Adam Neely @[email protected]
1.8M subscribers - no pronouns :c
Video essays, lessons and vlogs on new horizons in music and
Lufthansa lost all 8 of our bags on the way to our gig in Belgrade, Serbia 🇷🇸, including my bass ☹️.
We were only able to recover 5 of them in time for the gig (including the bass, thankfully), which was jussst enough to jerry-rig a show together. Fueled by adrenaline and rakia, our first show in Serbia turned out pretty damn epic! Two encores, lots of clapping, dancing and general nerdery. Thanks to all who came out to rage, it’s an honor to be able to do this.
I vlogged a bit during the meltdown, fingers crossed there is enough footage to cut something together!
Sungazer has been playing some European summer festivals with @JoshuaDeLaVictoria and Jared Yee, and we’ve been having an absolute blast. It’s so cool to be able to play weird modern jazz fusion music and have so many people from around the world geek out about this stuff also.
So many notes, so little time!
Hey guys, if you want to hear a lot of time signatures and notes, my band Sungazer is coming back to Europe, and we’re bringing two special guests - @JoshuaDeLaVictoria for July and @_buttonmasher for our October dates, alongside the one and only Jared Yee!
Also, we’re going to be opening for Snarky Puppy alongside Domi + JD Beck on Aug 9, so come out and hang!
www.sungazermusic.com/tour
I'm touring Australia right now with Sungazer, supporting Plini with Jakub Żytecki ! The shows so far in Brisbane and Sydney were fantastic, it's so much fun to play this music to amazing crowds.
Anyway, we're playing Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne later this week, come on out to hear some shredding!
tour with Everything Yes was sick!
Sungazer continues touring tomorrow in Denver with Everything Yes! Get your tickets now, shows are selling out.
BASS
www.sungazermusic.com/tour
Patrick Bartley pulling the reverse uno card with the unfortunate “savior of jazz” narrative on this one in a way I think is very helpful and optimistic.
Laufey’s music is awesome, it’s a genuine breath of fresh air to have bossa nova and mid century popular song being the hot new thing. It’s also really exciting seeing young people pick up guitars (and other instruments) to learn her music, music that has been deeply informed by great jazz musicians like Chet Baker and Ella Fitzgerald.
Love his thoughts, go check out Patrick’s channel!
A very excellent essay on the Laufey/jazz discourse, that covers a lot of ground I missed in my video, especially with regards to whitewashing, gatekeeping, and women in jazz spaces. Check it out!
https://youtu.be/qnT48wO0UL0?si=lRVWn...
Bass guitar/classical guitar duet with Lau Noah on her composition The Path, go check it out! Lau is a phenomenal composer, guitarist, and songwriter, and I'm honored to be able to play with her.
I like to think a lot about synchronizing breaths between players in these kinds of duets. Using breath as a tool of musical synchronization is especially important in working with Lau, because there are no transcriptions/sheet music for her tunes, she just sends you a recording, and you gotta figure it out. There are time signatures and rhythmic cues in her music that I genuinely have never learned how they would be represented in sheet music, and so "learning the breath" is It's a rewarding and ear-opening challenge!
Beyond that, bass guitar as a voice in an instrumental duet is so tricky to work with, because it has to forgo all of its rhythm section role and act solely as a strong melodic voice. Blending tone can be a challenge, and you really have to think of the instrument as something else entirely.
Hope you enjoy!
Adam
What if disco, but lots of chords?
I had fun collaborating with @JoshTurnerGuitar (and @JoshHarmon and Jim Hogan and Julia Chen!) on a cover of a lost Steely Dan tune, The Second arrangement.
Video essays, lessons and vlogs on new horizons in music and music theory. NYC-based bass player and composer Adam Neely brings you a new video every Monday exploring what music means, and what it means to be a musician.