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Ubass Adventures: Travelogue from my trip to KALA and NAMM January 2018

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Chillin’ with a lovely sunset at Helen Putnam Regional Park, Petaluma, CA USA

Here comes a long overdue travelogue…I know almost a year has flown by…

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In January I traveled to California for the NAMM show in Anaheim to promote the Ubass alongside Kala.
You can read about my experiences from Winter NAMM 2017 here!

Petaluma and Kala Brand Music

My trip started with a visit to Petaluma, CA, the home of Kala Brand Music. This was the second time I visited the Kala headquarters and since the first time in the summer of 2015 a lot has happened. The Ubass has evolved and in October 2017 the company moved to a new and bigger facility that includes a great factory where the California series of the solid body UBasses are built alongside the Elite series of the ukulele models.

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My focus for this visit was to make some videos with the Kala video crew and also talk about Winter NAMM that was just around the corner. I brought my two custom solid body ubasses with the prototype E-A-D-G-C string sets. I did some videos with them alongside the new Kala Journeyman ubass and a 5-string California koa solid body ubass with regular B-E-A-D-G tuning.

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Me and my wife really had a wonderful time in lovely Petaluma situated about an hour drive north of San Francisco. The town has a lovely downtown area and a beautiful countryside. We spent some time in the Helen Putnam Regional Park and caught a lovely sunset over the rolling green hills.

Magical sunset at the Helen Putnam Regional Park

I also had the privilege visiting the home of Kala Brand Music president, Mike Upton, and we had a nice little jam in his living room!

Jammin’ at Mike Uptons place

Winter NAMM 2018

We flew down to Anaheim January 24 one day before the four day music trade show would start at the Anaheim Convention Center. From the NAMM.org homepage:

”The 2018 NAMM Show gathered the music, sound and event technology industries for the largest show in NAMM history, welcoming 115,000 registrants, more than 7,000 brands, exciting events and triple the industry education.”
https://www.namm.org/

From NAMM.org: Winter NAMM 2018 Wrap-up

Pre-NAMM-day (January 24)
I went to pick up my name badge and got to see the wonderful Kala booth. It was a lot bigger then last year. Really spacious and beautiful with a genius and practical design!

The big wall of ukuleles at the Kala booth Winter NAMM 2018 (Since I took this photo with the panorama option on my iPhone it looks a bit strange. But it also show you the massive display in its full glory!)

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Day 1 (January 25)
From the get go there was a steady stream of things happening. Musical highlights was standing a few feet away to one of my musical heroes, the fabulous organ player Joey DeFrancesco, when he played some super lovely organ jazz at the Visconti Organ booth. I told him about that lovely concert I heard him perform in Stockholm many years ago. YES!

He came to Stockholm in October.  I saw the show with some friends. Did he have a bass player with him…no…was it still great… YES!!! 

The evening was spent at the Bass Bash a special bass event, a great hang! The year before I brought a Kala Ubass there for the ”raffle”. This night I heard performances by Abe Laboriel (Open Hands) and the John Patitucci Guitar Quartet with the amazing Nate Smith on drums (Side note: In this video I play to loops from thelooploft.com played by Nate Smith!)

Laboriel and Patitucci both received Lifetime Achievement Awards from Yamaha this night!

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Day 2 (January 26)
It was great to once again, if super brief, say hi to one of my mentors, Victor Wooten. I attended one of his camps outside Nashville back in 2011. Anthony Wellington was one of the many great instructors at the camp. Joe Craven was a guest at the camp. A super talented multi instrumentalist. So great to meet him again! Also got to meet Christian Fabian, a great bass player born in Sweden but now lives in NYC.

I also met some great musician friends! Please check out Ariane Cap she’s a great bass player and educator (I met her at that Wooten Camp back in 2011) I also met Sam Montooth a great singer, bass player, teacher based, as well as Ariane, in the LA area.

One of my Ubass ”papas” Bakithi Kumolo is always such a great hang. We had some nice talks and jams at the Kala booth. He performed at the Bass Bach on the second day of NAMM and almost played my solid body ubass! 🙂
I also met some new friends and they were also Bakithi admires!

I got to meet and great Mr Funk, Bootsy Collins! And check out the great Manou Gallo!

Oscar Cartaya a great latin bass player and ubass artist visited the booth and also played at the Bass Bash.

I ran into Ida Nielsen (played bass with Prince) and Morten Ehlers (the founder of Bass Buddha, a bass shop in Denmark.

I met Christopher Bolte at the Frankfurt Musikmesse back in 2014 and now we finaly meet again. He’s a fellow Gruvgear artist.

