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Complete Jazz Bass Book
by Earl Gately

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This interview was held in Atlanta, GA after a Mike Stern concert featuring Tom Kennedy and Dave Weckl.

k-dub: Did you ever think you would have a flight delay from Jacksonville, FL to Atlanta due to snow?

Tom Kennedy: It freaked me out. I couldn't believe it. It just made for a really long day and what didn't help matters was that (airline name redacted) really screwed up on top of it. And then we got here and there was no snow.

k-dub: Right. Exactly. There were just flurries this morning.

tk: They were saying that there was heavy snow and winds and we can't land there.

k-dub: It was windy and Houston got about 8 inches.

tk: That's what I thought. St. Louis got a foot.

k-dub: They were worried. In Atlanta, when the weatherman says snow, everyone panics and runs to the store and buys up all the milk and bread.

tk: That's what I heard. I heard when it snows down here there are wrecks all over the place.

k-dub: Oh, yeah. We have very little equipment to clean up the streets. Actually, what is weird about this town is that there are so many transients that it makes for about a million driving styles, which doesn't help matters much.

tk: There's one driving style in NY. Look straight ahead and floor it.

(editors note: Great segway, Tom!)

k-dub: So you're living in NY now. How long have you been there?

tk: This is about my ninth month.

k-dub: You came from LA?

tk: I kinda came from LA via St. Louis. That's kind of my fort. It's always been my home and I have family there but I've lived away so much as well. I was doing a lot of things in LA and NY. A lot of studio work. Things kind of freed up in St. Louis, which allowed me to move back to NY. Plus, I had this wonderful chance to get this great place and I thought, man, I just need to go. I've been gone for about 10 years but so far it's been wonderful. It's been great. I've been really busy. A lot of upright stuff. A lot of mainstream stuff.

k-dub: Is that the reason you moved back?

tk: I wanted to get back. I really came to play, as they say and I thought, I'll get in touch with Stern and other people I used to know. Steve Kahn, Bill Connors. So, I got in touch with a bunch of people and the next thing you know Stern is calling saying, "Hey man, we need to play. Let's do the 55."

k-dub: Mike is so NY.

tk: Yeah. Mike is great.

k-dub: When I was talking to him tonight after the show, I told him that I had seen him at the 55 a few years ago. I was sitting on a bar stool and I was about 2 feet from the back of his head all night. So, it was good to see the front of him tonight.

How did you land the gig with Mike? Did he just call you up and say let's do it?

tk: Well, I used to play with him when I was there before. We used to get together at his apartment because he just loves to play.

k-dub: Yeah, I know he does. You can really tell.

tk: So we would get together and play for hours at his place and we did a couple of gigs back in those days. Some local stuff and then a couple of years ago the Dave Weckl band played in Frankfurt, Germany at what is like the NAMM show of Germany. Stern came over to play with Weckl and me as a trio. So, I think that was the beginning of this concept. When I got back to NY Stern said, "'Hey man, let's get together and do the 55!'", because we'd done it before. So, we started playing together and then these dates came up to go down to Florida, Atlanta and St. Louis and he said we ought to do this together, the three of us.

k-dub: I was just curious how you got the gig ‘cause Mike is playing with just about everybody but me and Jaco on this tour. He's playing with you, Anthony Jackson, Chris Minh Doky and Richard Bona and no telling who else.

tk: Yeah, well, he's got his arsenal of players and he's got a lot of guys that know his music. So, it's kind of interchangeable depending on what kind of vibe he wants to set up. That's the cool thing about when you get older, you realize it's not about you being better than someone. It's just the difference. Whether it's me or Bona or Anthony. Anthony is just an awesome player. I love him.

k-dub: So, how's your musical time spent, gigging, studio, etc?

