.com/media/portlandjazzjams/PJJTV_Episode_03_Chris_Mosley.m4v
Damian is going to be in LA for NAMM this next week so be on the look out for him if you are attending.
Thanks Damian!
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