Morrie Louden

Music:

Member Since: 10/10/2006
Band Website: morrielouden.com
Band Members: DOUBLE BASS – A WHOLE NEW MEANING --- The Morrie Louden group ----- It was the third gig of my LA tour in Claremont, Ca. at a cool club called “The Hip Kitty.” And this is where the whole thing goes left !! I was setting up my bass rig, as usual. I put my amp up on a chair like I always do, and laid my bass down on the stage right next to my amp. The amp didn’t fit on the chair so well because the removable wheels were in the way. The SWR Red Head is equipped with removable wheels, but most of the time they’re stuck, and just won’t pull out. And so I tilted the amp on its side on the chair, and tried to pull the damn wheels off! Still no luck! I turned my back on the amp for a moment to go look for a tool to pry them off. A few moments later…WHAM !!!! I hear and feel a loud crash as the whole audience “WOOOO-ed”. I then said to somebody, What happened? He said, “Your amp fell over on your bass!” As I walked over to the amp and bass in disbelief. I had to ask someone else: “Did the amp fall on my bass?” As if surrendering a confession, he said “yes”. The amp was upside down on the ground --- four or five feet away from where I had left it on the chair. Of course, I felt my stomach rise to my throat, as I began to think about what had potentially happened !!! I began to pray... The bass was still in the case, and while saying my prayer, I picked it up and carefully opened the case. To my horror, I discovered that the 85 pound amp had rolled off the chair, fell two feet, and hit the bass square on the neck --- right next to the scroll. I then began to see all the damage that had happened one thing after another… The scroll was bent forward and hanging on by just a thread. There was a real jagged break right where the scroll meets the neck, and the strings were loose. The break was against the grain, and the wood was all splintered and jagged. Upon further examination, I also noticed that the neck had become dislodged from the body. It was just wobbling in the heel of the body of the bass, and some of the wood had also broken away. I later found out that the block was also cracked and much more. My $80,000, three-hundred-year-old Italian bass was severely damaged, and I was in shock. I could barely speak. With my mind in a daze, I then put it back in its case the best I could, and set it off to the side of the stage. I still had not yet fully grasped what had just happened. There was still a factor of disbelief. Meanwhile people in the audience started scrambling to find another bass for me to play in order to save the night. One guy I had just met named Ian said he had a ‘65 Fender Jazz Bass at home, and he would go grab it for me if I wanted. I said, “Okay, yes, please!” And so he left his girl friend there at the club, and started speeding home to get his bass. It was about a 45- minute drive for him. Then another nice guy in the audience said he knew a luthier in town named Jim Brown, and gave him a call. He luckily got Jim on the phone and told him what had happened. Jim was very empathetic, and said he had an upright bass at his shop that I could use. And so I got on the phone with him and told him how I liked it set up, and he went to work filing the bridge and quickly setting it up. Still in shock, I went outside to avoid all the commotion and I called Mary (my girl friend) and told her what had happened. After the phone call, people from the audience start approaching me with their own horror stories of instrument accidents. Honestly, I wasn’t much in the mood to hear stories at that moment. Then, saved by the bell, this big Indiana Jones - looking guy emerged from the parking lot. He was pouring down sweat, out of breath, and carrying an upright bass! It was Jim! He had done the work on the bass, and gotten it there within a half an hour !! I was a bit concerned about him. To me, he didn’t look like he felt very well. He handed me the bass and said, “Here, you take it inside, I’m done with it” Well, for the life of me, I can’t remember how the bass ended up back in his hands but, he carried it into the club and we started to get it ready to play. I pulled the Fishman pickup off my bass and was over by my amp making some kind of adjustments or something, because I didn’t even know if my amp had survived the fall! Meanwhile, Jim was standing in front of the stage holding his bass while having a conversation with my agent. Then Jim finally handed me the bass. Only one problem:.., I was standing eight feet away!! The next thing I knew… BAM !!! A sickening loud