Geddy Lee names “the best bassist on the planet”: “An incredible talent”
There’s a case to be made that Geddy Lee is more of a musical alien than a human these days. Throughout his time in Rush, his intricate low-end work and habit of treating his instrument like a lead guitar was enough to put the likes of John Entwistle and Les Claypool to shame whenever they performed. Despite Lee’s ability to play any style of rock and roll that he could, he still felt that no one could even touch the work that Jeff Berlin was doing for the four-string.
But understanding the bass means more than just both extremes of the fretboard. Some play a thousand notes on their instrument, and those just stick to the roots of every chord, but it’s all about locking in with the drummer, and Lee was already put through his paces with Neil Peart behind the kit.
Since he had become known as one of the most technically proficient drummers in the industry, Lee had the habit of matching Peart note-for-note, even forming one of their signature instrumentals out of one of their jams when making ‘YYZ’. Playing rock and roll is one thing, but when looking at the jazz and fusion world, Lee was just one fish in a big pond.
Looking back on the other major players on the scene, Jaco Pastorius’s nimble fretwork had already started to imprint on every bassist that ever lived, and it’s not like Charles Mingus had been forgotten in jazz circles either. Out of all of them, though, Jeff Berlin was the one who took every lesson that the masters took and applied it to his playing.
Outside of working with fellow prog legends like Yes drummer Bill Bruford on his solo material, he was the perfect foil when playing opposite freaks of nature like Allan Holdsworth. After all, Holdsworth had been making strange moves on guitar as far back as the late 1970s, leaving even artists like Eddie Van Halen with their jaws on the floor, wondering what he was doing.
Although Lee had a firm grip on what he wanted to sound like going into an album like Roll the Bones, he knew that Berlin’s territory was only a pipe dream for him, saying, “As far as I’m concerned, Jeff Berlin is the best bass player on the planet right now-an incredible talent.”
But if Lee wasn’t going to match the raw chops of Berlin, he could still make his mark with the intensity he put into every strike. Because listening back to Rush’s greatest material, it’s not unusual to mistake Lee’s fingers for guitar picks half the time, especially when he’s playing through the string and sounding like he’s trying to destroy his instrument half the time.
As much as Lee is a student of prog, his attempt is a lot more punk rock compared to what Berlin does. No matter how many times he played a concert with Rush, Lee always knew to play every note as if it were the last note he would ever get to play, and even if it wasn’t exactly fusion, it was still an absolute headtrip.
