Bass Player: Geddy Lee The popular history of Rush tells us that their third album, ‘Caress Of Steel’ was not successful enough for the record company and that the follow up was some thing of a ‘s*** or bust’ affair. The band needed a successful album or they woudl lose their recording contract and have…

Trumpet solo: Miles Davis It has long been recommended that, as well as studying and exploring bass solos, bass players shoudl investigate the soloing of other instruments as a means of changing their perspective on phrasing and note choices. Jaco’s famous rendition of Charlie Parker/Miles Davis’s ‘Donna Lee’, Jeff Berlin’s version of Cannonball Adderley’s ‘Marabi’…

Bass Player: Dave Holland A rare appearance by doubel bass legend Dave Holland in electric bass. The 1996 Herbie Hncock album, ‘The New Standards’ featured Jazz the reframing of a number of contemporary Pop tunes into a Jazz format and included performances by Michael Breacker, Don Alias, Jack DeJohnette and John Scofield. Amongst the tunes…

Bass Player: Stanley Clarke Another partial transcription, this time the opening minute or so of the Return to Forever tune, ‘Dual Of The Jester And The Tyrant’ from the 1976 album, ‘Romantic Warrior’. Just one of those things that got transcribed as a means of findong out what was happening. Some nice parts to get…

Bass Player: Jeff Berlin A partial transcription of the tune ‘Period’ from the 1986 Kazumi Watanabe Trio recording ‘The Spice of Life’. The transcription is essentially the head and ends where the solos start. A choppy little read and the closing head is very simialar but the bass playing during the solos got a bit…

Bass Player: Robin Phillips Another track from the 2020 CD ‘Sia’ from UK Prog legends, Solstice, this track is called ‘Seven Dreams’. The transcription presents the challenge of reading in 7:4 and of thinking in a different way to the normal 4:4 and 3:4 that defines most popular music. There are some 3:4 bars in…

Bass Player: Jeff Berlin Another track from the much celebrated 1987 Kazumi Watanabe Trio recording ‘The Spice Of Life’. The band featured Watanabe alongside bassist Jeff Berlin and drummer Bill Bruford. What made these recordings so special was the fact that, at this point in his career, Bruford was using a cleverly designed Simmons drum…

Bass Player: Robin Phillips UK Prog Rock band Solstice have been producing music for nearly four decades and have recently released a new album called ‘Sia’. The attached transcription is of the opening tune on the album, ‘Shout’ and, like a lot of Prog, enjoys some interesting time changes. Sections of 7:8 occur intermittently and…

Bass Player: Will Lee Will Lee has, for decades, been one of the most prolific session players in the centre of the New York music scene, playing several sessions a day and appearing with the house band on major network TV shows like the David Letterman Show. His list of recording credits numbers in the…

Bass Player: Chris Squire Those of us of a certain age remember hearing the news that, following the departure of Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman from Yes, Chris Squire, Steve Howe and Alan White had teamed up with Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes from The Buggles. THE BUGGLES??!!! |There was outrage. There were fears that…