Bass Player – Stephen Davidowski A little thing that was featured on the second Dixie Dregs album, ‘Freefall’, in 1977. There is no bass player on here. It is a synth bass (Stephen Davidowski?) but it is a fun little classical thing to play along with if you are just starting to learn to read.…

Bass Player: Anthony Jackson Chick Corea’s 1976 album, ‘The Leprechaun’, featured a stellar line up including, amongst others, bassists Eddie Gomez and Anthony Jackson, drummer Steve Gadd and saxophonist Joe Farrell. The tunes are all reflective of the compositional style that would form the basis of much of Corea’s work with the band Return To…

Bass Player: Andy West 42 years ago. That was when The Dixie Dregs released their 1978 album ‘What If’ which featured the legendary track ‘Take It From The Top’ used, in the UK, as the theme music to the BBC Radio One ‘Friday Rock Show’. The FRS was THE got to radio show for UK…

Bass Player – Eddie Gomez Chick Corea recorded his ‘Children’s Songs’ album for ECM in 1984. It was an album of 20 or so short solo piano pieces that he had worked on since 1971. The transcription featured here is ‘Children’s Song No, 15’ and the bass part is taken from the 1978 recording of…

Bass Player: Andy West Something a cult band, The Dixie Dregs/The Dregs (the band had a name change as their career progressed) featured a string of virtuoso musicians around the core of guitarist Steve Morse, drummer Rod Morgenstein and bass maestro, Andy West. West is not a name that is often heard nowadays and he…

Saxophone solo: Sonny Rollins Arguably one of the greatest tenor saxophonists of all time, Sonny Rollins has a number of tunes that are considered to be ‘Jazz sstandards’ incluyding ‘Tenor Madness’, ‘Alfie’, ‘Doxy’, ‘Pent Up House’ and a host of others. At the top of this list, however, is the faux-calypso ‘St. Thomas’. Plyed reasonably…

Bass Player: Colin Bass ‘Colin! What do you want to be when you grow up’? ‘A fish’! Well it didn’t turn out like that. The Camel concept album ‘Nude’, released in 1981, was built around the story of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier who, lost in the jungle, carried on fighting the Second World War…

Bass Player: Phil Lynott Gary Moore was something of an enigma as a guitar player and his first solo LP ‘Back On The Streets’ reflected his eclecticism by featuring Hard Rock (Fanatical Fascists and the title track), Fusion a la Coloseum II (What Would You Rather Be Or A Wasp and Hurricane), exquisite ballad playing…

Bass Player: Anthony Jackson Another full transcription of an Anthony Jackson performance from the 1976 Al DiMeola album ‘Land Of The Midnight Sun’. This is the title track from the album and features some of AJ’s early Latin playing, before he had worked with Michel Camilo and Horacio Hernandez and built his Latin chops to…

Bass Player: Stanley Clarke Another simple tune from the 1976 Al DiMeola album, ‘Land Of The Midnight Sun’, this is the bass part for the tune ‘Love Theme from ‘Pictures Of The Sea’. A simple two bar repeating line with intermittent asides, it is a relatively easy read and quick to master. Clarke pops some…