Bilbo

A stunning performance from Dave Holland on his composition 'The Empty Chair (For Clare)', a dedication to his wife who had recently passed away. Some deep guitar work from Kevin Eubanks who is such an idiosyncratic player. The tune is from Holland's 2013 'Prism' album. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/the-empty-chair-for-clare-dave-holland/

I agree. There is something about the bass where it sometimes works really well when you can't hear it as much as 'sense' it.

Nice one, Chris. I will avoid both for now, then. I have plenty of ideas for more obscure transcriptions to be getting on with!

Something from Jimmy Haslip today. This is his complete bass performance on the tune 'Homecoming' from the 1985 Yellowjackets album, 'Samurai Samba'. I chose it because it is mostly an easy read but there are some tricky fills in there so be warned! https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/homecoming-yellowjackets/

Should be working now, Dave.

Sorry, Dave. Am at the Chinese waiting for my order 😎 Will have a look later.

Another Kazumi Watanabe/Jeff Berlin tune, this is The User from the 2013 album 'Spinning Globe'. Some interesting ideas in here but no solos per se so we are in with a chance. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/the-user-kazumi-watanabe/

An industry that exploits it's workers and then discards them without a second thought? Nah. It'll never happen.

Something I haven't tried before, this is the Matt Brewer bass part for the tune 'How Insensitive' from the 2018 SFJAZZ Collective album, 'Plays the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim'. If you don't know these guys, they perform every year at the SFJAZZ Festival and perform the music of a celebrated Jazz legend (Coltrane, Monk, etc) heavily rearranged by the musicians themselves. They have done Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson material too and some of their stuff is absolutely incredible so go and check it out. This transcription is not too difficult as the tempo is very forgiving but there are a couple of tricky moments. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/how-insensitive-sf-jazz-collective/

That's a lot of detail, Pete. You and your colleagues must have spent a lot of time looking at the issue. I guess if the original band couldn't reproduce the thing live, the rest of us haven't got a chance.

Yes, lots of reversed studio effects etc. I guess you could do a version but it wouldn't sound like the original

A bit of light relief, this is the John Paul Jones bass part for the tune 'When The Levee Breaks' from the untitled album known to us all as Led Zeppelin IV (1971). Great stuff and very easy to play (note: I think a lot of it is on an 8-string so there are ambiguities in terms of specific details but this chart will get you through it if you every have to dep for JPJ at short notice). https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/when-the-levee-breaks-led-zeppelin/

58 Jeff Berlin transcriptions up there now. I once learned Dixie but didn't write it down, sadly. I struggle with the chordal stuff, both hearing it and in writing it down. I love that Beethoven improvisation he does on line but am more than a little intimidated by it.

It's been a while but here is some more Jeff Berlin. This time, it is the complete bass part for the tune 'Fu Bu Ki' from the 1988 Kazumi Watanabe album, 'Spice Of Life Too'. It's mostly alternating bars of 9:8 and 5:4 so 'break a leg'! https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/fu-bu-ki-kazumi-watanabe/

Easy to transcribe, not so easy to read. Funk in 11:8, this is the Percy Jones bass part for 'Princess And The Frog' from the 1976 Nova album, 'Vimana'. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/princess-and-the-frog-nova/

This one is a slippery little sucker and I am not convinced about bars 118-121. This is the Gary Willis bass part for the tune 'Ivy Towers' from the 1985 Tribal tech album, 'Spears'. Don't you wish you could write stuff like this? An interesting point, though. I was in awe of Willis at that point in my life but I can play this now. It is a through written piece - no solos. Fascinating ideas across the piece, though. It is a tough read but brilliant fun once you can get under the thing. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/ivy-towers-tribal-tech/

A head only bass part, this is the Robert Hurst part to the head of 'A Foggy Day (in London Town)'. the Wynton Marsalis tune I posted a couple of weeks ago. I tried to do the whole line but was defeated by the technology. One of the problems with Sibelius software that I cannot seem to get around is that it will not allow you to write a triplet across a bar line. This is rarely an issue but it becomes problematic when a player plays 3 against 4 across a bar line or, in this case, 4 against 3 across a bar line. I have managed this in the past by changing one bar to 5:4 and the next to 3:4 but, in this case, during the trumpet solo, Hurst is doing something I have never heard before in all my years; playing 4 against 3 whilst the rest of the band continues playing in 4. In short, Sibelius says he can’t do that! Well, get this, he did. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/a-foggy-day-in-london-town-wynton-marsalis/

Something a little lighter today but beautiful nevertheless. Mike Rutherford's bass part for the tune 'Many Too Many' from the 1978 Genesis album, 'And Then There Were Three'. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/many-too-many-genesis/

552 hits yesterday. 119 today. The averages are up though.

The last of the Patitucci/Grusin charts, this is the tune 'Something's Coming' from the 1997 Grusin recording 'West Side Story'. That was a heavy couple of days but I really enjoy this recording and playing these parts gives me such a buzz. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/somethings-coming-dave-grusin/

'The Jet Song' from that same recording. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/the-jet-song-dave-grusin/

I loved that track. The octave divider was THE Pino sound of that era. Pino comes from Cardiff where I started my Jazz playing but I am pretty sure he had already left when I started playing there. I ate at his family's restaurant once but never met or saw him play. Laurence Cottle and Percy Jones were fairly local to there also (Swansea and Llandrindod Wells, I believe).

61. I struggle to find people interested and able to play the kinds of music I love but, even so, I love the gigs, large or small. I don't see the point of playing without performing live with other people. I know musicians who never gig. Doesn't make sense to me at all. There is the social aspect of the playing that is welcome part of it but, mostly, I just want to play music as much as I can. Money is not really a consideration. The music is what matters

Nothing much else to do at the moment, my friend. Here is the complete bass part for 'Somewhere' from that Grusin album. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/somewhere-dave-grusin/

Bloody hell. Over 500 views today.