Count BASS-ie
© 2013 Brian Hutzell
My mom began giving me piano lessons when I was 4 or 5 years
old. Like any other kid, I hated practicing. Since my piano teacher was also my
mom, I was an especially ornery student. After all, you wouldn’t want to talk
back to a “real” teacher, but this was just Mom!
It wasn’t until junior high (7th
through 9th grades; this was before the system went to middle
schools) that I began talking my music seriously.
That was about the time I
discovered jazz. My hero was Chick Corea. I subscribed to Contemporary Keyboard magazine (now simply Keyboard) and became a jazz and prog-rock snob. Keith Emerson was
the god of all things keyboard. But then the magazine did a story on New Wave
artist Gary Numan. In the story, Numan admitted that he was a two-finger player
with no formal training. Well, the next month’s letters to the editor column
was flooded with irate readers demanding to know why this clearly unworthy person
had appeared in pages that could have been better spent lavishing further praise
on Emerson, Rick Wakeman, and the like. I happened to think Gary Numan made
great music, and whatever technical prowess he did or didn’t possess was of no
matter.
This may have been my first step in un-snobifying, at least a little
bit. I began to realize that impressive technique could add to or detract from
a song. If it served the music, then fine, but I began to realize that sometimes
less is indeed more. No one exemplified this philosophy better than Count
Basie, who could play a minimalist solo which added exactly enough notes
exactly where they needed to be.
“And there are simply too many notes, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect.”- Emperor Joseph II, in Amadeus
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