Andy Simpkins Gets Down to Basics in Playing the Bass

Don’t tell bassist Andy Simpkins that the only place for the bass is in the back of the band.

“In some people’s mind, the bass is relegated to the position of just being support,” he said recently. “Maybe it’s not thought of as a solo voice, and it can be. There are a lot of bass virtuosi today.”

Having said that, Simpkins, who has been Sarah Vaughan’s bassist for nine years, quickly added that “Although I love to play solos, I don’t want to play them all the time, because there’s a great satisfaction in support. Playing the lines and harmonies is an art in itself. It’s a real challenge to always make that support role interesting but not lose the continuity.”

Simpkins, 56, who leads a quartet Saturday at Gallery in the Courtyard in West Hollywood, said it’s important for a bassist to keep both players and listeners involved. “Your first obligation is to people you’re playing with, and in support of, because if what you play gives them a good feeling, then they’re going to project. But I also like to play and project to the people I play to . After all, that’s what it’s all about. I’m concerned whether I’m communicating to them, too.”

Simpkins sees the function of the bass in a small group as threefold: “First, it’s to provide the concept of time, pulse,” said Simpkins, who was the bassist with the Three Sounds. “Secondly, it’s harmonic, to play the bottom part of the chords, and thirdly, as a solo voice. Most of all, you want to give that feeling of confidence to your cohorts, that they know the time is going to be good and you’re playing the right notes, so they don’t have to be worried. That gives them a sense of freedom.”

Perhaps the most important link in small group rhythm playing is that the bass and drummer agree on the beat. “They say it all has to do with heartbeat, as to how you feel a tempo,” Simpkins said, snapping his fingers in rhythm. “One guy hears it a hair above, the other a hair behind. If they’re not in agreement, everything’s in disarray. So sometimes you have to bend and find a meeting ground, for good of the whole. Then there are sometimes where everyone hears the time exactly the same. That’s great when it happens.”

It’s because the musicians feel the music as one that Simpkins so enjoys his tenure with Vaughan--”she’s so musical and so inspirational”--and her trio, with drummer Harold Jones and pianist George Gaffney, and his regular appearances with pianist Gerald Wiggins, with whom he plays most Sundays at Linda’s.

“With Sarah’s trio, our thing’s there, and whoever we play with, we’re right there with them,” he said. “As (saxophonist) Jimmy Heath told me when we backed him in Europe last year, ‘It’s really nice to play with a rhythm section that’s together and is not searching for each other.’

“With Wig, we also play together a lot, but even when we don’t, we just hear things together. Maybe not a tune, but a sequence in a song. Nothing that’s written, just something we fall into. You spend time together, you learn each other’s moves, the way the other thinks. Wig and I always look forward to that, so we move things out of the way so we can be together.”

Simpkins, who feels “music is my natural place, I’m doing what I was put here to do,” grew up in Richmond, Ind., and showed an early talent for organized sound. “I could pick out melodies on the piano before I could even reach the keyboard,” he said.

He switched from piano to bass while leading a combo in high school, and broke into the jazz business as part of the Three Sounds, with pianist Gene Harris and drummer Bill Dowdy. His 1956-68 stint both seasoned and exposed him. “That was my growing up in the business,” he said, “and how I became really known. Actually, today, though I have done many things (his latest album of “Summer Strut” on Discovery Records), people know me best for the Three Sounds. In Japan, I sign as many autographs and albums as Sarah does, when people come backstage.”

After more than 30 years in jazz, Simpkins’ enthusiasm for music shows no signs of waning. “I really love to play and each time, I play as if my life depended on it,” he said. “I just can’t do it any other way. Even in rehearsal, guys tell me, ‘Hey, man, why don’t you save some for the gig?’ When the music says ‘This,’ ” he gestured, “I have to go.”