Jazz bands with good bass

[Theopij]

I am looking for music, jazz where is only electric guitar, drums, maybe piano and of course good bass (not double bass). I want to copy some jazz licks from this kind of music to my own lick vocabulary... Could you give me some bands to listen ?

[Bruce Lindfield]

Bright Size Life - Pat Metheny with Jaco!

Que Alegria - John Mclaughlin with two great BG players

-many many others!

[Baryonyx]

Originally Posted by Bruce Lindfield

Bright Size Life - Pat Metheny with Jaco!

Que Alegria - John Mclaughlin with two great BG players

-many many others!

A great record, Kai Eckhardt is great on it!

An even better record for hearing John and Kai together is on the "Live at the Royal Festival Hall" record. Absolutely stunning, and probably the best sound quality I've ever heard from a live recording.

And it's not typical jazz, more fusion, but check out Return to Forever with Stanley Clarke on the bass. "Romantic Warrior" is particularly good. And the Jonas Hellborg/Jeff Sipe/Shawn Lane trio's "Personae" record is absolutely bombastic. I've been listening to it a lot lately!

[Bassist4Life]

Grant Green - Live at the Lighthouse (Wilton Felder on E-bass).

It's on the funkier side.

Joe

[PocketGroove82]

Steve Swallow has done many a jazz album with the E. Bass.
Also, John Patitucci is a MONSTER straight ahead player on both the electric and the upright.

I would recommend that you not limit yourself to the electric bass if you trying to cop some nice jazz licks. Steal from sax, piano, and trumpet players...historically, they are usually the ones playing the most cutting edge stuff anyway.

[bigthemat]

Try superbass. Ray Brown, John Clayton and Christian McBride. not electric, but man, some awesome stuff.

[Bruce Lindfield]

Originally Posted by Theopij

I am looking for music, jazz where is only electric guitar, drums, maybe piano and of course good bass (not double bass).

Originally Posted by bigthemat

Try superbass. Ray Brown, John Clayton and Christian McBride. not electric, but man, some awesome stuff.

Errrr....

[low-endz]

There really are too many Great Jazz Bassists to list.

But, of the top o' my skull THE YELLOW JACKETS with Jimmy Haslip on 6 string Lefty inverted string Electric Bass comes quick.

Just listen to a sample of thier jazz track "DownTown" to know what I am talking About.

I enjoy playing a Paul Chambers line on my Gibson with Heavy Flats, So definatly dont limit yourself to just electric bassists, shoot I saw John Patitucci play the sax section of Coltranes Giant Steps. Yep theres allot to be learned from all instruments and musics to grow as a Bassist or any type of musician.

[bench]

mark egan: as we speak... ...with, well, mark egan on bass...

[JohnBarr]

I share your interest in guitar trios and while I'm sure we both appreciate the URB I also understand the focus on electric. It does bring its own qualities to the music.

One thing you might enjoy checking out is the Joe Pass CD "Resonance" this is a live, real-book date with bassist Jim Hughart playing a vintage Fender split-coil Precision. If you've ever wondered what a P would sound like in a trad jazz setting, this is it. Hughart is a switch hitter and brings his URB sensibilites to the electric.

You might enjoy some of the early Steve Khan "Evidence" group with Anthony Jackson on bass. These tend to be a sort of Latin/fusion groove, but Jackson really kills, especially when he teams up with Steve Jordan on drums. Later versions of Khan's group use URB (Ron Carter) and there are some fine trio recordings there as well.


Steve Swallow has done a couple trio recordings with John Scofield in the past couple years. They tend to be a tour de force, square in the bop tradition. I actually prefer Swallow in his own quartet settings. He had a string of them on his Watt label, late 90s or so, and I think they do a better job of featuring both his playing and composition. (Titles are: Swallow, Real Book, Always Pack Your Uniform on Top, and one or two others)


By all means take a look at Marc Egan. He released a two CD set last year called "As We Speak"
http://www.markegan.com/wavetone_records.html
Marc is on fretless. This release had John Abercrombie on guitar and Danny Gotlieb on drums. Contemporary jazz with a lot of improv. If you've followed Abercrombie at all, this is some of his best work and IMO the CD is some of the best trio jazz to come down the pike in years.
Marc has also done some nice work with Larry Coryell. "Tricycles" is a good example.

