A Low Note
May. 4th, 2008 11:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellyssianYes, I post next to nothing for a whole week, and then, after a couple of posts I revert to videos.
The theme of the day is Bass Players Who Inspire Me. Or Bass Players Who Rule The World. Or something like that.
Up first we have Stu Hamm - a big inspiration for me when I first heard him with Satriani and Vai.
I had the pleasure of seeing him in LA - not just on the stage, where he played alongside the aforementioned guitarists, but up close and personal at the Fender booth. Had a chance to talk to him while he goofed off and played something familiar, especially to those who might have kept an eye out for the Great Pumpkin or sang around a scrawny tree.
Although I never met him, Jaco had a huge impact on me, beyond his music, perhaps most notably when class at Berklee was interrupted to announce that he had just died. I believe the teachers, many of whom had known him personally, were so shaken the school shut down. His tune Portrait of Tracy showed the world just what a bass might be capable of. That, and the whole ripping frets out to create fretless electric basses thing.
You also need to take a look-and-listen to his performance with Weather Report in Birdland. And at a solo from a performance with Joni Mitchell (who, seeing as it is a *solo*, doesn't actually appear here. Pay particular attention to his invocation of Jimi Hendrix via some delays and other effects. For a different sound, check out his big band phase. That's Jaco as the band leader, and that's also the horn section to die for, pretty much. If there's a jazz horn player who is somebody and who is not in that crowd, they probably died before or were born after the performance. Seriously,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
noone234 - I already gave aequitaslevitas notice that I expect the two of you to sound like that. Note the sax solo. Note for note. Of course, the steel drum work also brings to light the fact that we're still short one, if not three or more, percussionists...
Before we move on from Jaco, take a quick look at Teen Town, with Weather Report here. Now keep that in mind, as well as the solo on the Joni Mitchell tour, and then take a look at Michael Manring's solo performance of Teen Town:
Michael Manring was featured on a number of performances by Michael Hedges, although I'd swear the first Michael used to perform his bass-and-loops bit in the Red Line station in Harvard Square...
Anyway, from cover to cover, next up is Victor Wooten doing the Beatles tune Norwegian Wood:
Furthering the subject of cover tunes, and stepping away from the bass players in the spotlight, I mentioned (and transcribed) a bit of Vernon Reid & Masque's Flatbush and Church Revisited... well, I couldn't find that tune on the Tube, but I did find a cover of Depeche Mode's Enjoy the Silence here. To be fair, it's more audio than video, as the image is fairly static. To get back on theme, listen to the bass playing come to the forefront about 3 minutes in. Beautiful work there.
We'll end on another bass player that I saw at the same show out in LA where I met Stu Hamm. Like Stu, Billy Sheehan also played with Steve Vai (on David Lee Roth's Eat 'em and Smile and Skyscraper album). Unfortunately, out in LA I only saw Billy at a distance across the expo center hall. Here's a more recent solo performance - unlike that time in LA, his easily recognizable wild hair is somewhat tamed here... the music, on the other hand...
The theme of the day is Bass Players Who Inspire Me. Or Bass Players Who Rule The World. Or something like that.
Up first we have Stu Hamm - a big inspiration for me when I first heard him with Satriani and Vai.
I had the pleasure of seeing him in LA - not just on the stage, where he played alongside the aforementioned guitarists, but up close and personal at the Fender booth. Had a chance to talk to him while he goofed off and played something familiar, especially to those who might have kept an eye out for the Great Pumpkin or sang around a scrawny tree.
Although I never met him, Jaco had a huge impact on me, beyond his music, perhaps most notably when class at Berklee was interrupted to announce that he had just died. I believe the teachers, many of whom had known him personally, were so shaken the school shut down. His tune Portrait of Tracy showed the world just what a bass might be capable of. That, and the whole ripping frets out to create fretless electric basses thing.
You also need to take a look-and-listen to his performance with Weather Report in Birdland. And at a solo from a performance with Joni Mitchell (who, seeing as it is a *solo*, doesn't actually appear here. Pay particular attention to his invocation of Jimi Hendrix via some delays and other effects. For a different sound, check out his big band phase. That's Jaco as the band leader, and that's also the horn section to die for, pretty much. If there's a jazz horn player who is somebody and who is not in that crowd, they probably died before or were born after the performance. Seriously,
noone234 - I already gave aequitaslevitas notice that I expect the two of you to sound like that. Note the sax solo. Note for note. Of course, the steel drum work also brings to light the fact that we're still short one, if not three or more, percussionists...Before we move on from Jaco, take a quick look at Teen Town, with Weather Report here. Now keep that in mind, as well as the solo on the Joni Mitchell tour, and then take a look at Michael Manring's solo performance of Teen Town:
Michael Manring was featured on a number of performances by Michael Hedges, although I'd swear the first Michael used to perform his bass-and-loops bit in the Red Line station in Harvard Square...
Anyway, from cover to cover, next up is Victor Wooten doing the Beatles tune Norwegian Wood:
Furthering the subject of cover tunes, and stepping away from the bass players in the spotlight, I mentioned (and transcribed) a bit of Vernon Reid & Masque's Flatbush and Church Revisited... well, I couldn't find that tune on the Tube, but I did find a cover of Depeche Mode's Enjoy the Silence here. To be fair, it's more audio than video, as the image is fairly static. To get back on theme, listen to the bass playing come to the forefront about 3 minutes in. Beautiful work there.
We'll end on another bass player that I saw at the same show out in LA where I met Stu Hamm. Like Stu, Billy Sheehan also played with Steve Vai (on David Lee Roth's Eat 'em and Smile and Skyscraper album). Unfortunately, out in LA I only saw Billy at a distance across the expo center hall. Here's a more recent solo performance - unlike that time in LA, his easily recognizable wild hair is somewhat tamed here... the music, on the other hand...
