CODA 1: Steve Swallow
Steve Swallow has a snaky sensual sound that's virtually defined the art of the 5-string electric bass, as played with a pick like a guitar. The consummate musician's musician, the bass-guitar svengali, 64, is known for his association with composer Carla Bley (with whom he lives) and Gary Burton and Pat Metheny). Today that includes a Dutch trio, dubbed Tin Pan Aliens (with saxman Hans Ulrich and drummer Jonas Johansen). Swallow is also one of the great raconteurs. He's been at the right place at the right time for seminal moments in jazz history.
On switching from playing Dixieland to joining clarinetist Jimmy Guiffre and pianist Paul Bley (who had given Ornette Coleman his break in the late 50s) in the first great free-jazz trio in 1960:
"It's a bit of a puzzlement to me. Like everything else, it's something that kind of happened to me rather than something I caused to happen. I was at Yale, playing Dixieland for fun and profit on weekends, but during the week I dragged my bass into the ghetto of New Haven to play bebop. Somehow a friend of a friend of Paul Bley contrived to get me a gig with him. Paul needed a cheap bass player – in fact, I think he needed a free bass player. He couldn't have heard of me, and I had no idea what music he played either.
"I showed up for this job utterly unaware of what was gonna happen, ready to rehearse, and Paul said, 'Well, we don't need to rehearse,' and I said, 'OK, what are we going to play?' and Paul said something cryptic like, 'You'll know when you play it.' So I was just at sea. There was fear mixed with anger and a few other things, but it was one of those road-to-Damascus events for me. Well, we got up there and he kind of smiled encouragingly at me – and I couldn't hit a wrong note! It was one of those remarkable epiphanies that music could be done that way. I immediately got deathly ill, stayed in bed for 3, 4 days sweating, then got up, quit school and presented myself at Paul's door."
In 1970 he had the epochal switch from acoustic bass to electric:
"I was very much the victim of the electric bass. Like all my jazz compatriots, I had nothing but contempt for it and no desire to play the thing. But I did a musical instrument showcase with Gary Burton – play for 20 minutes, break 40 minutes all day long – in the hopes of selling vibraphones. Well, those 40-minute breaks were getting long and had I wandered around to every booth except the Fender and Gibson booths. So finally it was like slipping into a dirty movie, when I tried an EB2 electric bass and just fell in love, instantaneously.
"My fingers touched the thing and there was this violent intense argument between my fingers and my brain. My brain was saying 'No, no, no!' and my fingers were saying, 'This is it. We have to do this!' After about 15 minutes I was really shaken. I took the instrument back to the hotel for the night, sat on the bed and started playing. I thought 20 minutes had gone by but three hours had passed and my fingers were all sore. My goose was cooked, there was nothing I could do about it at all."