Jimmy Haslip – Bass

I recall listening to this track when the album was released but I was reminded of it when someone asked for a transcription on one of the Facebook Groups I belong to. It is a straight swing tune in bass terms but there is a lot of ‘outside’ playing in the melody, something we heard a lot of during this era. The line is pretty straightforward and the only issue is that the early part of the bass line is a synth so there are some nuances that I had to ‘approximate’ as they were clearly trying to get the synth bass to sound like a real bass by approximating the details of a walking line on a ‘real’ bass (isn’t this what AI is doing now?)

The tune is called ‘Out Of Town’ and is the opening track on the 1987 Yellowjackets album, ‘Four Corners’. The bass is clearly shared between Russell Ferrante and Haslip, the original Yellowjackets bass player from way back.