Fender Jazz, a Love Story
My passport is made of wood and wire
My bass is a Fender Jazz. I own several instruments; a fine Martin D-28 acoustic guitar of maple, rosewood, and mother of pearl; a gorgeous Rickenbacker 450 electric with an “azure glow” finish; a Guild 12-string; two charming ukuleles. But if the house was on fire and my family was safe, and I could retrieve only one instrument from the flames, it would be the Fender Jazz bass.
I became a musician on the Fender Jazz. Making music has shaped my life, brought me intense pleasure. It connects me to others, on a vista deeper than language allows. The journey to that place began with the Fender Jazz.
My Fender Jazz was assembled in California around the time my memories begin: 1969. I would not see it for twelve years. In that time span, on the other side of America, I grew from a moon-faced, lazy-eyed child to a six-foot-two, one hundred-fifty-pound sixteen-year-old.
In 1981, I was recovering from a bout with cystic acne, newly deflowered, and fitfully trying to make music on a plywood starter bass my mom bought me – a Rythmline (sic).
One evening, while working the King’s Drugs cash register, I was giddy from sleeplessness, and essentially high on hormones. In those days, I occasionally did or said crazy things, as if possessed. Without warning, my conscientious, designated driver persona would go offline. No alcohol or drugs required.
A pretty, thirtysomething woman buying toothpaste and Trident seized my attention.
“You have beautiful eyes,” I said. The words left my mouth seemingly of their own accord. I was voicing a thought, heedless of consequences. I’d never said anything like that to a stranger. My heart slammed against my ribcage.
The woman blushed and laughed softly, reflexively. Those beautiful eyes dilated beneath the King’s Drugs fluorescents. She thanked me, looked me over – also reflexively – and asked what I did.
“I’m… a musician.” I’d never said it before. It wasn’t even true.
“That’s what I thought,” she smiled and left, a spring in her step.
I went home and scowled at the poor Rythmline. I’d sat in my cutoffs in our dank basement, manhandling the substandard bass as I scratched a phonograph needle across Led Zeppelin LPs again and again, painstakingly learning [Led Zep bassist/keyboardist] John Paul Jones bass parts by ear. I sort of enjoyed the challenge of the crappy instrument, but maybe I was working too hard, spending too much time repeatedly re-tuning it, time I could be playing. Plus, the Rythmline, it dawned on me, was dorky-looking.
Time for an upgrade. I’m a musician, after all.
The next day I motored my VW Bug to Atlanta Discount Music. I walked in clueless, several cashed paychecks in my pocket. I stared slack-jawed at the basses hanging on the wall, dimly aware I was on a threshold. The Hippie Dude behind the register was kind to me.
“Here, kid,” he said, stubbing out a cigarette. “Check this one out.”
He handed me a solid maple Fender Jazz bass. It offered more heft than plywood Rythmline. My blood quickened.
Once in my hands and against my protruding hipbones, Fender Jazz was part of me. Just as a body – especially a sixteen-year-old body – shudders upon enmeshing itself with another, so it was with me and Fender Jazz.
Desperate to be welcomed into the musician tribe, I played what few basslines I knew: “Dazed and Confused,” “Whole Lotta Love,” John McVie’s solo from Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain.” I’d never executed my little repertoire on a quality instrument. My hands felt superpowered, nimble beyond reason. I was better than I thought.
Hippie Dude and his pal, a guy with an Eddie Van Halen mullet and a new wave T, watched me; their attention was palpable.
“Sounds good, man,” Hippie Dude said. “Good feel.”
Eddie Clone smiled and nodded. “How long you been playin’?”
“A year and a half,” I said.
“All right, then.”
Fender Jazz’s body – like everyone’s – told a story. Her previous owner – or owners – had worn her down in places. Sweat had thinned the finish on her curves, her metal parts more matte than sparkly, her neck made smooth from the pressure of a hot palm.
She’d been loved. I saw how love can wear something down in a good way. You bear down on an instrument, or a person, and if you’re well-matched, music comes out.
“You got 375 bucks, kid?” Hippie Dude was standing over me in a patchouli and cigarette cloud. “If you got 375 clams, that bass is yours.”
I did have 375 clams, several paychecks cashed and burning through my 501’s. I was ready to part with more money than I ever had in my life. I paid in a daze, spirited Fender Jazz into my VW and hurried to my guitar player friend Teddy’s house to show him my first real instrument.
We immediately got busy. In a matter of months, we’d formed The Latest, and we were playing originals in Atlanta new wave clubs like The Bistro and TV Dinner.
Fender Jazz and I spent ever more time together. No matter how much I bent and whacked the strings, she stayed in tune. She tumbled to the floor several times, and was fine, if a little dinged. One night, upon arriving home late from a gig, I realized with horror that I’d left her on the sidewalk outside The Bistro in a sketchy part of downtown Atlanta. (My first “I left the baby on the bus” moment.) Miraculously, when I sped back, she was exactly where I’d left her 30 minutes previous.
I honed some funk chops and started the band Wee Wee Pole with my best friend Todd and Atlanta celebrity RuPaul. With Fender Jazz in hand, I traveled with them to New York City for life changing gigs at Danceteria and The Pyramid. Those and other experiences retain clarity to this day.
