Global Bass Online                                                                                           May 2000

IN THE BEGINNING                       

 In the beginning there was a bass.

 It was a Fender probably a Precision, but it could have been a Jazz-----nobody knows.

Anyway, it was very old…definitely pre-CBS.

And God looked down upon it and saw that it was good. He saw that it was very good, in fact, and couldn’t be improved upon at all (although men would later try). And so He let it be and He created a man to play the bass.

And lo, the man look upon the bass, which was a beautiful sunburst red, and he loved it. He played upon the open E string and the note rang through the earth and reverberated throughout the firmaments. Thus reverb come to be. And it was good. And God heard that it was good and He smiled at His handiwork.

In the course of time, the man came to slap upon the bass. And lo, it was funky.

And God heard this funkiness and He said, “Go, man, go.” And it was good.

And more time passed, and, having little else to do, the man came to practice upon the bass. And lo, the man came to have upon him a great set of chops.

And he did play faster and faster until the notes rippled like a breeze through the heavens.

And God heard this sound that sounded something like the wind, which He had created earlier. It also sounded something like the moving of furniture, which He hadn’t even created yet, and He was not so pleased. And He spoke to the man, saying, “Don’t do that!”

Now the man heard the voice of God, but he was so excited about his new ability that he slapped upon the bass a blizzard of funky notes. And the heavens shook with the sound, and the Angels ran about in confusion. (Some of the Angels started to dance, but that is another story).

And God heard this---how could He miss it---and lo, He became bugged.

And he spoke to the man, and He said, “Listen man, if I wanted Jimi Hendrix I would have created the guitar. Stick to the bass parts.”

And the man heard the voice of God, and he knew not to mess with it. But now he had upon him a passion for playing fast and high. The man took the frets off the bass that God had created. And the man did slide his fingers upon the fretless fingerboard and play melodies high upon the neck. And in his excitement, the man did forget the commandment of the Lord, and he played a frenzy of high melodies and blindingly fast licks. And the heavens rocked with the assault and the earth shook, rattled and rolled.

Now God’s wrath was great. And his was thunder as He spoke to the man. He said, “ OK for you, pal. You have not heeded My word. LO, I shall create a soprano saxophone and it shall higher than you can even think of.

“And from out of the chaos I shall bring forth the drums. And I shall make you to always stand by the drummer, and he shall play so many notes thine head shall ache. ”You think you’re loud? I shall create a stack of Marshall guitar amps to make thine ears bleed. And I shall send down upon the earth other instruments, and lo, they shall all be able to play higher and faster than the bass.

“And for all the days of man, your curse shall be this: that all the other instruments shall look to you, the bass player, for the low notes. And if you play too fast or too high all the other musicians shall say “wow”, but really they shall hate it.

And they shall tell you’re ready for your solo career, and they shall find other bass players for their bands. And for all your days if you want to play your fancy licks you shall have to sneak them in like a thief in the night.

And if you finally do get to play a solo, everyone shall leave the bandstand and go to the bar for a drink.”
And it was so.

12498

The End.

Actually, the introduction to his 1998 book shown above says it all. As bassists we can recognize so many of the situations in this humorous little intro based loosely upon Bible phrasing. Tony has seen it all, was probably there when a lot of it happened and has seemingly played bass on most of the records made in the free world.

When you check out his site, shown at the end of the interview, click on his discography and you will see what we mean. In all likelihood, those albums not played by Tony were probably played by Carol Kaye, also featured in our next issue!

“Beyond the Bass Clef’ is a hilarious fly-on-the-wall telling of life on the road with Tony Levin. Presently on tour promoting his newest solo album entitled ‘WATERS OF EDEN’, on Narada Records, he has with him three other musicians, two of them from earlier incarnations of Peter Gabriels band. Jerry Marotta on drums and Larry Fast, synthesist for a long series of instrumental progressive music under the banner of Synergy. As well, with Jesse Gress on guitar, this group of four are travelling from city to city in a van. Tony assures me that that van is not going to be around forever. Next month they go back to a bus, which is a good thing if for no other reason than to give them room to move. An excellent way to avoid strangling each other due to traveling nausea. Travel Nausea is what you feel when you think you will soon be opting to strangle your fellow riding associate if they don’t stop playing with their nose.

