International vs. Global : Notes From the Editor

I’m sure for most Americans in the last couple of months, thoughts of a “global” perspective were a little bit more up front for most people, and rightfully so. For me personally, as of late, I’ve been reminded in a few ways of looking at the “global” perspective through the eyes of this magazine as well.

I remembered a simple but seriously ‘worthy of thought’ quote from Alain Caron during my interview with him in one of our earlier issues, that being, “In my opinion, a good musician will be influenced right away when hearing different and varied musical perspectives from other cultures”. And in a more recent interview with Victor Wooten, he presented a deeper and much more insightful look into a classic one liner we’ve heard for years, “that” being the affirmation that music is truly the universal language. In the world of bass, with all due respect to all of the amazing players that are out there, let me name a few almost household names in the bass community that represent this cultural marriage in the music world we see today… Richard Bona, Avishai Cohen, Dominique DiPiazza, Kei Eckhardt, and Jonas Hellborg, just to name a few. Even within the ranks of the new young lions we see players like Hadrien Feraud from France and Tal Wakenfield from Australia receiving well earned notoriety. Are we now global in the world of music these days…….absolutely! But, let me take that a step further. Rather than “global”, I tend to see a more fitting term for this phenomenon in the music business, which would be “International”.

The dictionary defines internationalism as a principle or policy of international cooperation for the common good…. that just works for me. So we here at the magazine have made some steps to perpetuate this “international” perspective in the hopes that it will (and sorry for paraphrasing) work for the “common good” of the bass community.

New, and most welcome to our staff are the following: From Spain we have Marco Schoots who heads up the European Bass Day site. He’ll be submitting interviews on European players deserving of this kind of exposure. From Africa, we’re glad to have on board Martin Simpson who heads up the South African Bass Players Collective, who will also be doing interviews for us. From France we bring on Bruno Tauzin, a very talented bassist that heads up the largest educational bass site in France. From Italy we welcome bassist and composer Andrea Fascetti who will be doing a column for us. I certainly don’t want to leave out two of our already on board staff members fitting this cultural exchange, Avishai Cohen and Yves Carbonne. It also bears mentioning that in our new Bass Community section, we already have groups represented from Germany, Australia, and Sweden.

I have high hopes that this cultural merging within the magazine and our Bass Community we’ll give everyone the opportunity of discovering a new perspective to consider within their personal quest as a musician. I have no hesitancy in mentioning that some of the most intriguing music that we’ve heard in the last few decades absolutely blends the voices of different cultures, and maybe this “fusion” (might be a new way to consider that word) of ideas can generate yet another idiom within our musical sphere.

On a final note, I also want to welcome on board bassist Brad Houser who will be covering our new section, “Progressive Rock Update”. I felt a need to bring this section to life in the magazine as I find there are quite a few bands out there that would support this particular label of “progressive rock”, but the line is very thin many times in a musical sense between the phraseology of “progressive rock”, and “fusion”, and I want to open the door to these individuals or groups to obtain some recognition in the same spirit of the cultural exchange we’ve just talked about.

Speaking personally, breaking the “rules” (oh, that’s right…there are no rules) in compositional endeavors has been the catalyst for some of the most vibrant music of the last few decades, and I hope all we’re trying to do here in the magazine perpetuates that philosophy, (musically as well as culturally) and I look forward to hearing all of it.

Best,

Jake Kot, Editor