Thanks for 100,000 page views on Basso Ridiculoso

Well, sometime in the last week this blog crossed the 100,000 page views mark.

It took about 12 months to reach that level, which is kinda amazing. I never thought there would be enough of you mooks to ever get even close to that number, so I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has read, commented, downloaded, clicked, or forwarded any of the posts from up here. Thanks for reading!

I have learned so much, got a few books published, and added many bass player friends from around the world in the last year, so thank you!

This next year will bring more transcriptions, articles, and maybe even another book or two, who knows.

Some Gratzi de Ridiculoso is in order

I am not going to go all Sally-Feilds-at-the-Oscars on you, (go google it, youngsters, or ask your mom) but some definite thanks are in order for some folks who have posted links to the humble musings of your narrator here at Basso Ridiculoso.

Grande Basso Gratzi, my fellow bass travelers.

1. Bopland.org - Nikita from Bopland has linked back here, all the way from sunny tropical Moscow. Bopland is the service used to generate the playable transcriptions on the site, and there is a much more extensive database of licks and musical examples on Bopland itself including licks for piano, guitar and other non-bass instruments. if you haven't checked it out, be prepared to spend a couple hours exploring. Nikita even was willing to write some custom code to make some things work, so Bol'shoe spasibo!
   
   
2. Adam Neely - All the way from sunny, tropical Washington, D.C. Adam linked to Basso from his great bass/composition blog. Check out Adam's site from the list of links over there on the right, or look for him on YouTube as Havic5 for some very informative bass lessons from a Berklee alum.
   
   
3. Joe Hubbard - all the way from sunny, tropical England, Joe added Basso on the Twitters, so molto gratzi , Joe. Joe played bass with Gary Numan for many years and published one of the first transcription books that had Jaco and Marcus Miller transcriptions in it called "Bass Lines". I think it is out of print now, but it is a classic. If you can find one, snatch it up. He also has a great bass site with transcriptions and lessons at - www.joehubbardbass.com/
   
   
4. Stephen Marshal - All the way from sunny, tropical Nashville, (I think) that's DOCTOR Marshall to you, as in a Ph.d. of Bassology. Basso is now medically approved (this claim not authorized by the FDA)! Stephen added his own blog posting about Basso Ridiculoso and sent some linkage our way. Gratzi! Check out his blog at - http://stephenmarshall.org/. Who cares about that fancy university degree, where is that ever gonna get you? Your site is now on the Link's Deemed Worthy list, now that is something to frame and put on your wall!
   
   
5. Tom Kenrick - Also from that sunny tropical paradise that is England. Looks like Tom is another bass player from "over there" and clearly is a man of good taste and fine breeding since he has linked to Basso Ridiculoso over here in the colonies. Pip Pip, my good man! http://tomkenrick.wordpress.com/
   

And for everyone who reads the site, no matter where you are, THANKS!

Sonny Rollins Awarded National Medal of Arts

Right on.

From the page at whitehouse.gov announcing this:

Sonny Rollins for his contributions to American jazz music. Widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians of the post-bebop era, Mr. Rollins’ melodic sensibilities, playing style, and solos have delighted audiences and influenced generations of musicians for over 50 years.

How about one for McCoy too, while you are at it?

Facebook Fame Smiles Upon Chateau de' Ridiculoso! Thanks, Damian!

Damian Erskine happened to notice the humble goings on around here and he was so kind as to post a link to the Circle of Thirds post on his Facebook AND his Twitter status today. Now that explains all the traffic. He gets a huge molto ridiculoso for that! Thanks!

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!