matthew wengerd|bassist

Win Hinkle veered from his usual topic of discourse to talk about amplification in jazz; recounting his experience at a Ravi Coltrane soundcheck. Win is a tells-it-like-it-is kind of guy and I don’t always agree with him, but his post makes a pretty strong point.

As a bassist, I find I usually need to amplify when playing anything larger than a duo/trio in a small room. Now, there are plenty of purists who go all-acoustic, but I think it’s realistic to use an amp. What I think is absolutely uncalled for is miking drums and horns in small rooms. It’s dismaying to see big-name pros bringing entourages of soundmen to club dates. As a musician, I spend so much time working on playing with sensitivity that I cannot imagine ruining that with trillion-watt sound systems.

Add Win’s blog to your reader; you may not always agree, but it’s bound to be a good read.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 5th, 2007 at 11:44 am and is filed under Jazz, Links, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.