Just got back from a lovely little jaunt in Brittany, France. Pierre, a drummer who I play with regularly in several bands, had his 30th birthday in the area he grew up. He invited many friends from all over Europe including many of us from London. Pierre was the perfect host, collecting and dropping people […]
Author Archives: philwbass
LV Project have a couple of dates this May. We are playing at our regular venue Jazz After Dark in Greek Street Soho. As it says on the tin, it is ‘jazz’ and it is ‘after dark’. We play standard tunes mostly and we interpret them in a meaningful and fresh way. Sometimes that means […]
Hmmmm….I initially went for 20, this expanded to 30 and then I culled it dramatically and painfully to 20 again. These are not necessarily the ‘best’ albums – though I think they might be: they are the albums which mean the most to me. Some of my hugest influences are omitted as I can’t think […]
As I looked forward to taking a lesson with Steve Lawson (something we have oft talked about) I gave some thought to other teachers I’ve had on bass. As a musician and a teacher, I am fascinated by the whole process. Now, after a lesson with Steve, I am ready to finish getting this post […]
Being a Twitter newb myself, I might be better or worse placed to give tips. I have been using Twitter since the beginning of February about 8 weeks ago: so maybe ideally placed to remember the pitfalls and have used it long enough to get something out of it. Please leave comments if you disagree […]
Yeah, practice is essential for musicians or for anyone trying to get better at anything. A writer on language once told me that unless you are serious enough to spend half an hour a day on something – you aren’t going to progress. My own experience with practice has been more up and down. Those […]
—edit—kind of funny now, I more rarely drink cappuccino though it remains a good test, I tend towards flat whites and macchiatos and espressos on the whole—edit—(August 2010) I finally learned to spell Cappuccino. I like espresso and other espresso-based drinks (especially macchiato) but cappuccino is the one I most often seek out – and […]
Listen to the LV Project on Soundlclick As many of you may know, I’m a bassist based in Central London; I’d been playing with drummer Pierre Helliofor some years in a variety of soul, funk, rock and reggae-minded projects and I was delighted to get a call from him one day to consider working with […]
OK, I commented at length on Steve Lawson’s lovely pro-Twitter blog so I thought I’d blog my comment here. I’m sure you’re familiar with Steve’s original blog My response: Great blog Steve – I’m finally getting round to commenting. Some lovely comments here; and I adored Greg’s – so personal. It’s hard to find an […]
OK, I still use a music-stand on this jazz gig I’ve been playing for months. There often are new tunes but mostly it’s there out of laziness as I haven’t bothered to learn the changes of some of the tunes, though I’m sure I’d know them at a push. What do you think of musicstands […]
Phil Wain 