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Double Bass Embellishing Walking Bass Line
- Thread starter Mike Goodbar
- Start date
Let me direct you to the best lousy recording ever made: Lee Konitz Live at the Half Note - Verve 314 521 659-2. How's this band: Konitz, Warne Marsh, Bill Evans, Jimmy Garrison, Paul Motian. Recorded in 1959.
It's a 'lousy' recording in this respect - it was a tape made from one microphone. Every time Evans soloed, you can hear him and Garrison get louder as they move the mic closer to the piano, then back out front for the horns.
It shows two things.
1. Garrison has no amp. Despite the lighter sound and the cheesy reproduction, you can still feel the visceral throb that comes from unamplified bass, that something that is lost immediately when an amp is used.
2, and to Mike's point, the young Garrison just lays down 4 quarters to every bar the whole night, and the groove is just amazing. You can't not love the feeling.
OK, a bit of hyperbole at the start, but this recording is 2 CD's worth of graduate theory that swings like mad. And you will learn what a genius Tristano was when you hear his heads.
Don't turn up your nose, you're blocking the sunlight.
Maybe your reply was lighthearted, but on the off chance it wasn't I should point out that your inability to perform a technique does not condemn the thread it is in "to the gutter" as you so eloquently put it.
Maybe a moderator needs to come along and quench out any life or humor in these threads before they all wind up "in the gutter".
While we're at it we can get the moderator to sniff out anyone in the DB forum who has ever picked up an electric bass, and we can then heard all the slab players into the other side.
Let me point one thing out - This is a WEB based forum, ie, you don't have to download long USENET news feeds when the posts get long, you simply ignore non-interesting threads and they don't take up any space except on the server, which was designed to house them.
If you want to first decry the merit of a thread or a member's contribution, then do so by adding what could only be construed as further clatter to the thread, it is slightly hypocritical, unless you were being lighthearted and I missed it.
Vic Wooten said it best, bass players are a special bunch of folks and we don't have animocities towards each other like a lot of other musicians do. I hope in the future we can be a little less snobby around here lest people fell like there is no use in even lurking.
-Con Trabajo
Maybe your reply was lighthearted, but on the off chance it wasn't I should point out that your inability to perform a technique does not condemn the thread it is in "to the gutter" as you so eloquently put it.
Maybe a moderator needs to come along and quench out any life or humor in these threads before they all wind up "in the gutter".
While we're at it we can get the moderator to sniff out anyone in the DB forum who has ever picked up an electric bass, and we can then heard all the slab players into the other side.
Let me point one thing out - This is a WEB based forum, ie, you don't have to download long USENET news feeds when the posts get long, you simply ignore non-interesting threads and they don't take up any space except on the server, which was designed to house them.
If you want to first decry the merit of a thread or a member's contribution, then do so by adding what could only be construed as further clatter to the thread, it is slightly hypocritical, unless you were being lighthearted and I missed it.
Vic Wooten said it best, bass players are a special bunch of folks and we don't have animocities towards each other like a lot of other musicians do. I hope in the future we can be a little less snobby around here lest people fell like there is no use in even lurking.
-Con Trabajo
Fight, fight! I knew it would come to blows when I saw the DBers discussing approaches to walking basslines - always happens!
They're just so much more unruly than BG players!
They're just so much more unruly than BG players!
Originally posted by Marcus Johnson
I hung out at Ohopuohopu Beach just last weekend...
Yeah I went to summer camp there.
the phrase that springs to my mind is "you cant polish a turd"
i got that from a studio engineer in one of my bands in referrence to a crap recording and the notion of fixing in the mix, but it sounds to me like it applies to the idea of adding embellishments to a bass lines in an attempt to make it groove equally well
thass all
i got that from a studio engineer in one of my bands in referrence to a crap recording and the notion of fixing in the mix, but it sounds to me like it applies to the idea of adding embellishments to a bass lines in an attempt to make it groove equally well
thass all
Originally posted by Howard K
the phrase that springs to my mind is "you cant polish a turd"
i got that from a studio engineer in one of my bands in referrence to a crap recording and the notion of fixing in the mix, but it sounds to me like it applies to the idea of adding embellishments to a bass lines in an attempt to make it groove equally well
thass all
Took you a year to come up with that?
wanted to let u guys know that bassists seem to be funnier people than trombonists. i'm a 1 yr transplant to the dark side (from the slide side). there is nothing like this going on at the online trombone journal...
i've played from the mitch ___ bassline book & my own lines got too embellished, wanting to stick all that fancy stuff in...not good in a beginner's hands!
i've played from the mitch ___ bassline book & my own lines got too embellished, wanting to stick all that fancy stuff in...not good in a beginner's hands!
It's interesting you should use Jimmy Garrison as your example. Lately I've been checking out his lines on the Trane disc w/ Johnny Hartman and to a big extent his approach is very opposite from what you described above. Yet on other things with Trane he lays down the steady 4-- Crescent, Chasin' the Trane, Impressions, etc., things that already have a lot going on. I think the contrast demonstrates that it's important to be able to do it all well (ie. walk straight quarters vs. syncoptate, embellish, etc.), and to listen acutely and supply what the music needs. To a large extent what the drummer plays, or doesn't, suggests how much the bass can stretch out.
That's what you call yours huh? Well, you shouldn't "polish" it too much, or apparently you'll go blind.
In my opinion, its all dependent on what you are embellishing. If you are embellishing a walking line, then forget it. If, however, you are embellishing the music that is a different matter. Theres nothing worse than hearing a bass player cover up poor walking with little tricks here and there.
Its sometimes nice to add a little embellishment when leading into the B/C/D etc section of a piece but only if the music is heading in that kinda direction. Its important to be a musician first and a bass player second.
Its sometimes nice to add a little embellishment when leading into the B/C/D etc section of a piece but only if the music is heading in that kinda direction. Its important to be a musician first and a bass player second.
I never play triplets, as hard as anyone I've heard has tried, they always mess up the feel and tempo. Instead play a swung eighth note, it sounds hipper anyways.
