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Best Slap Bass Player?
- Thread starter Funk$tar
- Start date
- Jan 12, 2011
- 4,578
- 2,460
- Disclosures
- Artist, Trickfish Amplification Bartolini Emerging Artist, MTD Kingston Emerging Artist. Artist, Tsunami Cables
I'm an older guy and I've seen it grow to what it is today. I like the more classic style of slap. Some of the newer modern techniques while on the surface seem awesome border on some serious wanking. IMO if it's not grooving and still maintaining some semblance of bottom to it, it's just showing off. Having said that some of my favs are of course Larry Graham, Louis Johnson. Marcus Miller, and David Dyson. These are some of the more famous players but there are other guys less famous but just as nice as I have mentioned. One guy I really like is Wojtek Pilichowski. he reminds me of Mark King but his delivery is more powerful. Brian Bromberg is an awesome slapper as well. To close, I'm more into funk oriented slapping than anything else. If you want to get better, spend some time with FUNK music from the 70's, 80's, 90's.
I can agree with pretty much all of this. Wanking can happen regardless of technique used though. My slapping is absolutely done in the classic style. I sometimes use it in metal though, to get a really punchy sound.
+1
Bill Dickens AKA "The Buddah" has an unbelievable machine gun slap technique. He has a DVD demonstrating his technique.
Also try Louis Johnson, Richard Bona, Nate Phillips, Prince's bassists Ida Neilason aka 'Bassida or Ida Funkhouser, Rhonda Smith, Brandon Rose, MarloweDK, Uriah Duffy, and 'Ready' Freddie Washington.
I would love to see Victor Wooten and Bill Dickens go at it. I think Bill could out slap Victor though.
Roy Vogt
Supporting Member
- Sep 20, 2000
- 4,433
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- Endorsing Artist: Kiesel Basses, Ampeg Amplification, Hotone Ampero II effects
I saw that at a Nashville NAMM Show in the mid-90s. It's the only time I've ever seen Victor break a string.
No Gary Grainger yet? Blue Matter, Loud Jazz, Pick Hits Live.
I find his control and tastefulness appealing. He also doesn't double thumb, so it's a bit easier to cop usable licks and lines from him than say, Wooten or Dickens.
All the other bassists mentioned here are amazing at slap also of course, but no two players slap the same way.
I find his control and tastefulness appealing. He also doesn't double thumb, so it's a bit easier to cop usable licks and lines from him than say, Wooten or Dickens.
All the other bassists mentioned here are amazing at slap also of course, but no two players slap the same way.
Thanks for posting this. Kai takes slap to another dimension.
Watching him play is awe inspiring.
Here is a clip of Dickens and Wooten sharing the stage together with Otiel burnridge and Steve Bailey.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iNBYksvBPwg
There are lots of great slappers out there. Some have already been mentioned and here are a few others:
- Nate Phillips with Pleasure
- Louis Johnson
- Stanley Clarke
- Doug Wimbish
- Prince
- Me'shell Ndegeocello
- Anthony Wellington
- Norwood Fisher
The list goes on and on. If you want a good test regarding how clean your slapping is check out Patrice Rushen's "Forget Me Nots" with Freddie Washington on bass. If you can play that one cleanly then you're on the right track.
Haha I love that song and yea I learned that! Plus I got in to Me'shell's music and alot of Louis Johnson and the people you listed! Thanks for the help! Btw did Freddie use a P-bass on that track or Jazz?
There is a video on youtube of Belà Fleck and the Flecktones playing Mister Minister ( or something like that ) and during Vic solo, he breaks his G strings and continue his solo like nothing happened.
to me Alain Caron is really interesting. He can play a bebop solo with slap technic which is a breath of fresh air with all the E min pentatonic slapper.
It's clear that none of those guys like Steve Bailey or they would have never let him go on stage in that outfit.
If you want to slap start off with Larry Graham, and maybe some of Stanley Clarke's licks. But to me there are two schools of slap. Guys like Marcus Miller and Nathan East don't have to slap a lot of notes but know the one not to pop and have a really deep pocket. Comparably, Mark King, who I love slaps about every 16th note in the measure, and is a technical marvel. However, I'd warn about a lot of the heavy technical slappers, a lot of them play super, super straight. And you wanna be funky, not that. So keep that in mind when copping those guys. Take their technique, and sometimes a straight feel is good, but at least for a guy like me, that's not really something I need to work on.
