Strictly muso post here. Don't expect anything hip.

Any bass players out there must know about Jaco Pastorius (sp?) and remember when bassists used to be more than just the guy that plods along beside the drummer. If so, you'll probably enjoy this bassist, Daniel Romeo, letting off some improvisational steam. It's the video in the middle (red T-shirt):

www.last.fm/music/Daniel+Romeo

This opens up another debate. Currently, the singers are the stars. In Glenn Miller's day, they were just vocalists and the band leader was the star. There was a time when the trumpet player was king. When things went electric, the guitar could step forward (as you couldn't really hear an acoustic guitar in a big band). Acker Bilk is an example of a clarinettist as star. Toots Thielemans is still the main attraction on harmonica. Any other odd band leaders you can think of? Glockenspiel? Triangle? Accordion?

M

I thought he was superb on that, but I would not say not hip though as the kids have a lot of respect for older musos that can play.

From what I saw in the video though, Daniel does have a lot less discipline than Jaco had on bass, who really did back off quite a lot, but , hey? I just viewed a bass solo and haven`t heard the rest of his work.

It really is a defining moment in music which is hardly mentioned when Pastorious ripped the frets from his bass guitar, without him doing that, there would have been no Japan,(the band) no Paul Young hits, the list is endless and this all came from a jazz improvisation guy. One of the greats and sadly missed.
I ripped my own frets off originally with a pair of pliars like Jaco did, it was nasty and brutal! Now of course , you can just buy basses like that.

Cheers for reminding me.

Very impressive and what always strikes me with bass players is that the strings are so thick.

So speed playing is even trickier.

The multi guitar players of all kinds amongst us have to endure things that a lot of people don`t realise. The hard lumps that appear on the finger tips from playing, are in a slightly different place between guitar playing and bass guitar playing, add to that, the piano playing and the stringed instruments of the more classical variety in some of our cases and many of us could probably break a window by tapping it twice!
It`s a difficult one, when it came to January, I never used to practice, but then in Feb, I would develope blisters and have to build them up all over again, which is a painful task.

A guitar or stringed instrument never leaves my side these days as I cannot afford to lose finger hardness.
The late Jaco, never did get to have the luxury of softer feel and stainless steel strings that are available these days for his instrument,I cannot imagine how strong his fingers were, add that to his musical theory and he was one hell of a musician.