Greg Olwell, the editor of Ukulele Magazine, came by the booth. He writes for the Ukulele Magazine and made a great ukulele bass roundup a couple of years ago.

It’s so great to hear talented ukulele players jam. Corey Fujimoto and Andreas David are super musical on their ukuleles! Andreas managed the German ukulele site Gute Ukulele!

Meeting more new friends, Amie Cool, trying out a new pedal by Ruppert Musical Instruments and seeing Jeff Berlin in a nearby booth concludes the Day 2 travelogue.

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Day 3 (January 27)
Some highlights this day was seeing good friends Ariane and Wolf. We had a nice little lunch away from the crazy show floor.

I got to meet Kala Ubass Artist Nik West. She had her signature ubass on display at the booth.

The duo Go West demoed at the booth. So did Corey, Andreas and myself.

I don’t have any pictures but have to mention the wonderful Jule amps the Jule Potter makes!

I would finally be able to meet Richard Mari Cocco Jr, (president) and Eric Cocco (vice president) for the great string maker LaBella

I got to meet great friend and ubass player Greg Gohde too! While walking outside after a long day we heard som crazy energic funky music performed by Kyotaro and Rikuo, a Japanese rhythm section duo. We closed out the day with some great food at the Disney Resort.

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Day 4

So it’s time for the final show day!
Bakithi came by the booth again so did bass player/actor Sekou Bunch. He did some great jams. I will probably share some of that later! Divinity Roxx, former musical director with Beyoncé, came by too.

The great Ukulenny demoed at the booth. My new friend Simon Poulton tried the Kala Journeyman. The Japanese bass player from Kyotaro & Rikuo from Day 3 visited the booth too.

I went to see Christopher Bolte demo at the gruvgear booth and got to met good friend Jay Baldemor. Gruvgear make a really nice and sturdy gigbag for ubass!

I also went to the Elrick booth to try out some lovely basses built by Rob Elrick

It was so great to work alongside my great Kala Family once again! See you soon!

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The Acoustic-electric Ubass Walls

Links
Good walkthrough of the updated Ubass line for 2018 by Ryan Haugh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skjsPHn5ig0

The new Jorneyman ubass is one of three new ubasses in a new entry level line. These models are offered in fretted versions and will hopefully be available in fretless versions too later on. I played all three of these and they are a great addition to the existent line of ubasses.
https://kalabrand.com/blogs/u-bass-news/namm-2018-new-u-bass-preview

 

This concludes my travelogue around this wonderful Ubass Adventure!

/Magnus

Annonser

New video! My version of a true classic – Summertime by George Gershwin

Video | | basmagnus

A short background to my version
The classic song is, as you probably know, from the opera Porgy and Bess, by George Gershwin. It was first performed in Boston in 1935 before it moved to Broadway, New York.

I was lucky to be a part of a short summary staging of the opera when I attended a music school in Sweden back in 1992. I had the role of Sportin’ Life and sang the song “There’s a boat that’s leavin’ soon for New York” and ”It ain’t necessarily so”. Sportin’ life was the drug dealer, and possessive lover of Bess the main character. Porgy the other main character wanted to rescue Bess from him…

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Twenty-six years later… I guess it’s about time to do another song from the classic opera
”Summertime”, by far, the most classic and recognizable song from Porgy and Bess. It has been performed by countless of musicians across the globe since 1935 and onwards.

My version is quite short. I present the melody twice, first instrumental with the melody played on my Kala California acoustic-electric fretless Ubass. Then sung and harmonized the second time around. All vocals by yours truly. 🙂

I decided to incorporate my fretting hand tapping plus plucking hand percussive technique that I have used from time to time since 2014.
It all started when playing in the country duo M&M’s Honky Tonk with the great friend and lovely guitar player, Marcus Måttgård. I wanted to add some percussive parts to mimic a drummer and experimented using the body of the Ubass as a percussive acoustic drum.

Recently I started to use a acoustic pickup by Ehrlund microphones to enhance these percussive sounds. Before playing with this technique only really worked in the studio, where I could use a separate mic to pick up the percussive sounds, or in a small intimate live setting where the audience is near the performance.
The pickup is blended with the built in piezo and this makes it possible to play bigger venues and the percussive parts can be heard alongside the tapped bass part. More about this in a later blog post!

Besides the core parts of bass line/percussion played and recorded live on a small dock by the lake Storsjön in Jämtland, Sweden I added vocals and, for the first time in any of my videos, ukulele parts!

I hope you will enjoy my version of the Gershwin classic!

