Gerald Veasley's Bass Boot Camp

[Ken Smith]

I have been invited by Gerald to give a Seminar there on Bass Set-up/Maintenance, etc. I will also cover some Double Bass (upright bass) stuff at the end to those who are interested. I am Scheduled at this time for Saturday at 2pm. I will also try to be available for one-on-ones throughout the day and maybe even Sunday if I can get over there providing a space can be alloted for this besides the main one hour Class.

[Christopher Rhodes]

Ken,

I might be there. I am feeling under-the-weather right now. I will bring my Ken Smith basses.

[Ken Smith]

The Camp ended last Sunday evening but I left in the mid afternoon to get home.

This was a fun experience and I am sure the 80 or so Boot Campers felt the same. Besides the regular staffers or great teachers/Players they had Will Lee in one Saturday for a Class and Brian Bromberg on Sunday.

I did one Master Class on Saturday from 2-3pm and Gerald titled it "Bass talk with Ken Smith". So, what do you do for a class with a heading like that? Well, I took a pencil and paper and leaned it on my music stand. Then I polled the group of about 60-70 people (some were in private lessons and didn't make it) and asked them what they would like to discuss with me. I got about 12-15 subjects and took them one at a time from the top.

A few questions were missed due to time but I offered one-on-ones throughout the rest of the day and Sunday for those that had more or other questions. I held back on answering a question about 6-string construction mainly because it was mostly 4 and 5 string players and again, only one hour for the Class. There were a few Upright players (doublers) in the group so I saved that for the last 5-10 minutes.

On Sunday, I set up in the main room during Lunch for any one on ones and left my old English Gilkes DB on display during the following class which was Bromberg's.

Both Brain and Will gave some great talk. Last year Richard Bona was the main guest. If for nothing else, the class with guys like these could easily make the Trip worth anyones while.

The Berks Jazz Festival was going on as well and in the same hotel at 10pm or so Saturday Gerald Veasley and his group was due to play. After dinner I went to my room to take a short rest and turned on the TV. There it was, on channel 9, Gerald's concert broadcasted by "Smooth Jazz" on TV. I laid back in Bed and never left the room..

[Richard Prowse]

Sorry I missed it!