I may as well own up here to writing a paper on this topic, hence my increased interest and quick replies... I'm just hoping to avoid copping any abuse for my over 'anal'ysing of it all, it goes with the territory.
I think we can take it as a given that this sort of playing (and any playing) requires great listening skills, and trying to play broken when that's not 'what the music requires' (a little something that I've thought about myself Chris, but this time, taken straight from your website!), is a bad idea, and not going to work, and will have lots of people commenting about it on bass forums.. BUT
presuming that it is the right time, and the players are listening well... I've been thinking about the style - and listening to lots of recordings and asking myself, 'broken or not', in the same way you might listen and say - 2 feel or 4, latin or swing, the answer is usually obvious enough, but not with broken!
The conclusion I'm coming too is broken is something that happens everytime you stop walking, or playing a strict '2' feel. Trying to categorise every bass line into types is obviously a bad idea to start with but in this case, particularly bad, the way guys like Marc Johnson do it, they can be walking for 20 bars, then break it up for 7, then walk again (the numbers are completely random). I find the same difficulties personally that you do, breaking up the walking once started. If I'm playing what I'd refer to as a broken 2, I'm happy staying there for quite a while, but once walking, I usually want to stay there, unless it's a pedal perhaps.
The Fred Hersch recording with Marc Johnson and Joey Baron called Horizons has a few interesting examples. When I first listened to 'Surrey with the fringe on top', I though, well, I suppose there is a broken '4' then. Here it is. But on listening again, I realised that he's using the first sections of each section (I suppose it's like AABAC, so the first half of each A!), as a pedal section throughout, so, yes, it's breaking the swing, but slightly different than what I would consider a broken feel, as the device he's using is a pedal. Too pedantic I'm sure some think, but if you're interested, give it a listen and see what you think. (Great recording anyways, Fred's first as leader. What a debut!)
The other one I find really interesting from the bass perspective is My Heart Stood Still - two feel, broken two, into four for a couple bars... back again... all swinging and tasty.. but not as broken as a lot of the other stuff I've been listening to, including other Fred Hersch stuff, where the music is disguising the one in a much more obvious manner, ie, not playing 1 for many bars, crossing bar lines, extensive use of quarter note triplets etc.
You can listen to a preview and buy them if you have an account here
http://www.emusic.com/album/Fred-Hersch-Horizons-MP3-Download/10600181.html I hope that link works.
For an example of what I'm talking about with disguising one... Fred Hersch with Charlie Haden and Joey Baron from Sarabande -'This Heart of Mine' I've been transcribing this one... he doesn't make it easy! I've never seen so many 'ands'
OK. Chris, if you've ever listened to any of these, do tell me your opinion. And anyone else of course. And if anybody hates it when people get too analytical then I hoped you stopped reading at the top of this post!
I think we can take it as a given that this sort of playing (and any playing) requires great listening skills, and trying to play broken when that's not 'what the music requires' (a little something that I've thought about myself Chris, but this time, taken straight from your website!), is a bad idea, and not going to work, and will have lots of people commenting about it on bass forums.. BUT
presuming that it is the right time, and the players are listening well... I've been thinking about the style - and listening to lots of recordings and asking myself, 'broken or not', in the same way you might listen and say - 2 feel or 4, latin or swing, the answer is usually obvious enough, but not with broken!
The conclusion I'm coming too is broken is something that happens everytime you stop walking, or playing a strict '2' feel. Trying to categorise every bass line into types is obviously a bad idea to start with but in this case, particularly bad, the way guys like Marc Johnson do it, they can be walking for 20 bars, then break it up for 7, then walk again (the numbers are completely random). I find the same difficulties personally that you do, breaking up the walking once started. If I'm playing what I'd refer to as a broken 2, I'm happy staying there for quite a while, but once walking, I usually want to stay there, unless it's a pedal perhaps.
The Fred Hersch recording with Marc Johnson and Joey Baron called Horizons has a few interesting examples. When I first listened to 'Surrey with the fringe on top', I though, well, I suppose there is a broken '4' then. Here it is. But on listening again, I realised that he's using the first sections of each section (I suppose it's like AABAC, so the first half of each A!), as a pedal section throughout, so, yes, it's breaking the swing, but slightly different than what I would consider a broken feel, as the device he's using is a pedal. Too pedantic I'm sure some think, but if you're interested, give it a listen and see what you think. (Great recording anyways, Fred's first as leader. What a debut!)
The other one I find really interesting from the bass perspective is My Heart Stood Still - two feel, broken two, into four for a couple bars... back again... all swinging and tasty.. but not as broken as a lot of the other stuff I've been listening to, including other Fred Hersch stuff, where the music is disguising the one in a much more obvious manner, ie, not playing 1 for many bars, crossing bar lines, extensive use of quarter note triplets etc.
You can listen to a preview and buy them if you have an account here
http://www.emusic.com/album/Fred-Hersch-Horizons-MP3-Download/10600181.html I hope that link works.
For an example of what I'm talking about with disguising one... Fred Hersch with Charlie Haden and Joey Baron from Sarabande -'This Heart of Mine' I've been transcribing this one... he doesn't make it easy! I've never seen so many 'ands'
OK. Chris, if you've ever listened to any of these, do tell me your opinion. And anyone else of course. And if anybody hates it when people get too analytical then I hoped you stopped reading at the top of this post!