tk:: Lately it's been a lot of stuff in town...in NY, which has been wonderful. When I came up the first time, I came up in '84 and my intention was to be a big, great upright player in the area. This time, well, the time before, I fell into a lot of electric stuff with Bill Connors. When I got in with Steps Ahead, they wanted an electric player. Eddie Gomez was leaving and they wanted to do more contemporary stuff. This time I'm getting to live the dream that I had the first time. It's been a lot of acoustic stuff with some great players. Just wonderful guys that I've known and some guys I haven't known. I'm gradually getting into the electric. Some fusion stuff, more contemporary stuff. Stern and some other people. Joe Rosenblatt. Everyone in NY is playing with somebody so you know it's all of these influences. It's just wonderful. I'm doing some studio stuff too. I'm actually going to LA to do some studio stuff, which is kind of nice. I've kept some contacts there and I also do tracks by mail.

k-dub: Yeah, I saw that on your website. What software are you using?

tk: I'm using Digital Performer. I grew up on it and I like the sequencing power of it. And for what I do, for laying down a single track, it works perfect.

k-dub: So, you just get someone to send you a wave file and you bust out the tracks...

tk: Yeah, they send me a file or if they need to send me separate things we can do that. I've got one that I'm working on now that's ten separate tracks. I just fly them in, lay down the parts and send it back to them. It's a wonderful way to do things. So, that keeps me busy. I'm also doing a lot of little early gigs...rush hour gigs. Little stuff going on.

k-dub: This town is not that aware of the great players that are here. Jazz is hanging on by a thread here. it's terrible.

tk: Well, it is everywhere. It's just a per capita thing. There's just more going on in NY because there's more people.

k-dub: Are you working on another solo record?

tk: I am. I'm trying to decide what it's going to be. I want to incorporate upright in it but in a more contemporary way. The last album I did was with Mundell Lowe and Joe LaBarbera out in LA. It was a lot of standards. The original record was with Weckl, and my brother played keyboards on it. I had a bunch of friends, Tania Maria, Sammy Figueroa. This time I want to merge the two things. I want the acoustic stuff to be melodic, more modern, and the electric stuff to be a bit more fusion. A little more busy and angular. It's going to be interesting writing it. I'm going to try to get maybe Weckl and some other cats so, we'll see. It could go in a lot of different directions. I want to try to put it together in the next 5 or 6 months.

k-dub: Have it out in 8 months or so?

tk: Yeah. It's really, really over due.

k-dub: You played upright for 9 years before you started playing electric. How did that transition go for you? I hear a great deal of upright technique in your electric playing. You do it better than a lot of upright players that I've heard. I noticed tonight that you had a lot of the two and four (fingers) thing going on. I thought to myself, "Hmmm...he's really playing upright technique but it sure don't sound like it!"

tk: That's the thing. I think that's what kind of kept my identity. It was totally, you could say it was an accident. The reason I picked up the electric is because there were times where it just wasn't convenient to take the upright to gigs so I ended up playing electric. I actually started playing on this little Italian bass, a JG. They made about 500 of these things and I have three of them but you just can't find them anymore. It was a little four string, fretless, medium scale bass with a beautiful singing sound. My dad had one at the store and he brought it home and said maybe I could use it for something. Some guy brought it in and he paid something like $25 bucks. He said, "Maybe you can start using this for little gigs." So, I started messing around on it and I played it like an upright...I fingered it like an upright. I wasn't really aware of cross positions at that time. The way I was playing the bass at that time, when I was a kid, I was just trying to get the notes out any way possible and putting a string of notes together. I also thought it had to be up and down. It never occurred to me to go across. I remember seeing guys play and seeing them go across and I thought oh...

k-dub: I could save a lot of time here....

