Richard Bona – Bass

I remember reading about Richard Bona when he first appeared and was captured by the headline ‘the African Jaco’. ‘Got to be worth a look’, I thought. I got hold of his ‘Celebration’ CD which is great and has some great playing on it but, apart from some great grooves, was not entirely convinced. I actually went to see him in London (I think it was at the ‘Pizza Express’ – I remember him asking for the audience to sing and, being British, everyone was muttering into their beers. One of the guys with us, Julian Bown (a ‘tidy’ drummer – he has recorded with Nik Kershaw – I think David Horniblow was there also, clarinet player who went on to work with Chris Barber, Acker Bilk, Kenny Ball, Jools Holland and Jamie Cullum) whispered ‘scream’ and, when Bona offered the inevitable ‘I can’t hear you’ we yelled whatever he was asking us to say at the top of our voices – it scared the s*** out of him. Anyway, that aside, I have come to see Bona as much more than a Jaco clone and find his improvisations absolutely fabulous. This track, however, is not one of Bona’s shred-fests but one of those that I love to put up here because almost everyone who knows what the note names are can read it. It shows that reading does not begin with ‘Flight of The Bumble bee’ but can include great and beautiful music right from the beginning. Campdown Races is all well and good when you are 5 years old but most people come to the bass when they are a little older and want to see the potential benefits of reading to them right from the off.

This is Bona’s very simple bass part from the track ‘If Only’ off the 2004 Mike Stern CD, ‘These Times’. An absolutely easy read. It’s his voice that makes the track as much as anything.