Bass Player: Anthony Jackson

Another monster performance from the King of the Big Six, Anthony Jackson. Not only is Jackson one of the most accomplished and influential six-string bass players, he was enormously important figure in the development of the modern six string bass, or as he calls it ‘contrabass guitar’. Jackson reportedly said;

‘Why is four [strings] the standard and not six? As the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family, the instrument should have had six strings from the beginning. The only reason it had four was because Leo Fender was thinking in application terms of an upright bass, but he built it along guitar lines because that was his training. The logical conception for the bass guitar encompasses six strings‘ Jackson has a massive CV that includes some of the greatest musicians and artists of the late 20th and early 21st Centuries including Steely Dan, Al DiMeola, Lee Ritenour, Michel Camilo, Steve Khan, Hiromi Uehara, Mike Stern, Buddy Rich, Dave Grusin and a whole lot more. His precision and creativity are legendary as this transcription atests. This is the bass part to the tune ‘Alien Chase on Arabian Desert’ from the 1980 Al DiMeola album ‘Splendido Hotel’. Some really tricky passages in there but worth the time to naiil them. Watch the changes from 4:4 to 6:8 and back again; the pulse is consistent but it plays tricks with your ears and eyes.