Thanks all for the listen and advice. Unfortunately I've seldom been able to get the guitarist to repeat much of anything I like and asking politely (yes I can actually do this...at times) gets me nowhere. He'd rather play cowboy, rock opera, and sitcom styles and repeats ditties in these styles most of the time. Such a shame as he can be so creative. The loop is used much of the time (but not on this one). When he uses the loop it's (unfortunately) so that he can play lead licks over the top, which just makes it muddier. I don't think it's ever occurred to him to then play a bass line after doing a loop. He has done this in reverse though and worked up a bass line as a loop of then puts the rest over the top, and "over the top" is usually the result. It's taken more than 10 years of playing together for him to start to get the notion that "less can be more" and that playing at a speed that's just beyond your capabilities isn't the best idea. 99% of the stuff we play together doesn't get played here as it's frankly an embarrassment. He's originally from Germany and grew up with Oom Pah bands and played in them (trumpet). This means he loves Mexican Mariachi music which he plays whenever possible plus those other stylistic atrocities.
I often wish that I could play the chord and rhythm parts, but just don't have the time in life and/or coordination and physical configuration to do this myself (left hand little finger is disfigured which is mostly OK for sax but makes guitar, piano etc. difficult).
I love the few gems that come from this guy and he's also a beautiful sprit to be around, but it's also very difficult as we are not well suited musically. I’m used to his styles, phrasing, and watch is hands continually in order to get clues as to what he’s up to, which is what makes it seem that we “mesh”. As embarrassing as it is I could record and post what we (normally) play at gigs and you'd get a better idea of what I'm talking about.