bands with mutiple bassists?

Lou Reed - Take a Walk On The Wild Side
Miles Davis - Bitches Brew
Ned's Atomic Dustbin

 

The band Molotov has two bass players, one usually plays clean and the other with effects/distortion.

 

You talking recording or live. Recording its done all the time especially recording by bass players as leaders. They will lay down mulitple parts of varying complexity and timbre.

Live again look at bass players as leaders. Victor Wooten use two to three bass players. Frees him up from holding down the bottom to play other things. Meshell Nedgeocello on live and recording mulitple bass players and parts. Marcus will do it once in a while. It's not common, but done for years. Plus keyboard bass and bass together goes on a lot. Hard part is finding two players who can work together, think like arrangers, and stay out of each others way.

 

There have been numerous threads on this topic. Search this forum and Bassists, and you'll find a lot of discussion of two-bass bands. I'd recommend checking out Ned's Atomic Dustbin, particularly the album "God Fodder."

 

Big Bottom- Spinal Tap

http://web.archive.org/web/20030623235943/http://spinaltap.streameasy.com/bigbottom.mp3

 

Try this brilliant album by Ornette Coleman 'Virgin Beauty' - two bassists playing some funky free-ish jazz:



One of my fave jazz albums

M

 

Willie Nelson's band used to have to bassists. Don't know if this is still the case.

 

Bass extremes, this clip is ridiculous. Steve is out of control!!!

 

Almost all old "Big Band / Jazz" from the 20's, 30's, and 40's had 2 bass players. Some of them even had 3 or 4 bass players. It was mostly done for a bigger sound, but it was usually different parts or splitting parts. If you were in band in highschool and remember 1st / 2nd / 3rd / 4th chair and so on, usually 1-3 played one part 4-6 played one part and 7-9 played one part. At some points in the song these parts overlapped, but was usually varied some.

 

James Brown had 2 bass players and 2 drummers on stage at the same time

 

I'm being lazy, just giving a tease. There are zillions of other successful examples.
Gary Burton: Passengers. Eberhard Weber on EUB, Steve Swallow on BG.
Ornette Coleman: Free Jazz, many others.
Talking Heads: The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads
Jack Dejohnette: Album Album, Rufus Reid, URB; Howard Johnson, tuba.
Pharoah Sanders: Live At The East, Stanley Clarke, URB; Cecil McBee, URB

Other guys I've seen do it live exceptionally well include Sun Ra, Stanley Clarke, Mingus, Willie Dixon, Vic Wooten, and the late-80s Miles band with Foley on lead bass. Ornette's mid-80s band was probably my favorite, but good luck finding those albums.

 

The lastest David Liebman 'Back On The Corner' has Anthony Jackson and Liebman's regular bassist Tony Marino. Along with Passinwind's Ornette Coleman suggestions you can check out Ronald Shannon Jackson's Decoding Society, he always had two bassist, and on the early albums it was the great Melvin Gibbs and Bruce Johnson.

The Ornette and Decoding Society albums are also a great antidote for any happy-gurlmon-smooth jazz overindulgence.

 

spinal tap

 

Does Steve Bailey use his ring finger to pluck?

 

James Brown???