Music For Bass, an Interview with Andrea Fascetti About His Latest CD

Music For Bass, an Interview with Andrea Fascetti About His Latest CD…

Bass Musician Magazine is thrilled to interview Italian bassist and BMM Contributor Andrea Fascetti about his latest CD, Music For Bass (available on iTunes). 

Before we get started talking about the CD, please tell our readers a bit about your background as a bassist…

I’m a double bass player and composer, but I mainly play the electric seven-string bass.

At the end of the ’80s I started to study electric bass privately, then at CPM in Milan and some time later I studied double bass at the Puccini Conservatory in La Spezia with Gian Pietro Zampella. Also, I studied jazz improvisation with the great teacher Charlie Banacos for 19 years; he really changed my life. He was amazing and I really miss him.

During the 90’s I played at several Jazz clubs and festivals with cool Italian Jazz musicians like Gianni Basso, Riccardo Arrighini, Mauro Grossi, Andrea Melani, Stefano Onorati, Franco Santarnecchi, Nico Gori, Vittorio Alinari and many others. I collaborated with a huge number of bands and took part in hundreds of recordings.

As a solo artist I released 5 albums, with special guests Fabrizio Bosso, Massimo Manzi and Riccardo Fioravanti.

Tell us about Music for Bass…

The CD is a collection of my compositions inspired by different electric bass sounds. It is a new project called, District 9 Bunch, which is an open group. At the moment the band consists of myself, as well as a great arranger, plus cool piano player, Ugo Bongianni (who plays with Italian music star, Mina). Ugo arranged the songs with me and played all keyboards and drums, programming in the recordings. Later on we’ll involve other musicians in live concerts; we really like the idea of an “open” band.

What was the inspiration for this CD?

I’m a teacher and many of my students asked me why I play the bass like a guitar player! So I’m very glad to play the bass differently like I usually do, but the real inspiration for this CD is the electric bass and its’ history. These songs are my tribute to some of the great bass players and I hope my colleagues can hear it throughout the recordings.

How does this work differ from previous projects?

We mixed many music genres: Nu-jazz, R&B, Pop, Jazz, Fusion… so this is a very different work and it’s very far from records like Cinema or Dedicated to Steve.

Can you talk about some of the specific tracks?

I would like to mention the opening track called ZULU. This is a song in a very “Marcus Miller” style. Honestly I’m not a slap player, so it’s very funny for me to play it. I’m very proud of having achieved a good technique in a short time, but it’s very hard to practice!

Another song that I appreciate is the DISTRICT 9 BUNCH THEME. This track has a bass sound that I like very much. I used an auto-wah to play the melody, so I think that the result is a cool sound that I have never used, and it reminds me of Bootsy Collins.

ALICE is a song is dedicated to my 10-year old daughter. I played a fretless bass and I put my heart into it… I hope you enjoy it.

In PHILADELPHIA, I played my 4-string bass. The bass melody is a really old style. Later you can hear me sing… sob… I did a scat solo using a Roland Vb99 bass.

CONVERSATION… this one is for my friend Andrea Ballarin of Manne Guitars (who builds my basses) and reflects the hundreds of emails we have sent each other. Speaking about the basses and the ‘right’ sound of pickups and bass bridges… I slap with my 4-string bass like I was in the seventies and trying to use some percussive ideas.

And last but not least the song called RORSCHACH. I like comics, and Rorschach is one of the masked heroes from “Watchmen”. For me, Rorschach is the best comics character ever. This song changes different moods, like him. Here I play a fast 7-string solo and a Vb-99 distorted guitar solo, which is very fun to play.

Thank you Andrea for sharing this project with our BMM readers. We wish you much continued artistic success!

To Purchase…

The record is digitally distributed in 240 countries and you can find it on iTunes, Spotify, eMusic, etc. and on Andrea’s website, andreafascetti.com.