Bass Player: Jeff Berlin

Another track from the much celebrated 1987 Kazumi Watanabe Trio recording ‘The Spice Of Life’. The band featured Watanabe alongside bassist Jeff Berlin and drummer Bill Bruford. What made these recordings so special was the fact that, at this point in his career, Bruford was using a cleverly designed Simmons drum kit which incorporated a range of percussive and chordal sounds which gave the music a very different texture to that which it woudl have had had he remained on an acoustic kit. As with a lot of music based around innovative technology, the albums have dated a little but the playing remains exceptional. Watanabe is arguably Japan’s leading guitar export and he has performed alongside some of the world’s finest bass players including Marcus Miller and Richard Bona.

The attached transcription is for the track ‘City’ and features the full performance including another ripping solo from Berlin. The video attached is the full album as there is no version of the individual track on YouTube or Spotify. The track can be found at the 9:07 mark on the video.