May 17, 2013

     Perhaps I started feeling empathy for bass players many years ago when I realized that low-noters were replacing drummers in the jokes that musicians like to tell. As a drummer, I was relieved when an old joke such as, "How do you know when a stage is perfectly level? — the drummer is drooling from both corners of his mouth," was changed to make bass players the objects of ridicule. But it also occurred to me that it was a positive development for people to be thinking about bassists at all.