crash about a foot away to the right. I jumped as it startled me. Jim’s bass landed on its back and exploded!! It fell in my direction and so the scroll landed next to my feet on the right. His bass just shattered and broke into pieces. It was like a cartoon. There were wood chips all over the place, the scroll broke clean off, and strings were dangling in the air. My mouth dropped open and I just froze. I couldn’t believe what I had just witnessed for the second time in one night!!! – Nor could anyone else. At this point, as I later found out, my drummer (Joel Taylor) and sax player (Walter Smith lll) turned their back to the whole scene and began uncontrollable laughter. The whole night became surreal. Yes…, lightning struck twice in the same place in the span of one hour!! I looked at Jim and said, What happened !!? He said, “I thought you had it!!” I said, “What? I was standing all the way over here!!” Well…, then he started to become very angry. He was disgusted, and I couldn’t blame him a bit. We started gathering the pieces to his bass and giving them to him one by one. Meanwhile, he was getting madder and madder by the second. Without caring, he started banging the bass around and then just pointed to pieces of his bass and said: “Give me this --- and give me that --- and I’m out of here”. He had a bunch of pieces of his bass in his left hand, and had what was left of his bass in his right hand, and started heading for the door ---dragging the bass behind him with strings and stuff dragging on the floor behind him. The whole audience witnessed all that had happened, and everyone just had blank looks on their faces, just stunned. At one point, while walking out of the club with his arms full of his bass pieces, Jim stopped and yelled to the audience: “DON’T PLAY BASS!!!” then continued out and disappeared. After that, we were all just standing around in total disbelief. Ian’s girlfriend had stayed at the club while he made his dash to get his bass. Then somebody in the audience said: “Well, Ian’s girlfriend had called Ian and told him not to bring the bass, because we have one.” I looked at her and said, “What??!! You told him to not bring his bass!!” She said, “Oh no, I didn’t, He’s still coming.” I said, “Thank God.” Poor girl—I think I scared the shit out of her! Ian finally showed up with his vintage Fender and we got the show going about 40 minutes late. It took a little while to get used to his bass but I did and, at least we would get paid for the night. So, now I’ve got Ian sitting in the front row watching me play, probably worrying about his bass, and ironically, while playing the show, every time I turned to my left, Ian’s bass kept banging into the hanging light in back of the stage. Then the light would just keep swinging like a pendulum. Just a constant reminder of my fate on this cursed evening. Aware that Ian was watching the whole thing, I just couldn’t take it anymore. And so, in the middle of a tune, I stopped playing for a second and reached up and steadied the light. During the show I got a big fat blister on my third finger because, I use my third finger in a whole different way on electric and I just didn’t have the calluses anymore. And so that was Thursday at the Hip Kitty. On the way back to the hotel, the scroll on my bass broke all the way off, and when I took it out of its case in the room, my 300-year-old Rogeri was in pieces. My bass was airlifted to the ICU at David Gage’s shop in New York in critical condition. And I’m happy to report we’re expecting a full recovery. Morrie Louden Morrielouden.com ----------------------------------------------Personnel:Morr ie Louden, upright bass ---Adam Nussbaum, drums ---Gary Novak, drums ---Nanny assis, percussion ----Gretchen Parlato, vocal ---Edward Simon, piano ---Lionel Loueke, guitar ---Mike Eckroth, piano ---Bob Sheppard, tenor, soprano saxophone & flute ---Seamus Blake, tenor saxophone ---Alex Sipiagin, trumpet ---Oriente Lopez, flute ---Larry Farrell, trombone ---George Flynn, bass trombone ---Joyce Hammann, violin ---Lois Martin, violin ---Belinda Whitney, viola ---Richard Locker, cello
Influences: Chick Corea, Francis "Rocco" Prestia, Tower of power, Herbie Hancock, Stanley Clarke, Jaco Pastorious, Keith Jarrett, Kharyn Leigh, Stevie Wonder, John Coltrane, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Michael Brecker, Lyle Mays, Kenny Rankin, Al Jarreau, Jeff Beck, John Mclaughlin, Rachmoninov, Beethoven, Puccini, and generally all classical music from the romantic era.
Sounds Like: Time Piece
Record Label: MoSound -- City Hall distribution
Type of Label: Major