The band was called The Saints for some reason unknown to me and while we weren’t particularly good, we were enthusiastic. The only thing that bothered me was that the bass player played a stand-up bass. Bill Haley & The Comets had a Stand-up bass player but that was three years earlier and honestly…stand-up bass players aren’t REAL Rock & Roll for me.

            Enter Leo Fender.

            Leo Fender was The Godfather of Guitars. He built his first solid body guitar in the late 1940’s – early 1950’s and called it The Telecaster. Several years later he created The Stratocaster, and sometime during those years created the Precision Bass Guitar. The bass guitar was important because it solved the problems bass players had when transitioning to Electric Bands, be they Rock & Roll or Jazz. The Fender Precision Bass allowed bass players to actually be heard by the audience. And that’s when The Bass Guiter became The Bass. An instrument that had its own style, sensibility, and methods of playing it. The second band I joined – The Tempests – had a bass player who played a Fender Precision and the difference was everything. The Tempests were a good band.

            On a personal note: I started playing guitar in the middle Fifties and all I played were full size, flat top, acoustic guitars. I never had an electric until much later. For a player, there’s a serious difference between acoustic and electric instruments. For one, electrics are louder. For another, an acoustic guitar needs a separate microphone. There are other differences but those are my two big ones. I never cared for solid-body electric guitars. They’re small, heavy, and I could never keep them in tune. The full size electrics were more my style and when I finally got one in 1966 – a Guild Starfire IV 12 String – it was great! Wish I still had it…

            Since this tale is about electric basses I’ll take a moment to celebrate a few of the great Rock, Pop, and Jazz bassists that I would have loved to play with. And they’re not in any useful order…

 

            1.    Jaco Pastorius who blazed the Fusion Jazz Path so others could follow.

            2.   James Jamerson without whom Motown wouldn’t have been Motown.

            3.   Carol Kaye was a member of The L.A. Studio Wrecking Crew and may have been the most recorded bass player of all time. Carol wasn’t all  

                  that funky, but she was really good. Solid.

            4.   Paul McCartney whose work on Rubber Soul, Revolver, and Pepper answered the question: what else can a bass do? Paulie was a great pop

                  bass player. Very melodically innovative...

            5.   Honorable mentions include Leland Sklar, Stanley Clarke, Jack Bruce, Victor Wooten, Chuck Rainey, John Pattitucci, Fast Freddie

                  Freddie Washington…and many more great players.

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            So…I got an email this morning praising the breakthrough design of an Electric Bass that was created by Dan Armstrong for Ampeg back in the late 1960’s. . Now this bass had all the parts that that makes a bass a bass...headstock, neck, frets, clear Lucite body….wait a minute. Did he say CLEAR LUCITE BODY? Yes, Virginia, he did.

            My first encounter with this Ampeg Bass was in – of all places – Vegas. I was playing piano and fronting the band for my friend Josh White, Jr. who’d been booked into The Mint Hotel Lounge in May of 1970. Playing Vegas was always fun for me because I love the desert. Hot, sunny, desert. I also didn’t drink at the time and I’ve never been into gambling so I didn’t have to deal with hangovers and loss of Mortgage Money guilt. I worked, rode horses at Red Rocks Canyon, laid out at the pool, and otherwise enjoyed the gigs I had there.

            The Mint was a downtown Vegas Hotel & Casino that ultimately closed in 1989. It was on Fremont St., right next to The Golden Nugget where Homer & Jethro were opening for Brenda Lee. THAT’S how long ago I’m talkin’… This gig was a two week booking, four sets a night. At first our shows started at 10:00pm. Several shows were earlier, and some nights the shows were later. Remember...Vegas runs 24/7!

            It was after one of these later shows that Josh and I drove out to The Sahara and caught the show at The Casbar. The drummer in our band had recommended we check the band out so there we were at 3:30 in the morning sitting at the bar. The curtain opened, the band hit the downbeat and out danced the topless dancers. Needless to say, we got into the show.
           

            After a while I began to listen to the band. They looked like your basic Vegas Lounge Band but these guys sounded like Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears put together. Very active horn section, great lead guitarist, keyboard guy was first rate, kick-ass drummer, everybody sang and the harmonies were top-notch, a really fine group.       After 10 or 15 minutes of ShowBiz the dancers hopped off the stage and the band started an up-tempo tune and soon each player took a ride. An improvised solo.

            Each horn player took a ride, guitar took a ride, keyboards – ride. Then the bass player walked forward. He was playing a weird, see-through, Lucite bass. First one I’d ever seen. The bass player smiled, picked up a trumpet from a stand, and proceeded to take a trumpet solo with his right hand, all the while playing a walking bass motif with his left hand.

            Yes. It bears repeating: The bass player was playing an improvised trumpet solo with his RIGHT HAND and a Walkin’ Blues with his LEFT HAND.

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            The band was Los Blues. They were from The Valley in South Texas and they played their asses off. Special thanks to Los Blues, without whom I would have never seen Louie Leos, Jr. play a Lucite Bass and a trumpet at the same time.

            And that is...No...Easy...Trick!