tk: There you go. But, by then, I was so up and down the neck that it was hard to change and I remained that way. I have to say that what I like about what I do is I think it is a really more open sound. It's a more consistent sound from note to note because its normally all on the first string. I don't, I don't... I move across. I do cross positions when I'm doing my runs…….kind of more like a horn sensibility. I used to listen to Freddie Hubbard and try to figure out how to articulate like that. It really was with the hammer on thing, the combination of things that I do, it just seemed to make more sense to do it linear…string wise, than to play across the instrument. It seemed like I had to play each note with my right hand when I was playing across. When I'm playing up and down the neck, I can kind of slur a lot. Which, to me, kind of gives it more of that horn sensibility. Because, you know, horn players slur. They breathe. Take a breath and blow a bunch of notes. So that's kind of what I feel I do. I think that is the reason why I maintained the upright technique on the electric. I started playing electric for that purpose. Then I heard Larry Graham...

k-dub: (laughing) Larry changed everything.

tk: That was a whole sensibility shift. Oh, man. Then I started watching guys play the electric and you pick up all kinds of stuff.

k-dub: (holding outstretched thumb behind head) Yeah, and Larry was coming from way back here. (Mike Stern walks into the lobby of the hotel and interrupts us. The nerve! After Mike stops bugging us, we continue) Tell me about your upright. What kind is it?

tk: Well, you know, it's interesting. I have two. It's kind of a long story but I would like to mention this because this is really special to me. There was a guy in St. Louis named Jerry Cherry, who was my mentor. He was a great musician. A wonderful bassist and he was also a repairman. I grew up under his wing and he gave me so much good advice. This is stuff I teach people all the time. This is Jerry's stuff that he taught me when I was a kid. How…the right hand….how to attack the string. How to pull the string to get the big sound. How to manipulate the left hand to get that growl. You know, to manipulate the string to do what you want to do with it. These are invaluable secrets as far as I'm concerned. But anyway, he was a repairman and when I left town I'd come back and see him and hang around. He'd be working on a bass here and there. He always had a bunch of basses in the shop. He passed on about 3 years ago. He had a bunch of basses in the shop and his widow couldn't stand to see these instruments lying around. It just made her sick because she loved him like crazy. He had about 12 or 13 basses there. So, she asked if I could help her get rid of the basses. Even if you just sell them in pieces to see if we can get a few bucks for them. So, I said, "I'll tell you what, I'm going to be in town for a while so why don't I try to glue them up. We'll see what we can do." So, I got them all glued up. I got the necks back in and fixed the cracks and put them all back together. From watching him.

k-dub: I have no idea how to do any of that stuff.

tk: Yeah, I didn't realize I knew as much as I knew. It was all from watching him. I got all of these instruments put back together and the last one was this beautiful old bass with a wooden peg. Just a nice beautiful, dark, rich color. I could tell this was a great instrument. I got it back together and I played one note on it and the rafters were like coming down and I thought, oh, this is a good one. So, I talked to her about it and said this is a good one. I think we could get some money for it. This one is worth something. She said, "Well, that's yours."

k-dub: Beautiful.

tk: She said, "Jerry would want you to have that bass." It just flipped me out. That was the one that he said was the best bass he ever had.

k-dub: Cool. That is a great story.

tk: It's incredible. It's a 1760's Bohemian instrument. I believe it's an Eberly. But it's the original Eberly. They make Eberly's now but it's the great, great grandson of the original maker. It's very much like a Czech instrument. That's an incredible instrument. Amazing recording bass. I have another one that is a German bass that is about 90 years old. That's my travel bass that my parents gave me. That's the one in those pictures but it was stained a different color back then.

k-dub: How do you travel with the bass. Do you rent one of those cases?

tk: I actually have a case that's made in Australia that weighs 18 pounds.

k-dub: You're kidding.

tk: With the bass in it, it weighs about 45 pounds.

k-dub: WOW!

tk: Actually, the last three trips, round trip, I've not been charged a dime for it.

k-dub: No over changes.

tk: No over charges. They see the size and they put it on the scale, it's 45 pounds. They say it's under-weight. Don't worry about it.

k-dub: Who's the maker?

