A trip to town is completely transformed by my ipod. Apart from all the obvious benefits of listening to music while you strut your stuff around the streets, I have the added pride of saying to myself, with every new song that comes on randomly, "Wow - I must have the greatest music collection in the world."
Sitting on the tube on the way home, I noticed an extra benefit to the ipod. If, like me, you don't want to ruin your hearing, then you'll not have your ipod on at full volume. What this means is that the noise of the train perfectly drowns out all of the unnecessary noise - all you get is rhythm and melody.
Tracks from 'A Love Supreme' kept me going most of the way up the Northern Line. But whenever there was a bass solo, I was left in blissful ignorance until the rest of the band came back in.
Turns out the combination of the ipod and the tube creates exactly the right effect. It's what people have been doing for years whenever they're listening to jazz and the bass solo starts - ignore it and think about something else. Maybe have a little chat. Am I the first musician to admit this? There are some fantastic bass players out there - I've played with a few. But nobody's listening to the bass solo.
The exception, of course, is the incredible Tony Grey. But that's bass playing at a whole new level. He's been playing with Hiromi and Oli Rockberger for a while, as well as his solo stuff.
Poor old Jimmy Garrison.
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