Bilbo's Transcription Archive

[Bilbo]

Nearly there. Patitucci's bass part on 'One Hand, One Heart' from the same 'West Side Story' recording.

 

https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/one-hand-one-heart-dave-grusin/

[Bilbo]

Bloody hell. Over 500 views today.

[itu]

Doesn't it feel good to be popular?

 

Slow down sir, I'm not able to listen the songs at the speed you push them out!

[Bilbo]

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/

[Bilbo]

'The Jet Song' from that same recording.

 

https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/the-jet-song-dave-grusin/

[Bilbo]

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/

 

 

[Bilbo]

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

 

Edited Sunday at 21:36 by Bilbo

[Bilbo]

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/

[Bilbo]

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/

[Bilbo]

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/

[Bilbo]

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/

Edited Wednesday at 08:04 by Bilbo

[Bilbo]

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/

[Bilbo]

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.

[dmccombe7]

Every time i watch Jeff Berlin i'm amazed and astounded at his technique.

Dave

[Bilbo]

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/

Edited 12 hours ago by Bilbo

[peteb]

10 minutes ago, Bilbo said:

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/

 

Speaking as someone who plays in a Zep tribute, unfortunately that song (with the original Zeppelin arrangement) is virtually impossible to play live! All sorts of jiggery, and indeed pokery, went on in the recording - one of the reasons I believe that even LZ never attempted to play it live. 

 

[Bilbo]

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

[peteb]

6 hours ago, Bilbo said:

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

 

The thing is that the main guitar part is a slide played on an electric 12 string in open tuning, but with one of the courses tuned to a 5th rather than an octave. Then there is a capo on the first fret, which means that the slide keeps banging against the frets. This gives an unusual effect on the record, but would be horrible to try and play live. 

 

And that's before the speeding up of the tape and all the studio effects. 

 

[Bilbo]

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.

[Bilbo]

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/

Edited 2 hours ago by Bilbo

[peteb]

2 hours ago, Bilbo said:

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.

 

You give us way too much credit - I read all that in an interview with someone who actually worked on the album! We have been asked about playing it, so we just listened to it and thought, 'what's going on there with the guitar, no chance'. 

 

However, I thought it was kind of interesting, in a Zeppelin nerd kinda way. 

 

Edited 1 hour ago by peteb