Johan Bravenboer — Fender Marcus Miller Jazz Bass
Every Flood groove starts here. Johan's black Marcus Miller Jazz Bass is not a guitar-shop purchase with a story added later. It is a bass he put together himself, in two chapters, two years apart, and it has been the foundation under Gerbman's guitar ever since.
Built in Two Chapters
It started with a neck. In 2013 Johan bought a brand-new Marcus Miller Jazz Bass neck, meant to give his old bass a second life. It never quite sat right on that body, and a bass player who lives by feel does not settle for "almost".
So instead of making the neck fit, Johan went looking for the body it was made for. In 2015 he found a new, fully loaded Marcus Miller body in the United States and had it shipped over. Neck and body finally met. Johan finished the neck with Schaller tuners for rock-solid tuning stability.
Then came the part that makes this bass truly one of a kind. The body arrived in white. Johan resprayed it black himself, by hand. There is no other Marcus Miller Jazz Bass quite like it: a player-built instrument, assembled and finished by the man who plays it every week.
The Marcus Miller Jazz Bass
Fender built this signature model around the sound of Marcus Miller, the bassist and producer known for his work with Miles Davis and Luther Vandross and for one of the most recognisable Jazz Bass tones in modern music. The look is unmistakable: a maple neck with a bound fingerboard and block inlays, and the Marcus Miller signature on the headstock.
Where many players use this model for funk and slap, Johan takes it somewhere else: into a Texas blues trio, where it has to be round, warm and steady, and still punch through when the band turns up.
In a power trio there is nowhere to hide. When Gerbman takes a solo, the bass is the only thing holding the harmony together, and Johan's fingers do all the talking. The Jazz Bass gives him a clear, singing midrange that locks in with Dick Sol's kick drum, and through the tube warmth of the Sherman 300 it fills the room without crowding the guitar.
It is a player's bass in the truest sense: chosen piece by piece, put together and refinished by hand, and played every week. That is exactly how The Flood likes its gear.
