The LA Music Academy's Bass Department is thriving more than ever, generating talented players who emerge from the school and join the professional world. Resumes are growing, touring miles are stacking up, and fret calluses are getting thicker, as the number of alumni increases each year. To hear about it from an insider perspective, why look any further than Jerry Watts? As Department Chair, his very DNA has taken a cozy residence within the engine that powers the bass classrooms, ensembles, clinics, and special events. Jerry affably offers insights, philosophies, and a thorough knowledge of the professional world according to a true bass freak. Of course, all these attributes don't matter without the most important skill a teacher must have: an ability to teach. Even that isn't necessarily enough without a genuine passion for educating. Suffice to say, Jerry is in the clear. And the proof is in abundance, as we talk with the man behind the wheel of the Bass Department, Professor Jerry Watts.

First off, you need teachable students! But you also need teachers who have plenty of real world experience and an understanding of how to teach and communicate. We bring to the classroom the perspectives of musicians who've learned how to ultimately succeed in the playing world, and that means the assignments you're given and the feedback you're given are going to be leading to developing yourself, not just as a bass player (or a "player of the bass"), but ultimately as a musician who plays the bass. What's especially going to bring success is an ability to play with other people. We accomplish that with pretty much everything we have going on, like in our Styles classes, which cover jazz, pop, rock, blues, funk, world, and groove. These classes, and many others, have an ensemble component to the class, so students can work on music and then have an opportunity to play with professionals in an ensemble setting. The teachers' feedback not only guides students' instrumental progress but also teaches them how to function in the context of an ensemble. And, while I'm on the subject, we have an excellent bass department: Steve Billman, David Levray, Hussain Jiffry, Philip Bynoe, and Lynne Davis. Playing with other people very often goes beyond simply dealing with whether or not you're playing your part correctly or playing the song correctly. The larger question is whether or not you're playing the music correctly, and if the experience that other musicians are having playing with you is positive or not. I teach an all-school class for drummers, bass players and guitar players called Rhythm Section Workshop. There, we're learning particular songs from different kinds of styles, but really we very quickly move into the realm of dealing with more of what it feels like to be playing the music as part of a group. And all the while the students in these ensembles are getting feedback, not just about their approach to performing the song and their instrumental technique, but also about how they are interacting, listening to, and playing with the other musicians.

Well electric bass is really different than cello or trumpet, for example, where you spend the first six months trying to eek out a decent tone from the instrument. So when we're talkin' tone production, it can mean something completely different to, say, wind instrumentalists than to an electric bass player, who can just simply plug a bass into an amp, turn up the volume, and have a tone... It's unique tone that's so utterly crucial.

We begin by teaching students how to get in touch with the biomechanics of the instrument — what's required physically, what's required technically to play it. This begins to lead them into a deeper understanding of tone, which is such an important focus because so often electric bass players blow right by that part. Here's the thing: really, anybody can learn how to play the bass. Know how to become a bass player? Go to Guitar Center and buy one! Or you can pick up a magazine about bass gear and see, "oh, you can buy this bass, and this amp, and these speakers, and you've got a sound." And you may have a nice sound, but you won't have a unique sound, which is certainly a hallmark of the successful player, in the realms we're dealing with. If we think of blues, jazz, and rock, R&B and soul, funk, hip hop styles… all those musics deal with players and their individuality — what they bring to the music. Compare this to classical music where, not to say that individuality isn't prized, but there's a somewhat different set of criteria for what makes a successful instrumentalist, or successful working musician. So we work on developing all those aspects of playing: biomechanics, the actual technique, and getting to understand the instrument and working on producing a good, solid tone that can lead to a place where you understand how to draw your own unique voice out of your instrument. Which is pretty critical for the working musician. If you open up Bass Player Magazine, it's primarily filled with individual stylists, known for their unique brand of bass playing. As this applies to what we're doing in school, we're developing all these different aspects of the ability to play the bass, but we're nurturing those things within the broader context of playing, always playing, music.

Every other week we have Bass Master Class, where I invite one of my colleagues from the bass playing community to come in, and it runs the gamut of stylists — from stone cold groovers to absolute bass monster shredders, studio guys, slap junkies, funkateers and tap maniacs. So people are coming in every other week from outside our bass staff to kind of keep that freshness flowing in from people who are out there with different points of view. And it brings a lot of inspiration, not just to the students but to the staff as well. In the past year alone, we've had artists Alain Caron, Andre Berry, Kristin Korb, Rufus Philpot, Ric Fierabracci, Gerald Johnson, Dean Taba, Todd Johnson, Oscar Cartaya, Janek Gwizdala, Kevin Brandon, Jimmy Haslip, and Luthier Michael Tobias, the famous bass builder. We've had a few drummers featured as well, like Forrest Robinson and Russ Miller.

The second annual Pasadena Bass Day was held on Saturday July 14th on the school campus, and it was a blast! It was a day of individual clinics followed by a group session, followed by performances featuring each one of the clinicians. The clinics got rolling at 10 in the morning and went all day, finally wrapping after 8 PM. The event is actually put on by a guy named Peter Decuir. I met Peter doing a bass clinic for the San Diego Bass Alliance, and out of that, he mentioned he wanted to make a bass event in L.A. that was significant and different. So the school lets us put on the event, gives the event a permanent home, and I kind of help him host it. Last year we had Rhonda Smith, from Prince's band, Davis Dyson, a great east coast groover, Alex Al, an L.A. session player bad ass, and a six-string player named Todd Johnson. This year we had Alex Al return, along with Oscar Cartaya, Trip Wamsley, and Norm Stockton. It was off the hook! It's an opportunity for the L.A. bass community to come and find out about the school and have a pretty unique clinic experience. Also, instrument and amplifier manufacturers come and display their wares as well. There is a website with info and photos at sdbassalliance.org.