Jaco Pastorius – Bass Last week it was Uncle and Nephew, this week it is Father and Son. Someone on one of the Facebook forums asked for a transcription of ‘Young and Fine’. I had a quick dig around on the other transcription websites and was surprised that none of the usual suspects had done…

Felix Pastorius – Bass Another Bob Mintzer tune, this one from the Yellowjackets album, ‘A Rise In The Road’ from 2013. It’s essentially a straightforward swing groove but the harmony is shifting chorus to chorus so you need to concentrate. The riff at the start is repeated later on but then there is a change…

Dave Holland – Bass I did the small group version of this Dave Holland tune many moons ago but I love this big band version from the 2002 ‘What Goes Around’ album. Each version has it’s own qualities but this one has the benefit of being longer so you can stay in the zone for…

Luizão Maia – Bass I gravitated to this tune following the ‘A Paz’ transcription featuring Arthur Maia because this tune was another that I regularly performed with a Brazilian music slanted band I was in called Braziliance! It wasn’t until I looked up the players that I became aware that the bass player on the…

Arthur Maia – Bass The Pino Palladino of Brazilian Pop, Arthur Maia played with everyone of any note in Brazilian music but was a regular feature in the bands of Gilberto Gil, the composer of this track. The chart is very simple although there are some moments that evidence that there is more going on…

Jimmy Johnson – Bass One of the greatest guitar/bass/drums trios that I have every heard, the Wayne Johnson Trio featured a true innovator in Jimmy Johnson who played a 5-string Alembic long before 5-string became the standard for players the world over. It wasn’t just the low B that made him an interesting player, though.…

John Illsley – Bass John Illsley played bass for Dire Straits. That’s pretty much it. Proper solid player, I love that Dire Straits were a bunch of mates from school who thought they would form a band. did so and the rest is history. That’s proper legend. I actually heard this track on a compilation…

Dave Holland – Bass One of the frustrating things about playing the bass when I was a kid, and one of the things that motivated me to do these transcriptions, was the dearth of material available for bass players to try reading with. I remember getting some books; Yes, Genesis and Led Zeppelin but they…

Anthony Jackson – Contrabass Guitar I wrote this one out because I wanted to see what AJ was doing. The tune is an Ornette Coleman head and I had played it myself on gigs but this arrangement is slightly different so I wanted to know why – it’s subtle but it is in the phrasing…

Christopher Thomas – Bass One of the Marsalis stable, Chris Thomas has played with all of the brothers and the father, Lincoln Centre Jazz Orchestra, Harry Connick Jr., Terence Blanchard – all them New Orleans cats. I chose this tune because I wanted something easy for the starters. What I also realised when I was…