Event Review
Touted as one of the world’s most prolific bass players, Stu Hamm has become a pivotal and inspirational figure in the bass players’ world. On 21st April 2009, Stu brought his creative pulse of experience to Hong Kong and divulged his top touring tips to a full house of audience at Tom Lee Academy Hall, MegaBox, Kowloon Bay.
Probably best-known as Joe Satriani’s bass player, Stu comes from a musically-gifted family. His father is a musicologist and his mother is an opera singer and teacher. Upon highs-school graduation, in the second week of his first semester in Berklee College of Music, he came across Steve Vai, whom people referred as “the kid who blows up an amplifier every time he plays”. Through Vai, Stu met his long-time collaborator Joe Satriani.
Stu’s explosive solos and unconventional techniques served to gain him much acclaim from sources such as Guitar Player Magazine, whose readers voted him for Best Jazz Bass Player and Best Rock Bass Player for number of times. A creative bassist who continues to push bass techniques to extremes, Stu is one of few unorthodox bass players who has a remarkable cross-genre career.
Following the success of Joe Satriani’s G3 tour series, “Bx3” is Stu’s bass version of G3 featuring Billy Sheehan, Jeff Berlin and himself. A final product of tremendous effort and time, the all-star bass extravaganza was well-received by audience world-wide. For Stu, the trio’s open-air concert in Bangkok where they played for 33,000 audiences was unforgettable.
Living with a motivation to explore and expand his own musical ideas in every conceivable direction, recently, Stu is trying to make chords out of harmonics as he slides. He is also going to challenge himself with Bach’s two-part inventions, by playing one part while singing the other. “I’m recording a new album at the moment and hope it’ll be done by Fall. I will be hosting bass workshops in England and the States. This year is a lot quieter than last year, because Joe is touring with his band Chickenfoot.” adds Stu.
Stu’s set-list for his Hong Kong workshop was packed with unaccompanied bass-solos that satisfied both serious bassists and fans of great musicianship. In his outstanding renditions of "Linus & Lucy" and "Moonlight Sonata", Stu utilizes his prolific two-handed polyphonic tapping and velocity control to capture essential qualities of the original composition. As he hammered Beethoven’s melody on the fret board with his right hand, his left hand was assigned to play triplets of triads. Stu’s tone was subtle, warm and rich. At times, he would mimic the legato and pedaled sustain of a piano with long notes on the lowest string.
So what does music mean to Stu? “Music is my joy, my career and my hobby. It provides shelter for my family, and it is my meditation.” In "Flow My Tears" and Stu’s bass-solo version of Joe Satriani’s "Love Thing", Stu illustrated his believes and suggested all that emotions weighs just as much as technical brilliance. Stu’s harmonics and chord-melody approach in these sentimental themes encapsulated the expressiveness of a four-string, as well as his ability to go deeper into his personal voyage of discovery as a musician.
On top of soul-pleasing tunes that are beautiful from start to finish, the standouts of the workshop are Stu’s jaw-dropping bass stunt-works. Definitely a lot more than just managing space and time, his playing expertise makes individuals wonder how he manages to keep his right arm intact. The joy and fun exuded from “Country Thing” would be a great example. Filled with dazzling slaps and flamenco-style strums, Stu’s style here is based around capturing the theme using right-hand roll pattern that create a bold, fast flurry of notes. As the progressive bluegrass flavor gets more intense, he accelerates the tempo to create a wild and hysteric mood. Just when Stu’s about to hits his upper speed limit, he inserted an abrupt pause, let out a scream and wrapped up the song by repeating the theme once more at snail-speed.
To everyone’s delight, Stu closed the evening hour with a surprise jam-session with the help from two talented local musicians - Marco (drummer) and Jason (guitarist). Together they shook the foundations of the stage with few tracks selected from Stu’s millennium album, including "Outbound" and "Castro Hustle". Although Marco and Jason were unable to rehearse each song measure by measure with Stu, their take is certainly hot enough to tape.
Product Highlights
Hartke’s new line of bass products - the HyDrive series was also introduced in the clinic. Hartke’s patented HyDrive Cone Technology® fuses paper and aluminum in a unique design, introducing a sound that embraces the "warm" tone of traditional paper cones and "punchy" attack of aluminum cones. HyDrive speaker uses motors constructed with large diameter voice coils and neodymium magnets produce more powerful power but weighs 40% less than a traditional speaker.
HyDrive 210C Combo is a versatile and lightweight combo that could deliver enough power for live performance needs. Housed with two 10-inch HyDrive hybrid cone speakers, this model makes effective use of KickBack’s classic design and offers 250 watts of clean, linear power that could respond to virtually any active bass. Also onboard are 7-band graphic EQ, Attack Overdrive, bass and treble contour controls, with a 1-inch Titanium compression driver integrated into the unit for extended high frequency range. Like the larger HyDrive cabinets, the 210C’s solid plywood construction and extensive bracing are designed to withstand the trails of heavy gigging.
Moving onto the next category - we have HyDrive HX115 and HyDrive HX410, two new bass cabinets engineered to meet different power requirements. Possibly the lightest 15-inch cabinet ever built, HX115 comes with a 500-watt HyDrive hybrid cone speaker, while HX410 has four, 10-inch 250-watt HyDrive hybrid cone speaker with 1000 watts of power handling. Each cabinet has a 1-inch Titanium compression driver, a high-frequency attenuation switch and a 1/4-inch Speakon output connectors. For easier and better transport, both units feature stainless steel grills, inset side handles and four removable steel casters.
Furthermore about Hartke’s bass amplifiers, the LH1000 is the perfect complement to the HyDrive line, taking up only two-rackspace. This 1000-watts amplifier can also be matched to other cabinets available on the market, opening up a world of tonal possibilities for players. The 12AX7 Class-A tube front-end design and solid state output are the factors that contribute to its warm, human tone, while its brite and limiter switches, treble and bass shelving knobs are handy for tone-shaping tasks.
Familiar as it seems, Hartke’s 3500a is a new format of the industry’s best-selling bass head Hartke 3500. Now with a shiny silver front panel and vintage style wood enclosure, 3500a features all the same rock-solid performance as the original 1990 release with 3500 watts of clean power and punch. A reliable system for both live and recording scenarios, 3500a includes active/passive selection, tube, solid-state preamps and variable compression. Its ample features such as 10-band EQ with in/out button for instant presets, ground-lift option and overloading protection circuitry made 3500a an obvious choice of both serious and professional groove-makers.
- Francis Fu - |
