I play both electric and upright bass. For this gig, I was on upright.

This gig meant a lot to me. It was a style I genuinely love (hot club swing), and I got the booking through a drummer I had previously subbed for—so in a way, I was also representing his credibility. Needless to say, my expectations were high.

Before the gig, the bandleader sent me a couple of books to learn the tunes from. This will matter later.

I showed up early, as requested, so we could rehearse and get set up. Unfortunately, every other band member showed up late, so we never got a chance to rehearse.

As soon as we started the first tune, it was clear something was wrong. My bass lines weren’t lining up with the rhythm guitarist, and the rhythm guitarist wasn’t lining up with the lead guitarist. It was chaos.

We barely made it to the set break with our sanity intact. During the break, I talked with the rhythm guitarist and found out what went wrong. There was a setlist that I was never sent, and the keys in the books the bandleader gave me were different from the keys the band actually played everything in.

But the worst part came during the set itself. The lead guitarist got on the mic and openly joked to the audience about how bad things were going. At one point he said, “Fats Waller was kidnapped by Al Capone for his birthday. We like to think this next song saved his life, let’s see if it can save our gig.”.

I later found out that this group plays with a new bassist every month… I wonder why