Fender Jazz took me to Athens, Georgia for a year, where, at nineteen, I lived totally on my own for the first time. With instantly popular Go Van Go, Fender and I frequented the stage of the 40 Watt Club and toured to Manhattan for more memorable gigs and adventures.
Fender Jazz soon emboldened me to sojourn back to NYC alone, with only her and an amp and some secondhand clothes, to seek my fortune. We would find that fortune, although, excepting a few windfalls, it would be mostly richness of experience. But a fortune, nonetheless.
With garage rock titans The Fleshtones, Fender Jazz granted me passage from New York City to LA, San Francisco, the heartland, New Orleans; we traveled to Paris and into the French countryside, on to Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Germany, Martinique, Hawaii, Quebec. We even backed Sir Ian McKellen reciting Shakespeare’s Sonnet 20 on Andy Warhol’s 15 Minutes. (Sir Ian was very nice.)
Later, with a goth-y Jane’s Addiction wannabe band – then called Pleasurehead, later Crush, featuring members of Killing Joke and Siouxsie & the Banshees – Fender Jazz and I descended into Electric Lady Studios with INXS’s producer to make an album for Bob Marley and U2’s label, Island. It was never released. But still: Electric Lady Studios, commissioned by Jimi Hendrix, site of his last recording sessions, and workspace of Led Zeppelin, Bowie, Stevie Wonder, and Chic, to name a handful. Hallowed ground.
Fender Jazz led me to the woman I married, ultimately to my son, and to a memorable audition for The Ramones. It is the catalyst for the work I bring before you now. All roads lead back to Fender Jazz.
In the nineties I detoured from the rock and roll road and focused elsewhere. Fender Jazz remained close by, occasionally requisitioned to infuse me with some very specific energy. People who would come to know me as a teacher, an actor, a songwriter, a dad, a rhythm guitarist and troubadour of sorts, routinely registered shock upon hearing me play bass. It is still the thing I do best.
After settling in the Hudson Valley in the early ‘aughts, co-raising my boy, writing books, working in a preschool, making music for families, and fronting my own shows, I ached to be “the bass player” again. Although graying, I was robust, and acutely ready. I put the message into the universe, with no expectations, just fervent hope.
A couple calls brought me out of semi-retirement. Psychedelic Furs co-founder John Ashton, with whom I’d crossed paths at a Dylan tribute in Woodstock (and who I’d seen perform with the Furs back in Athens in 1984), needed a bassist for some road gigs with his band Satellite Paradiso. Plugging in and rocking out, it felt like I’d never left that corner of the stage. (I’m now very pleased to be John’s son’s guitar teacher and his daughter’s bass teacher.)
After that Satellite Paradiso stint, my friends Ruthy Ungar and Mike Merenda needed a touring bassist for their band The Mammals. They knew me mostly as Uncle Rock, “family music” performer, and writer of their bio. I assured them I was the man for the bass job. After running through some songs at their house by the Ashokan Reservoir, they agreed. I was over the moon.
My bass and I spent sizable chunks of 2019 jumping into the van, onto the plane, laying down grooves with fabulous drummer Konrad Meissner in various venues and at festivals. I was The Bass Player again, and happier than I’d been as a musician in decades.
When the world shut down in March of 2020, The Mammals were forced to cancel tours of Australia and California. It was crushing for all. My stage amp became furniture again. Fender Jazz went back in the hardshell. The music stopped. I mourned hard. When would I get the chance to tour like that again?
Lucky for me, kids and adults needed bass lessons during lockdown, and lucky for all, Zoom had become a noun. I plugged in, logged on, and hunkered down. No matter how deep my depression, Fender Jazz on my lap restored me somewhat.
To my surprise, students wanted to learn Led Zeppelin and Rush songs, i.e. etudes from my early days in the basement with Fender Jazz. Once I put my hands on her neck and body, those basslines spooled out effortlessly, note-for-note. The muscle memory in my hands astonished me. That feeling of time travel, of reprieve from decay and loss, remains invaluable.
I can’t remember anybody’s name, or where I put my keys, but the bassline to Led Zeppelin’s “Good Times, Bad Times”? No problem.
As Covid restrictions have eased, I’ve kept most of my students, and gained more. When they sit across from me – in real life or virtually – they see a guy and an instrument both over a half-century old, both shaped by love, work, and time. With Fender Jazz, I stay connected not only to that impulsive sixteen-year-old at the beginning of a wonderful life, but also to the part of me that is no age at all, just music.
Such a beautiful journey through the strange and special relationship we musicians have with our instruments, I loved it. Seems to me a collection of these would make for a great anthology. You might enjoy this: https://holidaysidewinder.substack.com/p/she-sleeps-with-electric-guitars?s=r
I loved this piece! I've seen both The Mammals and Mike and Ruthy! (Bright As You Can was one of my favorite songs of the year when it came out.) Also, I know Ken M. Maybe I've seen you play! Perhaps at The Pines in Look Park or at Arcadia Folk Fest?