Bass Player: Walter Becker Steely Dan started off as a band but, at some point early on in their career, songwriters Donald Fagan and Walter Becker recognised the value of ‘session musicians’ and started using an array of sidemen that reads like a who’s who of US session monsters: Chuck Rainey, Steve Gadd, Larry Carlton…

Bass Player: Jeff Berlin The title track of the 1979 Bruford album ‘One Of A Kind’ is a two part tune and this transcription in the first part only (roughly 2:20). Not too difficult as the chart is based around a lot of repeated lines so, once you have those internalised, the chart comes together…

Bass Player: Jeff Berlin From the 1979 album, ‘One Of A Kind’, this transcription features a performance by the legendary band Bruford. G’. Jeff Berlin is known for avoiding certain techniques that he feels are associated with significant players. He ‘never’ plays fretless because of the massive influence of his contemporary, Jaco Pastorius, and he…

Bass Player – Stephen Davidowski A little thing that was featured on the second Dixie Dregs album, ‘Freefall’, in 1977. There is no bass player on here. It is a synth bass (Stephen Davidowski?) but it is a fun little classical thing to play along with if you are just starting to learn to read.…

Bass Player: Anthony Jackson Chick Corea’s 1976 album, ‘The Leprechaun’, featured a stellar line up including, amongst others, bassists Eddie Gomez and Anthony Jackson, drummer Steve Gadd and saxophonist Joe Farrell. The tunes are all reflective of the compositional style that would form the basis of much of Corea’s work with the band Return To…

Bass Player: Andy West 42 years ago. That was when The Dixie Dregs released their 1978 album ‘What If’ which featured the legendary track ‘Take It From The Top’ used, in the UK, as the theme music to the BBC Radio One ‘Friday Rock Show’. The FRS was THE got to radio show for UK…

Bass Player – Eddie Gomez Chick Corea recorded his ‘Children’s Songs’ album for ECM in 1984. It was an album of 20 or so short solo piano pieces that he had worked on since 1971. The transcription featured here is ‘Children’s Song No, 15’ and the bass part is taken from the 1978 recording of…

Bass Player: Andy West Something a cult band, The Dixie Dregs/The Dregs (the band had a name change as their career progressed) featured a string of virtuoso musicians around the core of guitarist Steve Morse, drummer Rod Morgenstein and bass maestro, Andy West. West is not a name that is often heard nowadays and he…

Saxophone solo: Sonny Rollins Arguably one of the greatest tenor saxophonists of all time, Sonny Rollins has a number of tunes that are considered to be ‘Jazz sstandards’ incluyding ‘Tenor Madness’, ‘Alfie’, ‘Doxy’, ‘Pent Up House’ and a host of others. At the top of this list, however, is the faux-calypso ‘St. Thomas’. Plyed reasonably…

Bass Player: Colin Bass ‘Colin! What do you want to be when you grow up’? ‘A fish’! Well it didn’t turn out like that. The Camel concept album ‘Nude’, released in 1981, was built around the story of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier who, lost in the jungle, carried on fighting the Second World War…