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Installing and testing Joe’s Wikiloops plugin

Today I was reading the Wikiloops Howto and Forum sections again to see how one can contribute back, and promote Wikiloops a bit.

And sometimes it’s interesting to do just that and to see what others have done already. I found for instance Joe’s (jmrukkers) WordPress plugin that way – so I downloaded and installed it right away.

Joe describes two ways it should work, like with a single line, or the id in brackets.

So let’s test that with his latest two tracks here. For “Fun Time Funk”, I’ll try his method 1:

Hey, that looks cool – I now see the Wikiloops player embedded in the new “Gutenberg” editor. Wow.

Ok, his second method, with the track number in a bracketed ID now:

Hmmm ok – that doesn’t update itself in the editor, but then it wasn’t tested in WP 5.x and its “Gutenberg” editor – the plugin page says:

Tested up to: 4.9.10

(and I’m on WordPress 5.1.1)

So I’ll see after saving the thing as draft, or after refreshing the page… and yes, that worked as well, tho the first method is maybe both easier to remember and more direct in its result – showing you the track right away.

Anyway, great work from my friend and fellow musician Joe; thanks a lot for that, man!

In case you want to see us playing together, we did that already, in one of last year’s video collaborations – see here:

Reggae Town – wikiloops.com video collaboration series 2018

So that’s Joe and me together with a few more friends, some of which – including Joe – I have met shortly after this at last year’s members’ meeting.

Again, thanks Joe, and thanks to you for reading, viewing, and listening.

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Two photos of me

Here’s one from ca. 1976:

Wolfgang and a band, ca. 1976 Cologne (scan from a bad postcard-sized print)

And here’s one from ca. 42 years later:

7e2_831_DSC_5188-sfx-wolfgang
Wolfgang, 2018 Steinfeld

As always, thanks for looking.

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Listen to the bass…

Stumbled upon some videos with killer bass lines again lately – and here are two three of them. First, a cute one (and females seem to like it because of the man depicted there) of singer/bassist/professor Esperanza Spalding, with herself as main actress:

Esperanza Spalding – I Can’t Help It

Then, a duo. One of the greatest guitar players of all time, Joe Pass, but listen to Red Mitchell on bass on this one (which is again one of my most favourite songs ever):

Joe Pass & Red Mitchell – Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise (live)

Oh, and you probably knew already that Michael League from Snarky Puppy is a killer bass player also, didn’t you? Here’s some ‘making of’ of one of the songs from their latest album “Immigrance” which should be out right now:

Snarky Puppy – Xavi (Behind The Scenes)

Love that African polyrhythmic vibe of this one – the drums, the handclaps, everything. Oh, and the cats of course!

That’s all for now folks – and it’s all on my wishlist at the big dealer’s place…

As always, thanks for reading / watching / listening.

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Mari Boine

A thread over at talkbass.com asked about favourite vocalists. I gave three answers (#27, #59, and #229) so far, naming a few which came to my mind.

As you can probably guess in case you know me or read these pages since a while, my answers were almost all more or less not very mainstream. And one of my most favourite still living artists besides my friends from Wikiloops is Marie Boine. I first heard her on Jan Garbarek‘s album “Visible World” with a song they called “Evening Land” (Jan Garbarek, Mari Boine) – but she had that before, and named it “Goaskinviellja / Eagle Brother”. Here she performed it some 10 years ago in Oslo:

Mari Boine – Goaskinviellja / Eagle Brother (Oslo Opera House, 2009)

So totally not from this world, hm? And at the same time this Sami singing somehow reminds me of American Indians, so maybe we could call those Sami the European Indians?

Anyway – when Youn Sun Nah was once asked about influences, she not only named Tom Waits but also Mari Boine. Who is awesome.

As always, thanks for reading / viewing / listening.

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A song, older than me. And a new one.

I recently discovered “Cry me a river”, a song composed and first published in 1953 by Arthur Hamilton (see the song’s Wikipedia and JazzStandards pages).

And since Mr. Hamilton originally wrote this for Ella (yes, *the* Ella Fitzgerald!), here is her version of it:

In 1955, it was recorded by Julie London – and even if you’re younger, you might know her version from a movie (“V for Vendetta”):

Some friends of mine from Wikiloops, French guitarist OliVBee and also French singer marmotte also recorded a very beautiful version of it and uploaded it to Youtube:

Chord progressions cannot be copyrighted (for a bit of background in formation (in German) on copyright, cover versions, and so on, see an article in Sound & Recording for instance), so a bit later OliVBee uploaded a slightly changed version of it as “Tears Made Of Silver” onto the loops for people to get creative with these chords.