tk: It comes from a company in Australia called Bass Works http://bassworks.com.au It's made for them buy someone. It's just Styrofoam. It's really thick Styrofoam, very substantial and they said they've never had any trouble with them. I was really skeptical but I've had it on about 30 or 40 trips and it's been around the world and I haven't had any problems with it. That was kind of a long story.

k-dub: But a good story. What about your Fodera? Anything unusual about it?

tk: Well, it's actually a TK model, which is a feather in my cap for sure. I had the pickup placement adjusted. I decided where I wanted the pickups to go. Joey and I talked about it quite a bit.

k-dub: Have you seen Mike Pope's bass that's got the big routed hole in the body so he can move the pickups around and figure that stuff out.

tk: Exactly. The idea was, oh, and I have the Pope pre-amp, love the preamp. That guy's something.

k-dub: He's a great dude, too.

tk: Yes, he is. I had it designed where the inner coils of the two pickups were set just like the Musicman. I always loved the sound of the Musicman. I always wanted a Musicman but I never liked the Musicman itself. I thought it could be more substantial.

k-dub: And really heavy.

tk: Really heavy. So, I thought, let's think about how solid Fodera's are and how big the sound is and to have that kind of configuration on a Fodera would be amazing. I have that sound and I can use the two, the back pickup by itself in sort of a humbucking position…..it's like a Jaco thing but thicker. Just a thicker sound. That's what I was using tonight. So, I have those two sounds and it's coil tapped too but I normally use those two sounds.

k-dub: You said the string spacing is different?

tk: No, it's the same. It's Fender spacing. Everybody thinks it's a wide spacing but it's really just Fender spacing.

k-dub: That's what I like about my Roscoe is you don't feel like you're playing a guitar. You're playing a bass.

tk: I picked up a Musicman 5 string the other day and the string spacing was so close together it was hard to get your fingers in there.

k-dub: Yeah, it is.

tk: I don't know if you know the story about this. I was playing at McHale's with Bill Connors and I had been at the Fodera booth at a NAMM show the week before. Bill's manager contacted them and said Tom Kennedy plays with Bill Connors and he loves your basses. So, we were playing at McHale's. We played the first set, we got off, and I saw Joey and Vinny walk in with the bass. They said, "This is the bass, the 5 string that you wanted, right?" It ended up being the first 5 string they ever made. I said yeah, I love the bass and they said, "Well, just play it on the second set." So, I was like, this is wonderful just to be able to play it again. After the gig they said, "That bass is yours."

k-dub: Those guys, man.

tk: They said, "We know you love this bass. You're gonna be playing it. People should see it. We want you to have it." So, it's just amazing. But those things, it's like I was saying earlier, those basses, it's like they have life in them. They really do. It's like they live and breathe. It's an amazing thing. I've never really played another instrument that feels like that. I've had old Fenders, I've had three L series, two Precisions and a Jazz. L series '63's and a '66 Jazz bass that was amazing. I had a lot of instruments like that, the old vintage fenders, but these things, it's a different world. It's a different plane. They're very unique.

k-dub: I wanted a Fodera but to get the midi controller built into it, it would've cost me $10,000 dollars. So, got a Roscoe and I saved myself several grand and have a great instrument that I'm very happy with. And, there will never be another one like it.

tk: As far as I'm concerned they're definitely worth it. They're one of a kind.

k-dub: Think about how much someone has to pay for a good upright or cello.

tk: Oh, I know.

k-dub: So, I'm feeling pretty good right now.

k-dub: What kind of rig do you use?

tk: I'm with Ampeg. I've been with Ampeg for almost two decades now. Especially, when they came to St. Louis, that's when I hooked up with them. I was actually an R&B guy. I'd go over, I wasn't officially working there, but I'd go over and put my two sense worth in. Mainly on the Porta Bass stuff, which is what I play. I love it because it's a little more of a tight kind of sound than the classic Ampeg stuff. For me, that's better. I love the tightness of the stuff and I actually kind of dig the neodymium speakers. It's a cool thing. I play one of the PB800 heads that's really light. It has two channels, it's 800 watts. It works out really well for me. Playing at the 55 bar and playing around NY, I just strap the electric bass on and throw that in a bag, jump on the subway and I'm there.

