Bass Player: Jeff Berlin The tune is ‘Crossroads’ from the 1986 Jeff Berlin album ‘Pump It’. The piece is a straightforward blues with a couple ripping ‘guitar’ solos by JB. Lots of guitarist tricks so you will need to listen to this as you read it to get the feel of the phrasing etc. Our…

Trumpet Solo: Wynton Marsalis We have long believed that there is a lot to be said for transcribing solos from instruments other than bass. There are problems with doing this, however, as there are different techniques and tricks associated with other instruments that don’t translate particularly well to bass. Bilbo started this transcriptions and got…

Bass Player: Chris Squire A bit more Chris Squire – again made possible by the isolated bass tracks available on YouTube. Great songs, great arranging but seldom virtuoso playing, despite the reputation the band had during this time. ‘Long Distance Runaround’ from the Yes LP ‘Fragile’ (the first one with a Roger Dean cover).

Bass Player: Steve Berry This transcription is something a little bit ‘off the beaten track’. It is the bass part for a piece called ‘Cha Cha Con Meatus’ from the trio of bass player Steve Berry. Steve was the main bass player throughout the history of the band ‘Loose Tubes’ and his trio album features…

Bass Player: Chris Squire More Chris Squire. This track often gets a bad rap from Yes fans but we could never see what was wrong with it. It may be because it came when the Punk thing was fresh in people’s minds and may have sounded a bit naïve at the time. We find the…

Bass Player: Paul Chambers Some more Paul Chambers. This time, it’s his solo on ‘Almost Like Being In Love’ from Red Garland’s ‘Piano’ album. The solo starts at around 3:08 on the track. Watch the phrasing as PC is pushing and pulling the time all the way and this makes transcription very subtle and the…

Bass Player: Chris Squire Everybody’s favourite Chris Squire bassline from Roundabout from the Fragile LP. \Bilbo recommends that you isten to the record on this one because there are nuances in the picking that are hard to put down on paper. This is how he hears it so you may hear it differently. Transcription after…

Bass Player: Nobody First section of the cello part of Bach’s Double Violin Concerto transcribed and tweaked so it can be played on a bass (electric or double). Just an exercise but a wonderful example of Bach’s genius. We just noticed the last note is a low D so you will have to move that…

Bass Player: Jeff Berlin An odd little album that we always felt was less than the sum of its parts but the boss liked his track enough to want to transcribe it. This is the Jeff Berlin bass part for Unt from the Kazumi Watanabe album ‘The Spice Of Life’. Some nice lines in it…

Bass Player: Jeff Berlin Another Jeff Berlin/Bruford classic – This is the FULL transcription of the tune. Bilbo ‘learned’ this when he was starting to get into Jazz and Fusion bass players (he thinks he must have been about 19?). Again, he admits that could not get the detail at that point and never really…