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A tribute to one of my musical heroes: Steve Swallow

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Steve Swallow
This is a little tribute to one of my musical heroes: Mr Steve Swallow. I have listened to his Music for quite some time and have always admired his unique approach to playing bass. In my version I play fingerstyle although Mr Swallow uses a pick. One of his most famous compositions are Falling Grace. You can find out more about him here!
There are videos on youtube with bass players playing solos performed by Swallow but not many (if any) playing one of his chord-bass parts. This one is transcribed from a John Scofield Trio version of the evergreen ”Someone to watch over me” (George and Ira Gershwin) from the musical ”Oh, Kay!”.

I heard this performance last year and decided to transcribe the part when he comps behind John Scofield during the the melody. I wanted to explore the voicings he used with his 5-sting bass tuned EADGC.

In the video I’m using my Kala California Custom Flame Maple solid body ubass. One of the first made using the ”exotic tops” back in 2012-2013. Please check out the new updated ones!

I decided to add the melody singing the Frank Sinatra version of the lyrics. I got some nice help with a great brushes and cymbals part too.

Magnus Sjöquist, kala solid body ubass (EADGC-tuning) and vocals
Mats Nyström, brushes and cymbals

I’m working on more ebooks in my Learn to play the ubass series and one of these will focus on playing chords on a ubass/bass.

Recording info

The ubass was recorded through my RMI Basswitch IQ/DI and then re-amped using a Radial X-amp. Se pic below. I used a combination of mics to capture the sound of the Phil Jones Double Four combo amp. Read more about the amp in my review.

 

D minor 7 chord
Please check out my review of the PJB Double Four!
Mats Nyström, brushes and cymbals
Carla Bley, Daniel Björnmo, Steve Swallow and me Sweden, 2009
Still from video
Re-amping my Phil Jones Bass Double Four
Steve Swallow and Billy Drummond live in Sweden 2009

 

What’s in the first ebook-ePub ”Learn to play the ubass – Basic Techniques”? First up: Lesson 1

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In a series of four short blog posts I will write about the different lessons in my first Lesson Pack: ”Learn to play the Ubass – basic techniques” (One lesson at the time every Sunday for four weeks!)

First up…

Screen shot from Lesson 1 ”How to hold the ubass”



Lesson 1 – How to hold the Ubass

The first lesson gives you suggestions about different ways to hold the Ubass.

Since the body and over all length is so much shorter than a regular electric or acoustic bass guitar you really need to find a way to accommodate this.

In the lesson I go through different ways I hold the ubass. I have found out a couple of alternatives that can be nice to switch between or at least use as a starting point when you develop your own ”holding style”. I will let you know what has worked best for me and why.

Even though you have been playing regular bass for a long time I think this lesson will help you to get a good ”grip” on your ubass playing regarding how you can hold it to get the most out of your ubass music making!

Direct links

iTunes/iBooks Store 

Payhip (ePub)

Find out more here!

Stay tuned: Next Sunday [September 3rd] it’s time for ”Lesson 2 – basic plucking/picking hand technique”

 

Minutes after I got my hands on a ubass for the first time back in July 2010

 

– – –

My parents bought my first ubass at a music store in Honolulu, Hawaii while visiting the islands back in 2010. I had not been able to try one beforehand. It only took me a few moments to get acquainted with the short scale length and rubbery strings. After that I got more and more in love with the feel and sound of the ubass. Hope you have or will get the same feeling for these amazing instruments! Read more about my first encounter here!

New Single Out Today!

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First release by Nilsson – Sjöquist Duo!
In this first release, by the Swedish based Nilsson – Sjöquist Duo, we want to show our love for the music of Brazil and this time we feature a Sivuca song!

We play an arrangement by Tommy Nilsson of the song ”Cada Um Torce Como Pode” made famous by Sivuca.

Both Tommy Nilsson and Magnus Sjöqust have been playing in different groups and projects for many years.

The duo format is nice because it gives us a lot of space to express ourselves through our instruments, the accordion and the bass.


Side note: In the recording I used my trusty fretless Kala spruce acoustic/electric ubass. However in the accompanying video you’ll see my new fretless Kala California acoustic-electric ubass!

Quick links to some of the places you can find the song:

cdbaby

Spotify

Amazon

GooglePlay

Tommy is also featured in the latest single release ”Jag vet att vi ses snart igen (Manha de Carnaval)” Link to info about that release!

Playubass at the 2017 Winter NAMM show in Anaheim, CA

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Long overdue here’s finally a short travel log about my trip to the 2017 Winter NAMM Show in Anaheim, CA

I have been to a couple of music trade shows in Europe as a visitor but this was my first trip to the Winter NAMM show in Los Angeles. It was also the first time working closely with Kala. My main focus was to release and letting people know about my first Ebook/ePub in my Learn to play the Ubass series.
I started working on the ebook back in 2013 and it has slowly taken its form. The basic idea and the text was ready after about a year but working on how to present it, all the movies and the graphics and navigation took quite a while to finalize. You can read more about the Ebook/ePub and where to find it here.

