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…

Bass Player: Anthony Jackson From the 1976 album ‘Land Of The Midnight Sun’ the transcription features the Anthony Jackson lines that underpin the opening track ‘The Wizard’. Bilbo tells us that this was the first fusion album he ever bought having been intrigued by the rhetoric around DiMeola’s playing in the guitar magazines he was…

Bass Players: Dave Myles/Geddy Lee A bit of a Heath Robinson job this one as the distortion on both basses and the guitars make it almost impossible to work out what is bass, what is guitar and which bass player is playing which part. A request from a Talkbass forum member, this is the mash…

Bass Player: Dick Nolan Another tune from the It Bites album ‘Big Lad In The WIndmill’. This is the tune ‘All In Red’. Some great riffs and some interesting reading challenges.

Bass Player: Dick Nolan Another strong bass performance from Dick Nolan of Prog legends ‘It Bites’. The tune is the opener from the 1986 album ‘Big Lad In The Windmill’ and is called ‘I’ve Got You Eating Out Of My Hand’. Some great accapella vocals too!

Bass Player: Sara Lee The B52s always seemed to us to be Talking Heads with with a sense of humour. The tune ‘Love Shack’ is undoubtedly their signature tune and is a guaranteed floor filler at gigs and discos alike. What is less widely acknowledged is how important Sara Lee’s bass line is in the…