And then came Shi (from England), and she developed a story not about herself being sad like in the original, but about a missing girl called “Emily”. And then Wade (from New Zealand) played a beautiful sax onto it, finally making it irresistible for me (to not jump in).

I’ve shown it before on these pages, but here it’s again for comparison: “Looking for Emily”:

This track is embedded with the friendly permission by the creatives on wikiloops.com.

And the list of musicians on this is:

As always, thanks for reading, viewing, and listening.

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Take a rest (video)

Made a short video of my latest collaboration on Wikiloops:

Wikiloops collaboration #159026 – Take a rest

It shows that I haven’t used many effects, just a bit of eq and compression. It also shows the Wikiloops page of the track, and our cat who took a rest (which is what cats do best) 🙂

Enjoy…

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Take a rest

What a nice track from Offfocus (Pat) – and today I could finally play along a bit, and re-upload it:

This track is embedded with the friendly permission by the creatives on wikiloops.com.

And that’s just him and me in this version, until now:

As always. thanks for listening.

Update, from the same evening: got a first remix already, some keys from “ecsponger”. And he also renamed the track to “Tranquility Base”:

This track is embedded with the friendly permission by the creatives on wikiloops.com.

That makes it the following list of musicians so far:

And thanks again for listening 🙂

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John Goldsby’s “The Jazz Bass Book” is a deep dive into Jazz history

On Saturday I got this fine book of John Goldsby, about whom I wrote a few days ago already.

And his book is indeed a deep dive into Jazz history; I’m learning so much. You can spend an awful lot of time with all the players he covers there, and you’ll discover a world full of surprises if you take that time and listen to some of them – which I recommend as much as reading the book itself.

Yesterday for instance I mentioned Scott La Faro to a colleague (and I think also to my brother in an email to him) – and Scott’s outstanding work is possibly best represented on this recording (1:22h but well worth your time, as this was just ten days before the young genius died in a car accident):

Bill Evans – Sunday at the Village Vanguard (Not Now Music) [Full Album]

And of course this album is on my big dealer’s wishlist since I heard it – a must have for bass players as well as for lovers of fine music.

Like I said: worlds are opening, this book is like a ride through jazz history in a jet plane. Just like a first semester course on your typical music university. Cannot say more than Ron Carter in his foreword:

I’ve enjoyed this book and will delay further research on the history of jazz bass until John Goldsby writes another.

As always, thanks for reading.

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Hagelslag & Donata Jan

“Hagelslag” is a Dutch word for “sprinkles“, as the German Wikipedia explained it to me. And it’s also the name of a band, which is new and fresh, and I simply love what they’re doing – do we have something like a European Snarky Puppy here? (Edit, from one day later: no; after listening a bit more to them, they’re no Snarky – far from it. But they’re Hagelslag, and I still like what they do)Their arrangements are surely clever, and they’re cool and groovy – listen:

Hagelslag – Don’t Think Just Groove | Live IdeenExpo 2017

Saw one of theirs yesterday already, and in that video they’re in Hervé Jeanne’s studio (the bass player of the late Roger Cicero and others), accompanied by Donata Jan and four other great singers:

D Room Session Vol. 1 – Hagelslag feat. Donata Jan – Living a Lie

Like I wrote above: young, fresh, innovative, and groovy like no others – love it. I’m sure we’ll hear some more of these young ladies & gentlemen.

Hope you liked this as much as I did… and as always, thanks for reading / viewing / listening.

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How good they are…

I’m currently listening to a lot of music again. Saturday I got John Goldsby’s “The Jazz Bass Book”, and wow I’m so amazed at what I hear even in songs which I thought I knew already (and in some cases played when I was younger).

Here is for instance Reginald Workman, about whom John writes (on page 114, in the chapter “Coltrane and Beyond”:

In 1961, Coltrane let Davis go and hired one of the technically most gifted bassists on the scene at that time, Reggie Workman…

As an example, here’s Wayne Shorter with “Footprints”:

I’m speechless – this is a gold mine…