Katie Marie kicks of the new year with a real jazzy feel
Hope you had a good NYE. I had a very chilled out evening and managed to stay awake until midnight (which is a pretty big thing for me these days I can tell you! lol).
So with about a million and one things to get done this month, I had to dive straight on in there with all my musical missions. This week has defo been a real Jazz orientated week in which I realised how rusty I am on the old bass guitar!
As you’ll probably know from reading my other articles, I’m currently writing lots of weird and wonderful tunes for a US music library. So far my songs have been Reggae, Rumba, Blues and Classical March, and this week I thought I’d do some songs in a genre that I really do love… Jazz baby! I used to play bass in a jazz fusion trio many years ago and I’ve always missed it lots as it’s a genre I do enjoy playing. I wouldn’t really call myself a Jazzer by any stretch of the imagination, but when you get a little bit of Jazz and a little bit of Funk and mix them up together, the result is *right* up my street, especially when I’m armed with a bass guitar!
I managed to write a three-minute Jazz Fusion song, which I think sounds very Herbie Hancock I wrote this on my lovely Musicman bass and recorded all the bass parts. Then it was time to record the drums, but when I sat at my kit I couldn’t play any of the parts I’d written!! Arrrg!! I’ve written all these lovely stops and phrases and a real specific drum beat which in my little brain I thought I’d be able to play – WRONG! lol but thankfully after lots of practice and oodles of swear words I can now play it, albeit very slowly! So I’ll be giving that a whirl a little later on, will letcha know how it goes.
That was my first Jazz-orientated musical event. The second was a Devon-based Jazz composer called Rupert Leighton got in touch with me asking if I’d be interested in playing bass for him as he’s putting together a band so he can get out there gigging.
I took a listen to his tunes and really loved what I was hearing. All his music is very well arranged and thought-out with lots of lovely bass lines. So we agreed to meet up and have a jam. Before meeting up he’d asked me to take a listen to a couple of tracks on his Myspace player (Amuse-Bouche and Solstice Illusion). I took a listen and thought, ‘yep, I think I can handle that’. So when I picked up my bass to work out all the notes I hadn’t allowed for that fact that I’ve not really played my bass ‘properly’ in a regular band situation for a little while now and my poor hands were a wee bit slow to say the very least!
Playing Amuse-Bouche the first few times was hysterical, I couldn’t get through a verse and chorus without feeling like my hand was going to drop off, never mind the whole song!! (Check it out and you’ll see what I mean). But I practiced and practiced in my usual anal fashion and managed to get it sounding just about there.
Thankfully when we met up I nailed it and Mr Rupert seemed happy with my playing (yay!). So I’m now part of a really good and funky Jazz band! Just got to learn all the other tunes… aaaaarrrggghh!! lol
Anothing very exciting thing that’s getting underway is I’m going to be launching my own record label (hopefully this month, but it depends on how I get on designing the new website!!) which I’ll be using as a way to release my own music. It’s all very exciting stuff which I’ll tell you aaaalll about next week!
Anyways hope you have a wonderful week and enjoy the snow (as it’ll soon be gone!!).
• Check out Katie Marie on MySpace, or on her website.
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