Gary Willis – Bass

With a career spanning more than 50 years, Gary Willis has released 5 solo CD’s, 10 as co-leader of Tribal Tech and has been a part of a multitude of other projects including playing alongside Wayne Shorter, Allan Holdsworth, Hubert Laws and many others. His own works include legends Dennis Chambers, Steve Tavaglione, Bob Berg, Gergo Borlai, Kirk Covington and Scott Kinsey.

The first two Tribal Tech albums, ‘Spears’ and ‘Dr. Hee’ were really important for me. I came to Weather Report long after their hey day but Tribal Tech were happening when I was getting into the whole Fusion thing. I had heard Scott Henderson on the Jeff Berlin ‘Champtions’ album but when I hear Willis with Tribal Tech, I was blown away by his approach and, having got hold of his bass DVD, found some of his concepts useful in my own electric fretless playing.

This transcription is the tune ‘Salsa Lastra’ from the 1987 ‘Dr. Hee’ album. It’s not massively hard but, at tempo, its got some rocks in the road. There is one short passage that I am not sure about (bars 131 and 132) but, otherwise, it’s pretty much there. Just great Latin bass with that Willis touch.