Anthony Jackson – Contrabasse Guitar One of those albums where the bass playing is stunning from the first note to the last. I first heard Michel Camilo on an album (yes, it was vinyl) called ‘French Toast’ which came out in 1984 and featured Anthony Jackson with both Dave Weckl and Steve Gadd but there…

Gary Willis – Bass I got hold of this album around the time that it was released. I had seen these guys talked about in guitar magazine and thought they sounded cool and I think I had heard Scott Henderson with either Jeff Berlin or Chick Corea. Anyway, the 1985 Tribal Tech album ‘Spears’ was…

Stanley Clarke – Bass This is a request from an email I got through the website – the track has a history. When Stanley Clarke and Jaco and a small number of other ‘superstar’ bassists started to appear on the scene, established bassist Charles Mingus was very scathing and suggested that, despite the chops, people…

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…