James Christian

Solo project: THOUGHTS OF ELECTRIC JAZZ

San Francisco / USA

P.S. your website is great!!
Thanks much.
James Christian.

I grew up in the San Francisco bay area in a city called Hayward.
As a child I would with any chance I got sneak across the street my family lived on and put my ear against the door of garage where the rock band practiced. Sometimes they would leave the side door slightly cracked open and of course I would peek inside!
I was perhaps 6 or seven years old, the time was around 1965 and it was very exciting.

I was born in 1958 in Memphis but grew up in California. Growing up I listened to all the classic R&B and soul which I enjoyed and some of my friends would shared with me the rock music they liked and I liked it too.
As time moved on I began to listen to heavy funk and jazz fusion, return to forever, Gong, Dixie dregs Stanley Clark, George Duke Jaco and the list goes on & on. My oldest brother played guitar but I liked the drums, so that's where started expressing myself musically. I jamed with my brother a lot but he wanted someone to play bass and I told him that I would so we managed to get enough money to buy really cheap guitar and removed the two high strings and I had my bass! As I got older met lots of musicians and was in and out of bands and continued to listen to jazz fusion rock funk, I really enjoyed watching live music as well. I also really like Bebop,cool jazz Miles Davis/Coltrane and modern jazz as well.

I have also played in many night clubs in San Francisco where I now live. I played bass on a local musician's CD and it was released locally by City of Tribes records. We also did live performances.
Right looking to find time to record my own CD using my 7 string, 5 string fretless and upright bass with lots of effects processing! I'm still looking for a 4 string EUB though.

Conklin "The sidewinder" 7 string (3 band EQ and Kent Armstrong single coil pick-ups)
1997 Warwick FNA 5 string fretless

Hartke 350 watt 2x10 combo amp.

Effects;
Fulltone bass drive.
Aphex bass xciter.
EBS unichorus.
EBS bass IQ envelope filter.
MXR auto Q.
MXR M80 direct box.
Boss DD6 digital delay.
Boss harmonist HR-2.
Digitech bass synth wah.
Digitech BP 200.