A Sermon From Above 
by Martin Simpson

During one sermon, the preacher told the congregation that T+P+U = C and instructed them to write this formula down. He then went on to say that this stood for Thought + Purpose + Utterance = Creation. I thought about this over the next few days. 

Earlier this year I Thought up the idea of us getting together to Create a bass Collective and together our Utterance has given birth to what we have today. But what is the Purpose of this Collective? Is it’s purpose just going to be a fun thing that will provide a few of us with a bit of entertainment each month, which will rapidly lose its appeal? Or is it something much deeper? Is it’s purpose going to be something where the old can share their experiences with the young and help steer them away from the cul-de-sacs that they themselves have already gone down or will the older guys who’ve grown a little tired of the music business just help to fill the younger minds with tales of doom and gloom? Will it’s purpose be to get the Jazz purists to broaden their horizons and venture out to see some of their Rocker club mates doing their thing at gigs and listen with an open mind to their CD’s and vice versa of course or will the divide between the two music styles just grow wider with Jazzers sticking with Jazzers and Rockers with Rockers? 

Will the club serve as a vehicle for certain selfish individuals to hijack and use to further their own careers or will it serve to help everyone to broaden their own personal musical horizons with faint regard to becoming rich and famous? We don’t know at this stage how things are going to pan out. All we really can do is focus on the one thing that brings us all together - our love of bass instruments, be it double bass or bass guitar. 

Remember that at the end of the day, we all use the same notes whether we are old or young, Rockers or Jazzers, Male or Female. We are the guys and girls that hold down the bottom end of all the bands that are entertaining South African audiences each evening. We’ve shown our solidarity with Bassists in neighboring countries by putting the Strings 4 Africa drive into operation and we’ve shown our solidarity with each other by attending meetings, submitting articles to the newsletter / magazine and getting together and supporting each other on our website. 

Our next show of solidarity will come when the compilation album of our collective (no pun intended) works hits the shops. That will really set tongues wagging countrywide and will bring a huge amount of attention to our cause but it will also be very much a make or break period with possibly a little envy coming to the surface of those that didn’t make it onto the disc. It’s during this period that we must all resolve to stand together and those that do make it onto the first disc should shoulder the great responsibility of helping other bassists to make it onto the follow up disc. 

But getting back to the Collective itself, I hope that we all keep our individualism – it’s a necessity to keep the Collective fresh. Just take a look at the website and in particular, our biog pages. No two bassists have copied each others style when it comes to constructing their CV. We’ve got short bio’s, long bio’s and even extra extra long bio’s. Bassists that want to display everything they’ve done, others preferring to keep their cards close to their chest. Some have a little humour in them and others are extremely serious. This is just what we need. Can you imagine if we all went to a company that specializes in constructing CV’s – they’d turn out everyone’s CV to the same format, which would bore our visitors to tears. 

Recently I popped into Marshall Music in Sandton to inform the manager of our bass collective movement and the first question he asked me was what was the purpose of the whole thing!
When all is said and done, I think the purpose of the collective is for us all as individuals to strive for the betterment of not only ourselves and our club colleagues but the betterment of the perception others have of us and of our beloved instrument(s). 

By this I mean that we should show the outside world that we are individual people that want to share our experiences and knowledge with others that have similar interests to us in order for them to grow but also being there for the band while constantly trying to ‘push the envelope’ in more ways than just the playing aspect. 

I’m sure everyone will say Amen to that!!

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