John Patitucci – Bass And the ‘West Side Story’ project continues. This is another Patitucci part, this one for the tune ‘Maria’ from Grusin’s 1997 masterpiece. Relatively easy to read but there are some tempo changes that are very subtle in terms of their impact on the groove so you need to keep your ears…

John Patitucci – Bass This is an exquisite rendering of the tune ‘Tonight’ from the Leonard Bernstein musical ‘West Side Story’. There are two things I love about this version of the song and that is the phrasing of Gloria Estafan’s vocal and the phrasing of John Patitucci’s bass. The tempo means that this tune…

John Patitucci – Bass Another contribution to the intended ‘complete album’ collection of John Patitucci bass parts to the 1997 Dave Grusin spectacular ‘West Side Story’, the tune ‘I Feel Pretty’ is essentially a feature for flautist Dave Valentin. The performance opens and closes with a duet between Valentin and pianist Grusin, with around 90…

John Patitucci – Bass What a player, what a band and what an arrangement. The Dave Grusin ‘West Side Story’ album has never been far away from my cd player since I got hold of my first copy when it came out in 1997. The whole album is a masterpiece of big band arranging but…

Hans Glawischnig – Electric Bass Acoustic/ electric bassist and composer Hans Glawischnig grew up in Graz, Austria. His father, a pianist, leader of the free jazz group, The Neighbors, educator, and longtime chief conductor of the NDR big band in Hamburg, Germany, encouraged Hans to pursue a career in music. His American mother, having studied Art…

Will Lee – Bass The hardest working bassist in the business, at least he was at one time. Not so sure nowadays as I am a little bit out of the loop. These Bob Mintzer charts are great because there is a clarity about the bass parts that makes transcribing them relatively easy and the…

John Mole – Bass Whatever happened to…. A member of Jon Hiseman’s Colosseum II, he went on to work with fellow band members Gary Moore and Don Airey. He also played with the UK jazz-funk band Morrissey-Mullen during the late 1970s, and as a session musician, with artists such as Barbra Streisand  and John Dankworth. He was…

Steve Rodby – Bass Another Steve Rodby bass part – as always, he plays all the right notes in the the right order exactly as the piece requires. Minimal extraneous detail but there is some stuff in there that requires concentration. A nice chart to read as it is interesting enough to challenge you without…

Wynton Marsalis – Trumpet Any Jazz musician, particularly Jazz bass players, will stress the importance of listening to and transcribing solos by the great players but also those who do not play the bass. There are loads of examples on-line of bass players playing their take on saxophone solos, piano solos etc (Jeff Berlin’s ‘Marabi’…

Steve Swallow – Bass A personal hero of mine, Steve Swallow is one of those musicians who does everything wrong and ends up being so utterly original and profoundly musical. He plays a five string with a high C (wrong), he plays Jazz on an electric bass (wrong) and plays Jazz with a pick (wrong).…