Bob Magnusson

As the heart of the rhythm section, the bass is the center of any jazz ensemble and, in ways, the most important of the jazz instruments. It is, therefore, something of an irony that jazz bassists are known not so much for their own performances as for the horn players and pianists with whom they share the spotlight. With this measure in mind, Bob Magnusson must be counted as one of today's most successful jazz bassists. He has performed with the likes of Art Pepper, Slide Hampton, and some of the other greatest names in jazz. In addition, he has performed occasionally with such pop stars as Natalie Cole, Neil Diamond, and Linda Ronstadt. An examination of his discography alone, with more than 150 recording credits, would be exhaustive. Magnusson speaks of these achievements in an almost off hand manner as though it were a commonplace thing to perform with Benny Golson or Mark O'Connor.

He remains a sought after bassist for performing and recording. Last year Magnusson performed for a concert recording in Mountainview, California, with pianist John Hicks and drummer Roy McCurdy. He recently recorded with tenor saxophonist legend Bud Shank, Dave Evans, and fellow San Diegan and pianist Mike Wofford. He is also featured on a 2005 live recording release, Bouncing With Bud and Phil, featuring Shank and fellow saxophone great Phil Woods. This year brings dates with Shank in Portugal and other places in Europe. At the time of this interview he was in the process of recording, along with Sue Rainey, Terry Harrington, and Jack Sheldon, with screen star Wilford Brimley. 'He sings!' says Magnusson, revealing the surprise he found in the movie star's other talent. 'And he just charms you to death.'

The bass came to Magnusson in high school when he picked up an electric bass to play in his brother's blues band. The double bass was his next instrument after he heard Miles Davis' sublime classic, Kind of Blue, and fell in love with jazz. Soon thereafter Magnusson accompanied jazz euphonium player Gus Mancuso to Las Vegas. In this Disneyland for adults Magnusson shared the stage with Mancuso and began performing with other top jazz artists, including trumpeter Bobby Shew, and played in a number of show bands that are heavily featured in the entertainment capital.

At the age of 21, Magnusson got an opportunity that older, more experienced, performers would gladly line up for. Buddy Rich hired him as his bassist. 'It wasn't because of my knowledge of jazz, but I could read every chart he had,' he says, explaining how he, as such a greenhorn, secured the position.

His relationship with Rich was to turn into the equivalent of an intensive college curriculum in rhythm. 'Buddy didn't say anything for six or seven performances. Then he let me have it. �”Where's the fire?' �”You're dragging the beat!' he'd yell. And he'd throw in some of those expletives that he was famous for,' Magnusson recalls. 'He came from a military background and for me, coming from such a warm and caring family, a lot of that was hard to take. I wound up with a real love-hate relationship with him. I so admire him and have to thank him. He made me so aware of how to play good time.' If playing with Rich was like a college course in rhythm, the next three years - when he toured with Sarah Vaughn - were graduate school for the young bassist. Vaughn's drummer was Jimmy Cobb, the legendary drummer whose incredible time, musicality, and restraint were part of Kind of Blue, the jazz album that inspired Magnusson in the first place. 'If I can get my beat where he is, that's what I need to do,' Magnusson says as he recalls the challenge of working with such a master of time.

He also learned more about the art of creating more functional and musical bass lines from Vaughn's pianist, Carl Schroeder. 'Sarah would have the band go off on this vast, long, blues that we would play for all the performances. Well, one day I was sitting down with Carl and said that I was getting tired of some of the things I was playing in the blues. Carl turned to me and said, �”Me too!'' Magnusson laughs as he remembers. 'Carl said to me, �”What you're playing is just a bunch of finger crap.''

That marked the beginning of Magnusson's master class into jazz theory while Schroeder helped him to understand the functionality of the jazz bass. Magnusson says, 'What he had me do was to outline all the seventh chords - major seventh, minor seventh, minor seventh flat five, and all of their inversions. He also had me formulate a lick book, stuff I'd stolen from other players and stuff I came up with on my own. It brought me to a whole new level of playing. Until then I'd been flying by the seat of my pants.'

All of these jazz experiences were laid upon a foundation of the classics. Magnusson had studied the French horn for 12 years, and his father was the principal clarinetist with the San Diego Symphony. He studied the double bass with local treasure and all around good guy Bert Turetzky as well as with bassist and conductor Ami Porat, Barry Lieberman, and Peter Rofe. And he has performed in the bass sections of both the Las Vegas and San Diego Symphonies.

