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Favorite bass albums and why?

3bc

3bc

Mar 12, 2010
1,189
3,076
In the boonies.
#1
I tried a thread like this a long time ago that went nowhere so I'll try again. What are your favorite albums to listen to when you want to just listen to some bass playing that really speaks to you?

I'll go first. Space Cowboy and Traveling Without Moving by Jamiroquai. Zender plays some FUNKY lines on these albums, some jazzy lines etc. but he plays with articulation (ghosting, dynamics, bends/trills/slides, etc.) that is so deliberate and unique to him that it's like no other bass player could have been subbed in for him. Later Jamiroquai albums after Zender left have a lot of great, challenging bass lines, but IMO you could have slotted any other great player in there and it would have sounded exactly the same. He has a David Gilmore-esq quality to me in that way. Any accomplished player can do what he does, but not make it sound quite so special.

What albums do you turn on when you just want to appreciate some great bass playing?
 
#2
I'll play.

Trains debut cd

220px-Train_Train.jpg


It has wonderful playing by Charlie Colin. A lot of hidden gems of playing on that CD.
 
#3
It's rare that I will put on some music to specifically focus on just the bass, but in addition to enjoying them in their own right I can certainly delight in focusing on the bass playing from the following albums:

Titles - Mick Karn
The Waking Hour - Dali's Car (also Mick Karn on bass)
Closer To Home - Grand Funk Railroad (Mel Schacher on bass)
So - Peter Gabriel (Tony Levin on bass)
One Of A Kind and Gradually Going Tornado - Bruford (Jeff Berlin on bass)
and pretty much anything that Yes recorded between 1970-80 (Chris Squire on bass)
 
#8
The album title & cover art used to scare me in my youth, but I acquired the album in my 20s. Rudy Sarzo's bass is up front in the mix, maybe to cover up the fact that Randy Rhoads was not on the recording.

220px-OzzyOsbourneSpeakOfTheDevil.jpg
 
#11
Jewce said:
Straight up dude, every single thing I listen to the bass speaks to me. It's the foundation of any song, and I play bass. To focus on bass, I focus on bass. But I listen to anything and everything, so mentioning albums would be an infinate list of every single genre of music. Including classical, and gangster rap. But, good shot on a troll thread.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure I understand. I'm not trying to troll anything. I'm looking for recommendations so I can broaden my horizons.
 
#15
I've posted this before. In an interview, Michael Rhodes said some of his best playing was on records that didn't exactly crack the charts. This is a track from one of them.



I also like this a lot. Steve Swallow with John Scofield and Adam Nussbaum, live, early 1980s. His reminiscent-of-Bach solo starts around 4:36

 

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