Larry,
For me also, it's been quite a while since I've done much session work. What I remember is that it varies greatly.
On some sessions, people want you to play exactly what they have written, for a variety of reasons. One, they're just slapping something together. They want it to be played correctly but they're not that concerned about creativity. Two, they would like to have the different session players be creative but they don't have/take the time to explain what the other parts will be doing. For example the bass may play a wonderful line but it steps on some other part that the bassist doesn't know will be there because it is added later. The bottom line for many of us is, if we have a disagreement with the boss, it usually ends up going the boss' way. I'm sure we all have some funny stories that didn't seem so funny at the time.
I always liked the ones where you had the time to know basically what everyone else was going to do. You were told what kind of feel they wanted the song to have and the chord changes. If there was a certain riff they wanted somewhere then you were given a real chart. I like to think that most bassists could come up with a better bass line than would be on the chart. Also sometimes when you really lock in with a good drummer and get a cool groove going things can happen that you might not get by reading a chart.
To be fair, I'm sure there are arrangers/producers out there who can dream up parts and write charts that we couldn't top.
Also to be fair, I have listened to stuff that I came up with and recorded and I have said, red-faced What was I thinking? It goes both ways.
Rich
(Message edited by richbass939 on December 22, 2004)
