Women at the front
Marin bass player Angeline Saris making her mark in male-dominated industry while elevating others
Before she decided to become a professional musician, the acclaimed Marin bassist Angeline Saris was a prelaw student at the University of California, Berkeley, with a focus on women's rights in the workplace.
On her new single, “Come Undone,” which she released last week and is available on Spotify and other streaming platforms, she takes on some of those same issues she studied in college and that she and other women face in the male-dominated occupations like the music business. She describes it as “a high-energy dance song that feels like a farewell party to the outdated ways the world has perceived women.” And it's highlighted, appropriately enough, by a killer bass solo.
A sample verse:
“I'm for real, this ain't no show/ You can't treat me like it's 1964/ You made the law, so you get double/ When we complain, you say we're nasty trouble/ What's yours ain't mine, what's mine ain't yours/ This ain't no peep show when you close the office door.”
Speaking from her home in San Rafael, she cites several incidences that happened to her that she refers to in the song — being offered less money than a male bassist for the same gig, for one, and having to deal with episodes of inappropriate behavior. When she plays with male musicians for the first time, the compliment she tends to get is, “Wow, you're actually pretty good, the parenthetical being `for a woman.'”
“You try not to think about it,” she says. “You try and show up and be the best player you can, letting it be all about the music. That's generally how I operate most of the time. But sometimes it feels like those other things creep in. And it's hard because you're constantly asking yourself these crazymaking questions: Is this happening because I'm a woman? I think it's a tough thing to constantly have to ask yourself. And sometimes it's more obvious than others. I think sometimes you have to strike a balance, too. You go into a situation and you want to be assertive but not aggressive, you want to be friendly but not too friendly, you want to be professional but not hardened. When I talk to other women in male-dominated industries, whether it be in sports or CEOs of tech companies, we all sort of relate on those levels.”
New initiative
“Come Undone” is the first in a series of eight singles that she plans to release over two years in support of an initiative she's launching called GROW, which stands for Global Reach of Women.
“Each single is going to be dedicated to raising money and awareness for a foundation that helps women to thrive, either locally or globally,” she says. “The first one will go to a group in Oakland that hosts an after-school rock camp for girls and gives scholarships for kids who need it. The next single will go toward something else.”
Charismatic and photogenic, she's become a glamorous personality in the bass world. She's been on the cover of Bass Musician Magazine and Bass Quarterly, and has been featured in Guitar Girl Magazine and Bass Player magazine.
Over the past decade and a half, she's earned the status of “a first-call” bassist on the Bay Area music scene. This past fall, she went on tour with the Celebrating David Bowie tour starring former Marin resident Todd Rundgren and onetime
Frank Zappa and King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew, playing 30 dates in the United States and Canada over six weeks.
“It was a beautiful experience,” she says. “It was really a star-studded band that I was honored to be making music with. I sponged up everything I could. And it was a great catalog. I learned 40 Bowie tunes. The musical director chose a lot of the B sides, the less-popular songs. There were some random ones. It was cool.”
For 10 years, the 44-yearold lifelong Marin resident has been a member of Marin drummer and Grammy-winning record producer Narada Michael Walden's band, playing on four of his albums, performing in New York and Japan. Walden has nicknamed her “Angel Funk.”
“She can play anything I've asked her to do,” he says. “And she can do it … with that smile of hers.”
With drummer Lex Razon from the Marin band Vinyl, she formed the group Angelex, releasing an album, “Tight Lips,” in 2018 that not only showcased her bass work, but her emerging talent as a songwriter.
“Her vibe on the album is that of a musician finally creating her own musical identity after years of playing other people's material,” says a review in Bass Player magazine. “And it's a sound that suits her well.”
Most recently, she's teamed up with singer Kate Vargas and guitarist Eric McFadden in Sgt. Splendor, which will perform at the Joshua Tree Music Festival and Napa's BottleRock in May.
As a “hired gun,” she's also toured with Jamaican reggae legend Ernest Ranglin, does recording session work and plays