Bass Player: No-one – it’s unplayable This piece is unquestionably the hardest piece of music I have ever tried (and failed) to perform. It is a solo bass piece written, ironically, by a Welsh pianist (and my first theory teacher) Joe Stuessy (from a small village called Nanty Fychlan, north of Cardiff). Joe was an…

Bass Player: John Giblin While best known as a London studio musician, recording film scores and contemporary music, Giblin has also performed live, and recorded with Peter Gabriel, John Martyn, Elkie Brooks, Annie Lennox, Phil Collins, pop-rock group Simple Minds and has been closely associated with artists, ranging from Kate Bush, David Sylvian, and Jon Anderson…

Bass Player: Jeff Andrews A highly underrated player, Jeff Andrews has performed with many of the greatest Jazz, Jazz-Rock and Fusion artists of his generation including Mike Stern, Michael Brecker and Steve Smith’s Vital Information. His soloing is comparable to many of the greatest legends of the instrument but his groove playing is second to…

Bass Player: Jimmy Woode Born in Philapdelphia on September 23rd, 1926, James Bryant Woode pril 23, 2005) was an American jazz bassist. He played and/or recorded in bands with Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins, Sidney Bechet, Billie Holiday and Miles Davis amongst a host of others. Now THAT is what you…

Bass Player: Mike Oldfield Having presented the bass part for Tubular Bells Part One, it was inevitable that we would have to complete the transcription for Part Two. A much trickier bass line, especially underneath Oldfield’s marvellous Piltdown Man sequence. Essentially pentatonic in nature, the lines are subtley changing throughout the sequence and will catch…

Bass Player: Mike Oldfield ‘Tubular Bells’ was the debut studio album by English mult-instrumentalist, Mike Oldfield. Released on 25th May, 1973, it was the first album on the Virgin Records label. Oldfield, who was 19 years old when it was recorded, played almost all the instruments on the mostly instrumental album including the bass guitar.…

Bass Player: Nick Beggs Form the 2013 Steven WIlson album, The Raven That Refused To Sing (and Other Stories), this is the Nik Beggs bass part for the tune ‘Luminol’. “Luminol” was first performed by Wilson and his band on the last show of the first half of his Grace for Drowning tour. The song takes its…

Bass Player: Stanley Clarke A request from Talkbass relating to the earlier transcription of the opening minute or so of the same tune, ‘Duel Of The Jester And The Tyrant’ from the Return To Forever album, ‘Romantic Warrior’. This is the slinky riff between 6:48 and 7:12. It is only a 16 bar sequence so…

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 would 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’…