Jeff Berlin – Bass In the late 1980s, Kazumi Watanabe recorded two albums with the Bruford rhythm section, Jeff Berlin and Bill Bruford himself on a Simmonds kit that had been programmes to play all sorts of chords and synthesised effects as well as conventional drum sounds. The results were mixed and some of the…

Lincoln Goines – Bass A mainstay of the New York City jazz/Latin/studio scene since the early 1980s, Goines’ career includes performance credits as sideman to Sonny Rollins, Paquito D’Rivera, Michel Camilo, Mike Stern and Carly Simon. He is also an educator and author, having written “Funkifying The Clave: Afro-Cuban Grooves for Bass and Drums” with drummer…

Ricardo Lugo – Bass I picked up this album because Paoli Mejias plays percussion on a lot of Miguel Zenon’s stuff which IO adore and Zenon is on the Mejias recordings. I have been wanting to capture some of these furious Latin grooves that Zenon et al perform for a while but they are so…

Al Di Meola – Guitar I am trying to develop by guitar reading and transcribing chops and have been looking at some solo guitar pieces that I find interesting and potentially playable. The Al Di Meola Beatles Tribute album, ‘All Your Life: a tribute to The Beatles, as several pieces that are for solo guitar…

Mick Karn – Bass Andonis Michaelides (Greek: Αντώνης Μιχαηλίδης; 24 July 1958 – 4 January 2011), better known as Mick Karn, was a British musician who rose to fame as the bassist for the Art Rock/New Wave band Japan. His distinctive fretless bass guitar sound sound and melodic playing style were a trademark of the band’s sound. The…

Charlie Haden – Bass Charles Edward Haden (August 6, 1937 – July 11, 2014) was an American bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than fifty years. Haden helped to revolutionize the harmonic concept of bass playing in jazz, evolving a style that sometimes complemented the soloist, and other times moved independently, liberating bassists…

Ron Carter – Bass Ron Carter is probably one of the most recorded double bass players in the history of Jazz. The man who took over the chair in the Miles Davis Quartet after Paul Chambers left the band also went to school with Chambers but he told me himself that he didn’t have much…

Robin Phillips – Bass This one is incredibly easy to play although the reading is complicated slightly by the 5:4 time signature. The notes are all roots, no fills and no frills, and I believe there are only five of them on there whole chart, maybe six. It’s a pretty song nevertheless and a worthy…

Robin Phillips – Bass Another piece from the 2023 Solstice album, ‘Light Up’. This tune has some great lines in it and the whole composition hangs together beautifully with riffs crossing bars, odd bar lengths etc. Classic British Neo-Prog. The inscrutably entitled ‘Wongle No.9’.

Robin Phillips – Bass Robin is the son of Margaret Phillips, who played piano on Solstice’s first album, Silent Dance (1984) and occasionally joined the band onstage at the Marquee. He grew up surrounded by music and so it was destiny that he should join Clive Bunker to form the Solstice rhythm section that gigged…