On this newest release Tony has opted for a position in his music similar to that taken by another bass instrumentalist and composer: Patrick O’Hearn. Like O’Hearn, Tony chose to use the bass and cello on the album as lead melodic instruments. Using a very natural almost organic sound on both his basses, his cello and stand up bass as well, Tony achieves an accessibility on this album that perhaps even some radio stations might drum up the courage to play. Moments of deep poignancy give way to pulsing constructs filled with a sense of bravado and pure joy.

Tony is proud of this record and very pleased with the audience response with this tour. Sales of tickets and CD’s have been very good, and Tony fills his days on the road with acting both as publicity and salesman for the group, spending hours of each day either on the phone or in meetings, setting up rooms, practice spaces, meals, hotels, all in all tasks usually reserved for Tour Manager. Quite literally going directly from his tour as sideman with the California Guitar Trio, Tony now has to switch to the role of the Star of the Show, something he is not seemingly at total ease with. I asked Tony how he felt about stardom in the first place. Many of his peers and his musical friends are and have been living music legends. In spite of all this, Tony manages to retain that sense of the man just next door. He assures us that most, if not all, of the people the public tends to think of as legends are just regular folk like himself.

So Tony and a few other Legends like Larry Fast are all piled into a van heading down the highway from Baltimore towards home after a grueling multi-city tour. They are taking a few days off just to give the whole thing a bit of an apostrophe and then once again the month of June swallows them up with concerts almost every night. We begin the conversation by talking about Sherlock, his dog, who often followed him in younger days on the road. I ask if the dog is somehow crammed into the car with them all. He laughs and says that Sherlock will have nothing to do with road life anymore and hasn’t since he was one year old.

It appears that there is a bit of a rest schedule-wise for you over the next few days. When I look at your schedule, you seem to be taking a few days for yourself.

Tony Levin: Who thinks about rest? It’s just that around holiday weekends it’s hard to get bookings and very hard to travel. So we decided to spare ourselves the difficulties from having to drive around that weekend. Starting in June, we’re gone for that whole month.

TL: Actually we have that in the van. It’s actually Jerry Marotta’s wig. It’s actually made of Styrofoam and he’s been hoping that one night I will wear it on stage.

TL: The one track with just piano and me, that was with Warren Bernhardt and is called ‘Boulevard of Dreams’. My original title for that was gonna be “Central Park In the Snow’. In fact that was a very wintry thing, but I thought that was too descriptive. That was probably my favorite track to record because I love Warren’s playing so much.

Does the cello trigger that melancholy feeling in you at all?

How are comments regarding the track GECKO WALK, and the reason this is asked is that if there ever was a radio friendly song on this album, GECKO is that song. It has a strut to it.

TL: I agree, I had that in mind but I found out that Narada is not the kind of record company that submits those kinds of songs to radio stations. But that’s okay with me. It (GECKO WALK) is a radio friendly track that’s not getting submitted to radio but that’s okay! It is one of our favorites in the show. It’s one of the few up-tempo numbers I’ve written and the audience responds to it well.

TL: Both really, sometimes it comes easy, sometimes I need to work at it. Sometimes when a band is joking around or suggesting titles I try to remember to write `em down so I have access to them later. But generally in the period in which I am writing the music, as my family will tell you, my wife and daughter are very aware of this…I begin my night time reading when I go to bed and this generates little phrases and little quotable bits. I’ll start reading poetry and the Bible and things like that in bed at night with a note pad next to me. So over the period of months when I am writing music, they come to me. Often I have a title in mind, but I do change them, and few of them actually make it to the end. So by the end of that period of taking notes, I would say I probably have about 50 titles.

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