[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: John Entwistle/Beatles/etc



Mark Leaman wrote:

> Lucas:
> John Entwistle IS underrated.

Well, he was acclaimed "bassist of the millenium" recently...

> But as far as being musicians, it's only honest to acknowledge that they were 
> never more than average. Never. Ever. Still today. 

Remember that Paul McCartney was the first guy to call attention on rock
bass guitar, and although Entwistle is clearly better, Paul's influence
on the instrument playing was much larger than John's. Also, he is
respected by players of all styles. Even by jazz players. The word below
were taken from the book "Building Walking Bass Lines", from Ed
Friedland:

"Listen to the great bass players of all styles and visualize what they
do. Listen, for example, to Ray Brown, Ron Carter, Paul Chambers, Scott
LeFaro, Eddie Gomez, Dave Holland, Rufus Reid, Marcus Miller, Jaco,
Stanley Clarke, James Jamerson, Jerry Jemmot, Charles Mingus, Jeff
Berlin, Paul McCartney, Robbie Shakespeare, Jimmy Blanton, Sam Jones,
Marc Johnson, Harvie Swartz, Jimmy Garrison, Chuck Rainey, Oscar
Pettiford - the list never ends"

It seems that Paul is the only rocker there...

> Entwistle and Moon were THE best bassist and drummer going.

"best" is a dangerous adjective... No doubt they were the most powerful
rhythm section of rock'n'roll, but there are lots of musicians that
could be considered better than them. How could we compare, say, Keith
Moon to guys such as Bill Bruford/Pierre Moerlen/Christian Vander/Dave
Weckl or Entwistle to guys such as Jeff Berlin/John Patitucci/Marcus
Miller/Victor Wooten?

> Townshend was easily better than Harrison, and John wasn't as good as Harrison 
> (not quite).

This is also very subjective. Although Townshend guitar playing is much
more fun to hear, the riff from "And You Bird Can Sing" is much more
difficult to play than maybe more than 95% of Townshend riffs on The
Who.