k-dub: So, you use that for upright as well?

tk: Yeah, it's great. Really good for upright. For the electric, I use two 2x10 cabinets. They have built-in dollies so you can roll them around. For upright, for most smaller gigs, I use a single 10. A neodymium. I think the cabinet weighs 13 or 14 pounds.

k-dub: I use a Hartke Kickback 1200 for most of the small stuff I do. Electric or upright. As a matter of fact, have you seen the Tonebone? I picked one of those up. They're great if you're playing electric and upright on the same gig because you can plug in and you don't have to worry about tone controls on the amp. You just swap instruments and keep playing.

tk: Isn't' it great?

k-dub: Yep, beautiful. Solo techniques and concepts. I know that is a broad topic. I'm a scale head...

tk: And I'm not. Well, it's that classic thing. You get all the tools and then you forget about them. It always has to be here. (points to ears) It's all about ears and how you construct a melody. I always try to think about melodies. Although, when you're playing fast stuff, it's a lot of licks and all that kind of thing. I just think about it as more of a horn kind of sensibility. That was the thing, forgive me, all bass players everywhere, I don't mean to put anybody down but bass solos....I was really never into bass solos because they never really had the sensibility. It always sounds like a struggle. It always sounds hard. If you listen to Freddy Hubbard or John Coltrane play, the notes just fly out of the horn. It always sounds so effortless. It swings and has a great spirit. That's why I wanted to play bass. I wanted the bass to sound like that and I worked a long time to do that. I remember the first guy was Niels-Henning. He was the first guy that really impressed me. Well, Stanley, of course. Because Stanley is just a freak. You know, in a good way. Just freaky. I have a story about him. I was in Italy with Steps Ahead at this festival in '85. I walked back stage. It was in this old castle. There was a door, this closed door and you walked into this huge room where they stored all of the cases and the backline. I go back there and I don't even have the door open yet and I hear this clicking. I hear this clicking and it sounds like a machine gun and I'm thinking, "What is that?" I open this big ole, creaky door and there is Stanley on the other side of the room with his back to me practicing the electric with it unplugged……sitting there warming up and it sounded like a machine gun. It flipped me out. I heard the "Light as a Feather" album and that was my favorite record forever. And he just, that's when I realized how effortless the bass could sound. After that, I heard Niels. So that, I was thinking, if I'm going to do the bass thing, like anybody that played bass, then it's going to be like one of those guys. That was the effortless mastery that I was looking for.

k-dub: Scott Lafaro.

tk: Yeah, that kind of thing. Guys that have that kind of facility and it doesn't sound difficult. So, that was kind of my thing.

k-dub: How did you develop your speed? Did you sit for hours on end with a metronome constantly speeding it up or did it just evolve over time?

tk: Kind of a combination of both. I really did transcribe a lot of things. I transcribed a lot of horn things. I transcribed a lot of Freddy Hubbard, a lot of people. Clifford Brown. I used to play trumpet for years. Those guys were probably more of my focus than even tenor saxophone. I think all that stuff, you transcribe things, it all merges together and becomes something else. It doesn't necessarily translate exactly. So, you don't necessarily hear Freddy Hubbard lines but there's the essence of that there. Like Wayne Shorter used to say, "It's not the eggs, it's how you scramble them."

k-dub: Yeah!

tk: You know what I mean? That was the thing. I felt like everything was kind of a mishmash and somehow it's that kind of thing that makes sense over chord changes and kind of sounds like me, which I'm very proud of. It's nice when you feel like you kind of have your own identity.

