Bilbo

Just had an amp repairs by Paul Glazebrook in Ipswich. Took it there at 6pm last night ands it's all fixed and ready to collect. By lunchtime today. The man is a God.

Something really special this evening.... https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/prepare-to-be-finger-funked-danny-sapko/

It's only really 12 bars long repeating with a few fills. You'll get it in no time.

Should be working now, Dave.

A bit more AJ, this is the complete bass performance of the title tune 'One More Once' from the 1994 Michel Camilo album of the same name. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/one-more-once-michel-camilo/

More Reggae but not real Reggae, this is like a Brazilian hybrid. The tune is called 'A Novidade' by Gilberto Gil from his MTV 'Acoustico' DVD. The bassist is Arthur Maia who, before he died, was on everything everywhere in Brazilian music. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/a-novidade-gilberto-gil/

I wanted to put some Reggae bass playing up here but I don't know anything about the genre so I just put 'Reggae' into YouTube and this is the track that came up first. It is incredibly easy to read and to play but it's all feel and tone so don't think you can just flounce in there and be all supercilious about it. I tried to find out who played the part and the closest I could get to a name was the suggestion that the track is based on a sample of a Sly and Robbie track from yesteryear. So this is (probably) Robbie Shakespeare's bass part to the tune 'Welcome To Jamrock' by Damian Marley. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/welcome-to-jamrock-damian-marley/

A partial transcription this time; Matt Penman's bass part for the YouTube version of Stevie Wonder's 'superstition'. I just wanted to see where the arrangement was going (there is more to it that I have captured here but I lost the will after I got what I came for.....). https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/superstition-sfjazz-collective/

Little Jazz duo gig in Essex (guitar and electric bass) - second gig in three years. Blew up my Acoustic Image Clarus and ended up playing through a Fender practice amp but just about got away with it. Couldn't have been bad as we got booked for another gig somewhere else on the back of it.

I depped for Tiago once (I believe he is in Cambridge). Apparently, he was in college with pianist Hiromi Uehera and played in her trio. I had not heard this band although I think I have heard of them somewhere on my travels. Sounds great. I'd dep for him with this lot if he ever needed me to 🤪 Just looked it up. It was a band Tiago played in called Q3 led by pianist/composer Martin Hallmark. All original compositions. It was a nice gig. Electric bass (my favourite).

So did I, Dave, just to be sure!! 😁

These kinds of lists provoke discussion. For that reason, I am all for them. They are a bit harmless fun.

Weird thing is, I am half way through a novel. I picked it up lunchtime and, two pages in, there is the word 'lugubrious'. Three times in one day? Who'd have thought it?

I redrafted the sentence and then forgot to delete the word I moved. 😆 I have just edited it again.

This one was a bit of light relief for me but it's gorgeous! This is Dave Holland's complete performance of the tune 'The Color Of Iris' from the 2013 'Prism' album. Beautiful. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/the-color-of-iris-dave-holland/

I have been working on a tough one for the last few days. Not so much tough to play as tough to write down because there are essentially three voices which need to be moving differently which, in turn, requires significantly more time transcribing. How piano engravers work is beyond me.

You are very welcome, TS. And thank you.

I posted a corrected version of The Abingdon Chasp. It was a lot tougher than I thought as there are so many tempo changes, weird time changes and a lot of sections where Berlin is playing long chains of the same note but on and off the beat/pushing and pulling across changing bar lengths and changing octaves. In some ways, it only matters if you are trying to write it down. If you were performing it, it would be a matter of personal choice - it matters only that you keep it moving and changing.

I write the dots out. I learn it.

Just redoing 'The Abingdon Chasp' from Bruford's 'One Of A Kind'. Having to completely rewrite. At least it shows I have learned a lot in the few years since I did it last time! 🥴

I used a Phil Jones Bass Double Four which sounds great with bass or guitar but between £325 and £395 it's approaching the price you would be thinking of paying for gig ready gear. These reviews are really useful and I wish I could have seen something like it before I got the PJB.

I was going through some of the charts today and found that there are so many errors I wanted to cry, especially as a lot of the charts that were on here prior to my suspending operations were no longer available as Sibelius charts and only as pdfs. Today, however, after puzzling over it for years, I have finally worked out how to use the photoscore facility and to generate an editable Sibelius file from a pdf. Today I revisited a Jeff Berlin chart 'All The Greats' which has a couple of sections that were in completely the wrong key to the other parts of the chart. I think it is now correct. What this means is that, any time I find an error on a older chart (and there are many), I can potentially correct the error without having to start the whole chart from scratch.

Ask and ye shall receive - Tim Esau's bass part for '1312 Overture' from the 'The Road Of Bones' album. Top drawer stuff. Heavy read due to the tempo, the density of the part of the part and the changing time signatures but not as difficult as it first appears (I looked at The Road Of Bones track, Dave, but there a few parts where the mix is too dense to catch the detail - I will try again with the Moises software another time - it's a great album). I just remembered, I saw these guys at The Granary in Bristol in the 1980s https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/1312-overture-iq/

I am glad I watched it but won't watch it again. They were a remarkable band with some incredible if slightly deviant energy. A Punk sensibility before Punk was a thing but I never liked Punk either so that's why they never hold my attention for long. Moon has ADHD written all over him. A band that was greater than the sum of it's already incredible parts. I respect them but don't really like them. I can see why many do, though.

Road of Bones is a favourite of mine although I haven't heard it in a while. I will have a look at it.