Young Polish Talent (probably a relative of Jake)

[uwe]

I couldn't do that.

The cross-legged part I mean.

She plays HOs too ...

[Highlander]

I know some pretty nice Ho's...

(sure she's been posted here before, somewhere)

[Granny Gremlin]

Kinga is a very popular name (in my generation at least) - that's not her but I do have a cousin with that name (until recently lived in Berlin, now living it up on some Mediterranean island; been meaning to speak to her actually).... Now only if my parents were a little more diligent about paying attention to what I am/was into, they could have got me married off to a nice Polka like this as they always wanted, instead they kept trying to match me up with ... I don't even know what they were thinking to be honest.

Anyway, she's pretty damn good, but I hate that trebly jazz tone - why can't electric jazz bass be mellow, like ever?  Especially when the arrangement is nice and sparse so cutting though isn't a problem.

I see good things happening musically in Poland, and it makes me happy (it was grim for a while, especially as regards gear, but now one of the most acoustically advanced studios and quite a few highly regarded pro audio gear makers are there).  ... I do worry, in a similar way to how I worried about the social over-correction after communism (hyper-Americanisation/consumerisation; it was really weird for a bit - kids wearing suits to class and shit) that there is too much focus on the mainstrem - classical/jazz/pop and not much trickling down to the sorts of musics that I love most and feel are a necessary balance in a society's musical portfolio.

[uwe]

Her tone is much less trebly (popular among jazz players for all that harmonics playing they do) and actually even mellow with that long scale bolt-on mock-SG bass (which could possibly be a Greco?) in that second vid.

I find it amazing that apparently

she

doesn't

slap

at

all! 

[bassilisk]

Uwe, that just illustrates just how pervasive that has become. You clearly have a some real breadth of familiarity with many genres and styles, but it seems to be more common than not.

I don't slap, and I don't feel like there's a gaping hole in what and how I play. Upon occasion people have come to me after a show and expressed a positive response to what I played, but never once has someone said, Gee that was pretty good but you should really slap more....

I admire the chops it takes to be a good slapper, meaning not just flurries of notes for the sake of it (which seems to be the dominant form of display) but inserted in a musical way that enhances the song. Lawdy, sometimes I walk into GC or Sam Ash and it's like walking into note blizzard. I often stop and wonder, can that person cut a groove into Mustang Sally, or James Brown?

I dig her because she doesn't need to slap. Like Jeff Berlin. I couldn't carry either of their lunches in any case, but I'm okay with not having that particular skill set. I manage with what I got and we still rock.

[uwe]

There's a German saying "breaking open doors" and that is what she does with me, I love melodic and chordy bass playing, so Kinga does everything right in my book. (I just bought her CD on the basis of what I saw and heard above.) I was just pleasantly surprised that - given her age and the slap saturation she must have experienced/suffered through - she seems to consciously avoid it with an almost conservative right hand technique approach. I would have expected someone like her (who must have listened to a lot of rock jazz - probably via her parents, the poor thing!    ) to throw in some Marcus Miller chops as well. (And I wouldn't have been all over her had she slapped a little either, but avoiding it altogether made me take notice.)

[bassilisk]

Exactly my point. It has become so de rigeur that when it doesn't happen it stands out. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was a conscious decision on her part.

Having said that, she's probably a slap monster and is saving it for a later album.

[Basvarken]

There's a Dutch word for this music: Kutmuziek.
But she is kinda cute. I have to admit.

[westen44]

Well, the Dutch have a flair for being direct and to the point.  I wasn't aware of that word being used to describe that kind of music, though. 

[Highlander]

Had to look it up... oops... Well, I know it in Italian and German too...

[uwe]

What's kut about - admittedly tame and well-behaved - light jazz rock? Worse things have happened in mankind's history. 

Given her age and her gender (instrumental jazz rock is probably even more "male" than heavy metal), it's heartwarming to see someone learn to play bass that well and play that type of music with so much, yes, devotion. [Now I couldn't see myself playing in a jazz rock band at all. I once auditioned with one - it was fun for a while - and after a handful of sessions they told me in the nicest possible way: "It's either you or the other guy who has kind of a flamenco background. You play great and really different, Uwe, but the way you play - anything you play really - cries out "ROCK!!!", you play with a really dominant rock groove ....". I immediately knew what they were aiming at (and shared their view), but it was actually one of the nicest musical compliments I ever received.]

And other than that she's young and pretty, I don't see her flaunting her sexuality too much in those vids either. Her playing style is playfully-intricate and perhaps over-ornamental (flowery?), but she is surprisingly economic on the show-off chops.

Count me in on the Kinga Fan Club!  And you think, Rob, she's the Candy Dulfer



or Barbara Dennerlein



of anodyne jazz-kut-muzak bass playing, right? 

Which goes to show, girls, that if you pick up an instrument

- don't be too pretty (distracts your male audience),

- don't play it too skillfully (looks "learned" to your male audience) and

- don't play music that avoids being jarring and groundbreaking (reinforces your male audience's
  preconception that you are teacher's pet treading it safe in your uncreative and non-daring comfort zone).

[Basvarken]

Haha. Candy Dulfer makes kutmuziek too yes!

Just to make sure; kutmuziek has nothing to do with gender. The word kut in kutmuziek means crap. In German you'd call it Scheissmusik.

[uwe]

Naw, light jazz rock is to me like The Carpenters



with more notes, more seventh chords and less vocals. I can handle both. It's unobstrusively pleasant to me, like a sunny sky. Not gripping, but then not everything has to be.

Here's more for you to hate: 



I could play some nice lead bass with her - after all she's got the rhythm side already covered. 



The older I get, the less Scheißmusik I find, I've become musically omnivorous.

[Pilgrim]

In the Dennerlein clip, the bass player is all over it!  His part is very nicely done.

[uwe]

Incredible what she seems to be able to do with just her feet and some light pressure.