(editors note: a conversation ensues about the transcription k-dub is doing of tk's bass solo on "Softly as in a Morning Sunrise", which should accompany this interview. It was a bit divergent from the interview as k-dub is asking about a few particular passages and one E diminished lick played over a C minor tonality. Here is what tk had to say about "going for it" on a recording date.)

tk: You know, again, it's a funny thing. It's things what you hear. Things that come into your head. I always think it's cool when I listen back to something like that and I think, yeah, that was off the top of my head. I wasn't worried and I wasn't trying to play it perfectly. I was trying to go for something on a recording as opposed to playing it so safe. I listen to a lot of things that are played safe and it's so, you know, maybe somebody else wouldn't notice but it sounds so sterile and calculated, for me. I hate to feel that way.

k-dub: There is a study that has been conducted about jazz musicians and how their brain works during improvisation. They put them in a MRI machine and had them play a few controls like the C major scale ascending and descending, etc, etc. What they were trying to do was find out what centers in the brain become more active and which centers diminish during improvisation. They had them improvise and observed the changes in the brain. What they noticed was that during improvisation, the part of the brain that controls creativity became more active and the part of the brain that controls self-judgment practically goes to sleep.

tk: Really?

k-dub: When you're improvising at a high level, you don't care. You make a mistake, big deal. Like Art Blakey said, "Somebody played a wrong note and jazz was born."

tk: Exactly. Well, there are no mistakes.

k-dub: Chet Atkins said, "It's not the mistake that counts, it's what you do after it."

tk: Exactly, it's how you make it work. That's where the artistry comes from.

k-dub: When you're writing with Weckl's band, I know that Jay and Dave put a lot of stuff together. Do you write as a band?

tk: Oh, sure. Yeah, we write as a band, individually and collectively. Like, maybe a couple of us. I remember when we were working on the second record, "Synergy" I think it was. I had just moved back to LA. Dave and I were actually living in a place together at that point. Jay, Dave & I worked on that one. It's funny because you never know where it comes from. We sat down and we kind of got into this groove thing one day and "Braziluba" was born. The next day, we kind of got into a Latin groove and it turned into something else. It was really interesting how those things came together. Sometimes, it's one guy. Somebody comes up with something....

k-dub: Brings in a chart..

tk: Yeah, or Dave will come up with a groove. He hears a groove and we'll sit down and work it out. It always comes from different places and I think that is why the music varies, which is very healthy. Gary Meek is the newest guy in the band and he writes quite a lot. He's written a couple of compositions that we've done. So, it's the influences.

k-dub: A melting pot.

tk: It really is.

k-dub: For the Stern gig, did he just bring in charts and you guys just read 'em down? Or, does he just give you a list of tunes to listen to, how's does that work? I saw that you had some charts on the floor and I'm thinking, this dude has got eagle eyes 'cause there's no way I could see the chart down there.

tk: (laughs) That's really the only way I can read them. I can't see them up close. I was using, there were quite a few tunes that I've learned over the last few weeks, newer stuff that I haven't heard. So, there were little parts like endings that I wasn't sure of. I just wanted to make sure I had that together. If there were a lot of moving chords or something…..I'm not going to flub those too much. Normally, I remember the first time I played with him back in the 80's, he gave me a bunch of CD's and some charts to look at. He said, "Whatever you can't pick up from the charts, they're kind of like road maps, you can listen to the recording and between the two you should be able to get it." I always prefer having both. And they're all road maps. I remember with Di Meola's things, when I got his stuff it was just road maps. They were all over the place. So, I go over and it was great because Mike would say, "Well, here's the charts and here's the stuff. Let's plaaaaay!" We would play a standard. We'd go off and play a standard for a half hour and then he'd say, "Let's just look at this one. We'll just kind of get through it." He has such a great spirit that it just makes you want to play. We would wind up sitting at his place playing for hours and it's really fun. You go away feeling like you did something. You feel better than when you came in.

k-dub: You didn't have to get paid.

tk: Yeah, and ultimately that's what music should be about.

k-dub: No doubt.

tk: With him, it definitely does the trick. And with him and Weckl, with him and my old life-long friend it's such a joy. That's the reason you play. That's how I feel when I play with those guys. I get a chance to play with my brother and Weckl playing acoustic stuff, that's it. That's why you do it.

k-dub: Any suggestions for aspiring bassist, um, like, how can I get a gig with Mike Stern?

tk: Well, you can't while I'm doing it.

