Reginald Veal – Bass Brother Veal. Swingdoom. Nothing more needs to be said. To quote Wynton Marsalis himself, ‘Swing Is In The House’. The 1989 Marsalis album, ‘Crescent City Christmas Card’ my favourite Christmas album of all time. I listen to it often and love the arrangements that Marsalis has done to these evergreens. There…

Composer – John Williams With apologies to John Williams and to Itzhak Perlman, I have transcribed the melody for this piece and moved it around the octaves to make it potentially playable on the double bass. I have enough insight to know that it doesn’t work that well and there are a couple of Perlman…

Composer – Charles Mingus Another melody transcription (I am working on my arco playing and wanted some stuff to look at that wasn’t those dreadfully twee exercises that you get in bass study books (it’s enough to put anyone off for life). This one came immediately to mind. For those who don’t know the tune,…

Paul Chambers – Bass I haven’t posted anything from my man for a long while and just though that this deserved a look. The tune ‘Blue In Green’ is often credited to Miles Davis but the Jazz cognoscenti are generally of one mind in believing that it was a Bill Evans composition as it sounds…

Steve Harris – Bass I can’t believe I have got this far without any Steve Harris! I was around to see the inception of Iron Maiden and was, in my own small way, a part of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal which, arguably, Maiden fronted. The first time I actually saw the band…

Jorge Roeder – Bass Another tune from Roeder’s solo bass album, ‘El Suelo Mio’ (Google translates this as ‘my floor’), this is a drone piece called ‘Bounce’. The whole thing revolves around a D drone and I think Roeder has detuned his low E string to a D in order to pull it off (I…

Dave Holland – Bass One of the most remarkable thing about the great players (on all instruments) is how many of them continually reinvent themselves throughout their decades long careers. Everyone knows about the Miles Davis legends around the BeBop – Classic Quintets – Electric Miles sequence that suggested Miles was the progenitor of everything…

Unknown Session Guy (or Girl) – Bass Another one I heard on a one – off gig I did with Essex singer, Helen Abbey, one that I had not heard until I was in my late 50s. It’s an obscure Lennon and McCartney tune that the dynamic due wrote for Cilla Black in the 1960s.…

Bob Lang – Bass Yes, I know this has also been credited to at least three other bass players including John Paul Jones but, after 45 seconds of extensive research, I came to the conclusion that it was Lang. Please don’t fill my inbox with ‘no, it was….’ messages as I don’t really care. I…

Will Lee – Bass Another of the ever-striking Bob Mintzer Big Band charts, this one featuring the Will Lee bass part to ‘Truth Spoken Here’ from the 2015 live album, ‘Get Up’. This is an interesting chart and it does that simple thing that all the great players do which is to hold down a…