[Illbay]

Originally Posted by Theopij

I am looking for music, jazz where is only electric guitar, drums, maybe piano and of course good bass (not double bass). I want to copy some jazz licks from this kind of music to my own lick vocabulary... Could you give me some bands to listen ?

Sorry, this violates your restriction "no double bass," but after all there was a LOT of terrific Jazz going down decades before the "electric bass" became a regular feature.

Listen to Bill Evans' "Portrait in Jazz," esp. the two takes on "Autumn Leaves." Bassist's name is Scott LaFaro, had a very short career, only six years, cut short by an automobile accident.

His chops are easily transferable to EBG, imo, and his interplay with Evans as part of the Bill Evans Trio is inspiring, the bass playing a role as equal partner with the piano in their collaborations.

More Scott LaFaro stuff.

[Throckmorten]

If you're looking for some ideas to trigger your imagination, you might check out a book by Ed Friedland titled "Bass Improvisation".
http://bassbooks.com/shopping/shopexd.asp?id=51&bc=no

This is subtitled something like "a guide for soloing" , well I'm not anywhere near that level, but I've found this book useful for it's suggestions on how to play over the changes. Ways to approach a minor ii-V that get me out of my rut, that sort of thing.

For the price of a CD it may not be a bad addition to your library. There is a sort of boot-camp summary of theory in the beginning as well as takes on some standards but over all the aim is to get you thinking of different ways to approach the music.

[Redhotbassist]

+1 on Pat Metheny's 'Bright size life' and Yellowjackets, some good stuff to wrap your ears around!

[bigthemat]

Originally Posted by Bruce Lindfield

Errrr....

I know, I know...

[Bassist4Life]

I created a similar thread back in June of '05. You can use it to find some names.

Jazz Bassists That Play Electric

Enjoy,
Joe

[projectMalamute]

Not a trio, but their is a Buddy Rich record called 'tuff dude'(terrible name for an album)that is full of great, straight ahead jazz on electric. Anthony Jackson, from like the mid 70's or so.

[Audiophage]

Maria Schneider has electric bass in some of her albums. I think Tony Scherr might be the player on some of those.

Also, dig into anything with either Jaco or Steve Swallow. Don't neglect the upright players either, just because you can't emulate the sound on electric doesn't mean that you can't get the feel.

[Bruce Lindfield]

I think this thread shows you the problem, as people are struggling to recommend more than the same few albums/artists.

What tends to happen is that music gets categorised by the instruments used - unjustifiably, OK but it happens.

So - Double Bass = Jazz

Similar music with bass guitar and it is 'fusion' - not Jazz....

I used to try to play Jazz on BG - in the end like virtually everybody I know, I gave up the fight and played DB - Double Bass is "the sound" of straight ahead Jazz ...?

[Throckmorten]

Originally Posted by PocketGroove82

.... Steal from sax, piano, and trumpet players...historically, they are usually the ones playing the most cutting edge stuff anyway.

Ya know, that may be the best idea to come out of this thread.

In fact, I tried it last night with a CD from Norwegian trumpeter Nils Peter Molvaer (has _anyone_ heard him?)

A fairly simple line I've been playing in my head for yrs and (moment of enlightenment!) I could try that on bass! It turns out to be a vamp over C aeolian.

Another plus is that the horn lines can be easier to pick out than trying to pull the bass out of the mix.

OK, before you jump on me: No this is not going to teach me the subtleties of playing bass lines over the changes or when the Lydian augmented works over a minor progression. But the thread topic was licks. Which I take to mean catchy phrases of a couple measures that you can incorporate, develop or just have fun with when you get a break (or need a break) playing through a series of ii-V's and tritone subs.
Not bad as an ear training exercise too.

[fearceol]

Wilton Felder's EB playing with the "Crusaders" is great (not strictly jazz I admit). There is also some great double bass playing (not Felder) on their "Jazz Crusaders " albums