I haven't listened to Joe Pass, I'll have to check him out sometime. One of my big problems right now with bass is that I've not had one with me at college this semester, plus over the last year or so I didn't have much time to play because I was still obsessed with video games, but now that I'm past that stage in my life I'm going to have a bass within five minutes of me at all time. While I don't think that bassists use as much stuff to hide their technique behind in rock, my main beef with rock bass playing is that with some exceptions (The Who, Pink Floyd, Chili Peppers, etc.) the bass players have no imagination. 99% of all rock bass lines sound so recycled and plain. Then you get into jazz and funk and hear people like Jaco and Marcus Miller and Stanley Clarke and John Patitucci and then stretching out into funk with people like Bootsy Collins and Larry Graham and...well, you get the point, but so many innovative bassists who really know what they're doing. Above all, I think that learning the jazz chordal structures and getting yourself a deep understanding and ability to improvise is probably some of the best stuff I think can be done musically. That being said, almost all of my past several years of bass playing has been mostly rock oriented, with a bit of attempting some Victor Wooten thrown in. Now, though, he's not so impressive to me, I mean he has the technique and he is undeniably a good player, but...I don't know, something has changed. Starting in a little over a week I'm going to be really cracking down and learning all the jazz/blues and funk theory I can and working on finding more people to play with who like to play interesting music.
Things are not as bad as they seem.
They are worse than that.
They are also better than that.