(laughter)

tk: I've got a big stick and I know how to use it.

k-dub: Other than moving to NY?

tk: How would you land a gig with somebody?

k-dub: Yeah, because I'm working it. You know, I want to be Tom Kennedy. I want to be standing next to somebody like Stern on stage. I've heard the answer that sometimes it's so much not how you play, it's just about hanging out and being a dude.

tk: That's funny but I think it has to be the other way. It's a combination of both. I think you have to be on the scene. I had a lot going on when I was in NY the first time and then I ended up moving back to St. Louis for personal reasons.

(the phone rings..........a musical interlude)

k-dub: So, just hanging out, being on the scene?

tk: Well, I think that so much of it does, and thank goodness, so much of it does depend on how you play. Mike has always talked about the connection that Dave and I have and how well we play together. You know, the certain tools that you need to have. You need to be able to play everything. The one thing that Mike talks about is my ability to swing on electric bass. That I can play it like an upright.

k-dub: A lot of guys can't swing, period.

tk: It's an added advantage. That's the trick. I mean, the groove is everything.

k-dub: I mean, some guys, even if they're really good players, can't swing. I've even heard some cats say that if you're not playing upright on standards you really can't swing anyway. I agree with that to a point. The upright is a lot cooler of an instrument, it's got a better feel, and the string length is longer.

tk: Oh yeah, for swing but it's more a sensibility.

k-dub: Yeah, but you can still do it on electric!!

tk: Oh, absolutely. That's the thing and that's what Mike really likes. Dave and I have been doing that stuff all of our lives. We've played together so much in that vein. Then we turn around and play in Weckl's band and it's Latin stuff or funky stuff, very 8th and 16th note horns and stuff. So, it's all about groove basically and in my case it's great feel. So, the three of us together is really a strong thing and he really feels that.

k-dub: He was having a great time playing with you guys tonight.

tk: So, the thing to consider is that a guy has to be functional in every style. You need him to be able to have that bass swing. That bass feel. Then to be able to kind of gel with the other guys your playing with and that just comes from experience…from playing with a lot of people. I've been fortunate to play with all the greatest drummers in the world in all genres. I've been really lucky that way….played with a lot of guys. There are little adjustments you make. You have to be aware of that and you have to come from that place where you know enough about swinging and feel that you know what to do with those guys. That's an art.

k-dub: In front of the beat, behind the beat, on the beat....

tk: Absolutely, absolutely. So, that's a craft. A life long thing.

k-dub: Here's the final question. What's your favorite food?

tk: My favorite food? Really?!

k-dub: I always end my interviews with that question.

tk: That's amazing….mashed potatoes.

k-dub: Really?

tk: That's my favorite food.

k-dub: WOW! The comfort food. Gravy or no?

tk: None.

k-dub: No gravy?

tk: Just some salt.

k-dub: WOW!

tk: You know, I got 'em tonight.

k-dub: Really?

tk: I actually got 'em in the hotel tonight. I got a burger. I said, "What comes with that?" and they said "Fries." and I said, "I knew that. Can I get some mashed potatoes? " That's my comfort food. It's true! You know, anywhere I am on the road, if I want to feel good.

k-dub: Mashed potatoes.

tk: Mashed potatoes. Eat 'em everyday.

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About the Author:

k-dub, keeper o da funk is a bassist and outside the box thinker residing in the hot 'lanta area. He can be reached for comments, questions, lessons or gigs at k-dub@funknotes.com hear him at www.myspace.com/keeperodafunk

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