Marc Johnson – Bass

I have been a fan of Marc Johnson since I bought his ‘Bass Desires’ album the year it came out in1986. It is still one of my favourite records and has been subjected to repeat listening for nearly 40 years but the bass parts have always been difficult to pick out as Johnson’s sound is one of those sounds you feel as much as hear. His is a sound I recognise straight away and. when I saw him live in a trio with pianist John Taylor and drummer Joey Baron, I was thrilled to hear that sound ‘in real life’ and it was EXACTLY as I would have hoped. I recall he did one of the best, most musical arco solos I have ever heard (most arco solos are scratchy nonsense – this one was absolutely the opposite).

This tune is from his 1997 album, ‘The Sound Of Summer Running’ which features the twin guitars of Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell. The tune is called ‘Dingy Dong Day’ and it brings a massive smile to my face every time I hear it. It starts off as a ‘Ventures’ type guitar tune but, during the third chorus, there are some really weird chord changes going on where the band slips the tune up and down semi-tones so that everything sounds wonderfully and creatively ‘wrong’. This, of course, creates problems for reading as well as, during that passage, normal logic goes out of the window. Great fun, though.