After a +10 hour flight from Stockholm ARN I landed at LAX and took a bus to Anaheim where I met staff from Kala. I settled in and started to plan the next coming days.

I arrived on Monday, January 17 with the show starting on Thursday that week. I helped out a bit loading in some stuff and setting up the booth. The booth was fantastic with a really well throughout design that got a lot of compliments from many visitors and booth neighbors.

Load in and set up of the Kala Booth

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Once the show started I met a lot of great people, both visitors, other companies and press. Besides talking to some online magazines myself I was also fortunate to get help to set up some meetings and interviews both from Kala and other friends in the music business. It was, for example, crazy to see Nathan East being interviewed in the exact same spot a day before I got an interview from the same online community! 🙂

You can find the news coverage and interviews here.

I got a lot of new friends at the show and also managed to do quite a few nice jams with amazing musicians. Bakithi Kumalo, Miki Santamaria, Corey Fujimoto, Ariane Cap, was some of the musicians I got to play with. Great fun!

Booth and NAMM show pictures

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The Ubass got a lot of attention at this Winter NAMM show. 8 years after the first Kala Ubass was released its still a ”show stopper”! Many musicians, including lots of bass players of course, came by and was floored by the small footprint bass with the huge sound. It’s so great to see the happy smiles on the faces of the first time players


The California solid body Ubasses was revamped with slightly bigger and rounder bodies as one of the main differences. Check them out here.

I also got to try out the prototype Paddle Bass by Kala. A great one string bass for a quick and refreshing way into the wourld of bass playing! Link to Bass Musician Magazine article.

All in all my first NAMM show was a very nice experience. And although it’s quite exhausting being on the show floor with the intense sound and constant stream of people I hope to return and continue my ”IRL” networking across the pond as soon as possible!

A big thank you to all the staff at Kala and the wonderful Kala and Ubass artist I got to hang and work with!!!

– – –

I read a Kala Ubass review in Bass player magazine back in 2010. At the same time my parents happened to be on vacation and they helped me to buy my first ubass at a music store in Honolulu while visiting the islands of Hawaii. l had not been able to try one beforehand but it only took me a few minutes getting acquainted with the short scale length and rubbery strings. After that I have gotten more and more in love with the feel and sound of the ubass. Hope you have or will get the same feeling for these amazing instruments! Read more about my first encounter here!

How to read my ebook (ePub) on a PC (or MAC)!

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Hi,

My first ebook was released on the iBooks Store in January and for PC/Android in April.

There is a great way to read the ebook if you have the ePub version (PC). Here’s a quick how to.

Loading the ePub into Readiator

Read ePub with Google Chrome on a PC with support for videos and word list

  1. Open Google Chrome (or download if you haven’t got it on your computer yet).
  2. Go http://www.google.com/chrome/webstore
  3. Search for Readiator
  4. Install
  5. Add ePub (drag to window or click + and navigate to Learn to play the Ubass – Basic Techniques) It will take a while to load!
  6. Click the icon to start reading. Videos should play and the word list will work.
  7. Your done, happy learning!

The Lesson links are not clickable in this version. I will remove these false links or try to make them work in the next update!

Although this method will work on a MAC (OSX) i do recommend using iBooks if you are a MAC or iPad/iPhone user!

Using Readiator to read ”Learn to play the UBass – Basic techniques”

The Chrome extension will even keep tabs on where you were last time you used Readiator.

 

You can find the different versions here:

ePub (interactive) (for Win/PC, Android)

eBook (interactive) (for OSX/iOS)

/Magnus

 

It is here: Learn to play the Ubass – Basic techniques. Get your copy now at the iBook store

| basmagnus

Hi,
After three years in the making, I’m proud to announce that my first interactive ebook is live at the iBook store!

The ebook is packed with amazing features that make learning about the Ubass a new and exciting experience! I will go through these features in detail in a future blog post but for now, let’s have a quick look:

  • Picture gallery’s that enhances the reading experience
  • Multi-angle videos that show you how to get the best out of your Ubass playing
  • Highlighted words are clickable and explained in pop-ups or in the extensive word list. (I bet you can spend hours just  navigating the word list alone!)
  • End of lesson quizzes – check and see if you have understood the lesson you just worked with
  • Marking text and make notes – find something especially interesting? Mark the text/or make a note – these are collected and can be browsed and/or searched

Preview videos

Link to the iBook Store
Learn to Play the Ubass
by Magnus Sjöquist