On stage or in a club, Magnusson seems to be one of the most relaxed of performers. He sits and leans his instrument back in such a way that his left arm hangs down from the neck as he plays. 'It's something I learned from a classical bassist. I get all the pressure on the strings from the weight of my arm.' In addition, he works efficiently in the execution of his jazz bass lines. He says, 'The emphasis in my playing is on the contour of the line. Years ago I was working with Victor Feldman. He's got this book, which was basically one of those Piano for Idiots books. I had been playing piano, moving my left hand around to change the chords. And he shows you how, with one note change, the whole color of the chord changes. Instead of moving your hand, you just move one finger.' Magnusson calls this economy of motion and applies it to the bass. 'I realized that I don't always have to start a measure on a root, that if the line I'm playing is not taking me there, I can start with another note. Seventy-five percent of the time I wind up on the root, but about 25 percent of the time I'm starting the measure with something else.'

Magnusson tells one story in particular story about how he learned to play with such ease. He was taking lessons from Frederick Hughart and also performing with him in the San Diego Symphony. 'I was the last bass in the section, and Fred, who was a great bass player but who was semi-retired, was reading off the same stand with me. We had this difficult passage of ascending fifths E-flat, B-flat, and F, a fast ostinato that we played over and over. Well, out of the corner of my eye, while we bassists were moving our arms up and down the neck, I see Fred, and there's nothing - no movement at all. What he'd done was move his thumb position down to play the E-flat on the A string, which made it possible to reach the other notes easily. At my next lesson I asked him about it and he said, �”I'm just naturally lazy,'' Magnusson laughs as he remembers. 'That was the starting point where I built my concept of economy of motion.'

In 1975 Art Pepper told Magnusson that he wanted to work with the bassist and asked him to move from San Diego to Los Angeles. Magnusson jumped at the chance, although he admits it was a financially risky venture. He says, 'I was married with two children, and all I had was enough money for the first and last month's rent.' The venture nonetheless proved fruitful. He recorded, toured, and performed with Pepper throughout 1980. In a town where every musician will tell you about his or her latest recording project or studio work, Magnusson was unusual in that his focus was on performing. 'If I had wanted to record, I would have used my electric bass a lot more,' he says. 'But mostly it stayed in its case underneath the bed. I just wanted to play jazz, this music that I love.' His reputation grew by playing with jazz notables Pat Williams and Johnny Mandell at some of Los Angeles' hottest jazz spots, such as Dante's.

Although he was performing regularly, by 1983 Magnusson felt that his quality of life would be better if he returned home. Life in San Diego is a lot slower and sleepier than in L.A., but he would keep busy as soon as he and drummer Jim Plank formed the house rhythm section at Elario's, the nightspot that kept La Jolla jumping for years. Week after week Magnusson and Plank backed up Art Farmer, Hank Jones, Kenny Barron, and Joe Pass, to name a few.

Since the early 1980s Magnusson has been involved in Road Work Ahead, an aptly titled organization for touring musicians. Finding the idea of a band leader an anathema, Magnusson, along with drummer Plank, guitarist Peter Sprague, and pianist Bill Mays, formed the band as a leaderless cooperative in which all members share in composing and arranging. On the Road Again, their most recent disc, was released last year. A similar recording cooperative agreement with Sprague and others, in which the musicians agreed to give each other free studio time, made it possible for Magnusson to produce his own CD, a rare offering for a jazz bassist. Line up all the great local jazz talents, from Holly Hoffmann to the Hot Club of San Diego, and Magnusson has either performed or recorded with all of them. Lately he can most often be found - usually three times a week - playing with Latin guitarist Jamie Valle. When he's not playing music you might find him in Ocean Beach, down past Newport Avenue on his surfboard, catching some waves. He first took up the sport in junior high school and rediscovered the fun of shooting the curl on a recording trip with Sprague to Hawaii.

All the knowledge Magnusson has accumulated over the years - through his rough and tumble work on stage and the dressing down that he received from his elder musicians - has been passed along to the next generation of jazz bassists. For close to 20 years he has been a faculty member at the Musicians Institute in Hollywood. He teaches part time at San Diego Community College and is an adjunct professor at Point Loma Nazarene University. 'I try to get [my students] to work on their evenness of time,' he explains. 'I want them to recognize that the human experience of rhythm rises and falls. For that you need a command of your instrument, a command of your faculties, and your ability to choose lines.' He has compiled this knowledge in the instruction book he wrote titled The Art of Walking Bass. Understanding that the beginning jazz bassist is often intimidated by semiquavers and glissandi, Magnusson kept the notation simple. 'The whole book uses quarter notes,' he says. 'I want them to concentrate on the contour of the line.' Because most of his students are interested in popular music and jazz, their emphasis is on pizzicato, but Magnusson believes that they need a better understanding of their instrument. 'To this day I won't take students if they don't play with the bow. The bow is the heart of the instrument. If they can hear those notes from an arco, their jazz playing becomes more articulate,' he says. He adds that much of what he emphasizes regarding the concept of tone and supporting the sound of the instrument came from his study of the French horn.

As he talks about his teaching style, Magnusson notes that his study of the jazz bass was unique and that he was lucky to learn from the best by performing with them. He claims, 'I learned how to make the rhythm feel good, to have that bounce, and to play music that makes people want to tap their feet.'