Dave Holland – Bass One of the frustrating things about playing the bass when I was a kid, and one of the things that motivated me to do these transcriptions, was the dearth of material available for bass players to try reading with. I remember getting some books; Yes, Genesis and Led Zeppelin but they…

Anthony Jackson – Contrabass Guitar I wrote this one out because I wanted to see what AJ was doing. The tune is an Ornette Coleman head and I had played it myself on gigs but this arrangement is slightly different so I wanted to know why – it’s subtle but it is in the phrasing…

Christopher Thomas – Bass One of the Marsalis stable, Chris Thomas has played with all of the brothers and the father, Lincoln Centre Jazz Orchestra, Harry Connick Jr., Terence Blanchard – all them New Orleans cats. I chose this tune because I wanted something easy for the starters. What I also realised when I was…

Anders Jormin – Double Bass Anders Bertil Michael Jormin (born 7 September 1957) is a Swedish bassist and composer. Jormin established a musical partnership with Bobo Stenson in the mid-1980s which led to international recognition playing with Charles Lloyd, in the early 1990s. In the late 1990s he also performed regularly with Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stańko. Jorman has played and…

Reginald Veal – Bass Brother Veal. Swingdoom. Nothing more needs to be said. To quote Wynton Marsalis himself, ‘Swing Is In The House’. The 1989 Marsalis album, ‘Crescent City Christmas Card’ my favourite Christmas album of all time. I listen to it often and love the arrangements that Marsalis has done to these evergreens. There…

Composer – John Williams With apologies to John Williams and to Itzhak Perlman, I have transcribed the melody for this piece and moved it around the octaves to make it potentially playable on the double bass. I have enough insight to know that it doesn’t work that well and there are a couple of Perlman…

Composer – Charles Mingus Another melody transcription (I am working on my arco playing and wanted some stuff to look at that wasn’t those dreadfully twee exercises that you get in bass study books (it’s enough to put anyone off for life). This one came immediately to mind. For those who don’t know the tune,…

Paul Chambers – Bass I haven’t posted anything from my man for a long while and just though that this deserved a look. The tune ‘Blue In Green’ is often credited to Miles Davis but the Jazz cognoscenti are generally of one mind in believing that it was a Bill Evans composition as it sounds…

Steve Harris – Bass I can’t believe I have got this far without any Steve Harris! I was around to see the inception of Iron Maiden and was, in my own small way, a part of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal which, arguably, Maiden fronted. The first time I actually saw the band…

Jorge Roeder – Bass Another tune from Roeder’s solo bass album, ‘El Suelo Mio’ (Google translates this as ‘my floor’), this is a drone piece called ‘Bounce’. The whole thing revolves around a D drone and I think Roeder has detuned his low E string to a D in order to pull it off (I…