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Sport 32: Summer 2004
Fima
Fima
Bass players are really warm, mellow, nothing's really a problem—That's what a good bass player will sound like—warm, mellow, just right there, just keeping everything steady… Fima can whip up a major storm.
Fima seems the antithesis of the stereotypical Jewish New Yorker: he's mild-mannered, unassuming, soft-spoken when he speaks at all. He blinks myopic blue eyes behind glasses. He's the antithesis of the preconception of a very successful musician, too: he travels with his wife and two children, the youngest a baby of only a few months. When he and Jonathan greet each other at the airport (‘Hey, man. You made it’) they clasp their right hands at chest height, and then put their left arms around each other: this means Jonathan also ends up with his arm around the bass guitar. He pats the case affectionately, in lieu of Fima's back: and indeed the instrument does seem part of Fima's body, an unusually melodic detachable limb.
His calm is reflected in the way the other musicians speak of him: their faces smooth out as their eyes slide up and to the right, imagining Fima playing; their voices drop. When he plays, he seems barely to move, the way a very, very talented rider seems barely to move while the horse beneath them performs flawlessly.
Fima sits before Lake Taupo and speaks softly of music, musicians, page 127 composing, his career. Does he have war stories? Fima thinks about this for a moment. ‘Well,’ he answers mildly, ‘I have done yoga with Sting.’