More bass player info. part 3.

Ok. We've gone through the bass player saga, but I have to mention two other lads who were approached. The first is my bass student Keegan Melville. He has been taking bass lessons from me for over 1 year and it has been my distinct pleasure to watch him transform from a musical but inexperienced player, into something approaching a bass monster. Considering he only turned 16, the monster title is well within his grasp, in fact, if he sails through the next year's worth of material at the rate he did the first year he will be quite intimidating. I have been showing the guy all the ecclesiastical modes in one, two and three octave positions, all the symmetrical modes, a batch of pentatonics, harmonic and melodic minor (and all the modes therein) as well as tons of chord theory and lots of chart playing. He has aced it all. No wonder then we decided to have as a guest on the album.

When we decided this we were without a full-time bassist and as such it was looking like a great idea to draft a different bassist for each song. Guy was going to play "Evil Clocks 1", Keegan was going to play "Invitation To The Dance" (ie Discoverie part something or other), another buddy Francis Dupuis was going to play Scales, Gary was going to do MadNight, I was going to do whatever. All of this changed when Claude came on board and we assigned many of the untaken parts to him as well as some of the parts I had already done.

Even still, during March break Keegan came out to the sessions and layed down two versions of "Invitation et al". The first was a straight-ahead 3/4 feel that the song was originally cast in, the second was this swing groove that Aaron all of a sudden decided to play (this of course goes to the heart of the nature of the intended band dynamic; the ability to change a part to fit the moment). Keegan did amazingly at both. We unfortunately couldn't use his versions for various reasons. The first was that one ADAT tape machine busted just as we started tracking him and unfortunately the drum mix was substandard. The sax solo didn't get recorded and the drum part (while fresh and exciting) was too wobbly to keep (although we did decide to keep the hard-bop 3/4 swing groove that showed up on subsequent versions and ultimately the final one). Keegan also did a version in my studio for the final demo track (ie the one I bring to the band to learn). I will post both of them soon so you can see his prowess.

This brings us to the last bassist; Francis Dupuis. Francis and I have known each other for 35 years and are really good buddies. He and I went different paths in our lives; he is a successful graphic artist and I actually make my living more as a composer than a player. We have always been in bands though. Asking him was a natural choice, but as he (like many other bassists it seems) was going through a lot of personal matters he ultimately decided not to play on the CD.

Claude then had a clear-board.

After Claude left we were in the air as to what to do. Keegan was seriously considered, but given the fact he is still in high-school and has several other projects he is involved in, that seemed improbable. Guy Dagenais was contacted and at first was delighted. Several personal issues however became too time-consuming so he reluctantly passed, but we kept the door opened. He agreed to actually come into the fold several weeks later, actually the same week that we asked Francis to come down.

We had also gotten in touch with a few others but either the distance was too much for them (a point I'll never understand) or their schedules were too full to make revisions to suit ours (and I guess vice versa). Francis is still keen, but as Guy was asked before we had to honour our words (and as he fits perfectly with Aaron that becomes a serious point in his favour). As Francis and I are in another band already, that isn't too much of a problem.

So there is the (probably continuing) saga of the Rebel Wheel bassists. I won't even go into the ones I had in Toronto (now anyway) like Ken Miskov and Ed Campbell both of whom are monsters and often spot each other on gigs (very handy). Then of course we have the diminuitive Pelle Vadim who did an excellent job on the first Rebel Wheel CD (the out of print CD-R...hmmmm).

Tomorrow I'll post some links of the various players tracks and I also have some sheet music ready to post of the Klak and Evil Clocks (the other tunes are written down in a perfunctory fashion, but I'd like to clean them up before I post them).
Happy Easter.