RIP Phil Chen

[Chris P.]

Almost 81... Phil played with Pete Townshend, Brian May, Rod Stewart, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and many, many more. I met him a couple of times and he was great fun... ...and an awesome player!

[Basvarken]

RIP Phil Chen

[Chris P.]

[Rob]

R.I.P.

[4stringer77]

His work on Jeff Beck's album Blow by Blow was essential instructional material from all my educators. Thanks for the great grooves Phil, you'll be sorely missed.

[uwe]

Very sad, I only recently listened to a lot of his good work with Roddie (a boxed set with all of Stewart's studio recordings) ...

HOWLER ALERT: Would you believe that I mistook him for a long time (until recently in fact) with Tetsu (and that Rod had simply dragged him along from the Faces for his solo career)?





I know, I know, typical Western ignorance and stereotyping: "Asian origins + playing bass with Rod Stewart = one and the same person", even if Japan (where Tetsu is from) and Jamaica (where Phil was born, he had Chinese heritage) lie some 8.000 miles apart ...



I'll crawl back under my rock now, shamefully so.



Which reminds me: Back in the 90ies I was for a week in Cuba, renegotiatoing debt the Cuban State owed to a German pharmaceutical. One of our negotiation counterparts was a man of Chinese heritage (I only learned then that about 10% of all Cubans have Chinese DNA in them). Of course he spoke Spanish and English, but what completely threw us off was the fact that he looked perfectly Asian, yet had all the habits, quirks and idiosyncracies of a typical "Latin American", it was a wonder to behold how a "Chinese face" looks when a "Cuban brain" steers its facial expressions. Same with the gestures. He spoke and gestured grandly and "machine-gunned" his Spanish - gone were all Asian sparse body language and verbal restraints, it was a real cross-culture tour de force experience.

The debt? After a week of grandstanding on both sides and lots of mojitos + Cohibas (to the point of nausea, don't drink mojitos and smoke cigars at the pool before noon if you have a negotiation round in the afternoon, ok?  ), we came to a nice amicable settlement! One of my best business trips ever.

PS: BTW, at least Tetsu is alive and well (and still has his iconic Zemaitis) ...

[Dave W]

RIP

[Chris P.]

Uwe, before internet came around, and I didn't had all the info I had the Tetsu/Phil confusion as well. So you're not the only one!

[gearHed289]

He was a great rock and roll bass player. RIP

[4stringer77]

Glad to know Tetsu is still jamming. Besides playing with Rod, he was also on the Kossoff Kirke Tetsu Rabbit album. Paul's Dad the actor David Kossoff turned up on TCM last night in the move Indiscreet which in turn lead me to discover this Jem of a story very much in keeping with this time of year.



I hope you guys enjoy it too. Anyhow, here's a great track Phil played on in case anyone isn't familiar with it already.