Re: MJT "Live at the Bottom Line".discuss?


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Posted by Richard Perry on April 21, 2003 at 16:00:45:

In Reply to: MJT "Live at the Bottom Line".discuss? posted by Anthony on April 21, 2003 at 12:31:16:

Hi Anthony,

First, thanks for buying the CD. I was there, so let me address your points:

1. The CD is live. It also wasn't originally intended to be a full CD! That was recorded on November 5, 2000--we had our first-ever rehearsal on November 3 and played our first concert (at Tennessee Tech in Cookeville) on November 4. The plan for the weekend was to get the group together, play two concerts, and record the second concert with an eye toward putting together a demo CD from parts of that concert. As it turned out, we ended up using almost all of the concert (I think one or two tunes got cut) and marketing it. The reason it doesn't sound "live" is because each of us was had our own mic and our own track, and the audience noise wasn't recorded. It didn't even leak into our mics. There were some tweaks in the mixing afterwards, but what you hear is pretty much what we played that afternoon--warts and all.

2. Winston Morris does play CC with us (as Thomas already mentioned) but his soloing is limited mainly to written out things, since he doesn't improvise. I play F tuba in the group partly because the fingerings seem easier on the "jazz keys" and partly because I tend to play in the upper range of the horn, and having the partials further apart helps the accuracy. Joe and I both tend to think high when we solo (Joe thinks about a fourth higher than I do), so we do bump into the euphonium register. We used to do the same thing when we played CC tubas, so it's not the horns, it's the players. By the way, Joe switched to Eb tuba last year, so now we've got three keys of tuba represented. And Billy brought a 20J to a rehearsal once...

3. As I said, the group had been together for less than 48 hours when that recording was made, so obviously we've gotten tighter! As far as the use of electric bass: when we first put the personnel together, we wanted to use Tony Nagy, and he's mainly an electric bassist. Since that CD, we've started using Jim Ferguson, who's a monster acoustic bass player. Acoustic bass fits better with most of the things we want to do with the group, and I think most people like the sound of acoustic bass better (at least from the comments I've received). Our current drummer, Bob Mater, has also helped tighten up the rhythm section quite a bit. The few times I've heard a group like this with a tuba playing the bass lines, the distinction between melodic tubas and bass-line tuba got pretty blurry. So we haven't considered it, and I doubt we will.

4. I'm glad you liked the disc--I think it's made an impact. Our next CD is a studio recording, and it should be out soon. I've heard a few of the early versions of the tracks, and it already sounded better than "Bottom Line." We went into the studio right after we played ITEC last June, so we had been playing together a lot. So watch for that...

By the way, do you have any soundfiles of your group? I'd be interested in hearing what other, similar bands are doing...

Richard Perry
University of Southern Mississippi
Modern Jazz Tuba Project (www.mjtproject.com)


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