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Double Bass Need Jazz recommendations for teen

Z

Zapp

Sep 4, 2005
594
20
Gruene Texas
#1
my son is a good drummer and learning bass.
I'd like to find some moving, rythmic jazz combo or trio music for him to listen to. What works is the toe-tapping, consistent groove kind of thing, not the improv experiment in dissassociative-behaviour kind :rollno:

I posted this over on the e bass forum and some wise soul suggested I come to the "Dark Side" and inquire :help:

Over there someone suggested "Bad Plus", so I hunted some samples. This is a good example of what does NOT work. disassociative..... I'm sure there is a better term but I'm not educated in such. give me uptempo DB with a strong percussionist and a tinkering pianist that does not overplay his/her part... something that moves from beginning to end. The teen is not the contemplative sort

Guitar works also, sax also. But it sure ain't Coltrane "Love Supreme", as elegant a work as it is, that's the other example. wish I could better describe.... SOME of Bela Fleck & Flecktones numbers work well and would be good examples ie a few from "Live Art"

OK, editing my post, this is an example of the tempo & feel I'm chasing [it is a Coltrane composition]
http://www.johnscofield.com/scoaudio/saudades/bignick.mp3
 
#2
From the other thread you said he likes to listen to blues and stuff, right? So you might want to try approaching it from that angle. Look for stuff by Gene Harris (or the Three Sounds), Red Garland (GROOVY is a personal favorite), Hampton Hawes, Horace Silver, Harold Mabern, Junior Mance.

BLUE TRAIN is a pretty great record and not a bad Trane to start with, Miles Davis Quintet MILESTONES is also pretty swinging. But cats like Junior Cook, Hank Crawford, Fathead Newman, Eddie Harris, ALL have a lot of blues in their sound.

I dunno, there's about a million records to get. When you find one that he digs, look at who's playing on there. In addition to finding other records with the same lineup, look for the players with OTHER configurations. See who else they play with that you dig. NAd keep doing that. Pretty soon, you have a pretty wide ranging collection of stuff.
 
#5
A Cannon Ball CD called "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy Live at the Club" might be a good fit. It's very groovy to me, and is one of my fav. albums. The Ray Brown Trio is a very good example of what you're shooting for [if i understand it correctly]. A few albums by them: Don't Forget the Blues, Walk On [2 disc set], and the Best of Ray on Concord are great. I own them all and am transcribing various tunes from each.

take it easy.
 
#6
Teenagers often go for the virtuoso thing. If you're looking for straight-up, straight-ahead swinging standards, in addition to all the stuff already mentioned I'd recommend some Oscar Peterson -- go for the trio stuff with a guitar player (Barney Kessel, Herb Ellis.) Your boy will hear tons of Ray Brown but he'll also hear Oscar falling over himself to set the keyboard on fire and a guy like Herb fighting hot fire with cool fire. I dug that stuff supremely when I was that age. Another benefit you get out of that is hearing all the old standards that people love so much.

There's that great record they did with Lester Young ("O.P. Trio with Lester Young"? Something like that), the one with "Amost Like Being In Love" and the out-takes at the end of Prez singing some ribald off-the-cuff "scat".
 
#8
Hey, this might be dragging things a bit off topic, but I wonder: is anyone else around here using the Pandora web radio thing? I've been using it for months and I think it's truly cool.

Some outfit called "The Music Genome Project" started it. They've got some system for coding and classifying pop music. You build your own radio station by seeding it with an artist choice, a song choice, something like that. It keeps adding things in a similar vein, but it also adds stuff that's closely related but not quite in the same classification space.

I've got three stations set up: one for jazz, one for soul music, and another for old country music. For the jazz station (which I've called Hard Bop Radio), I just typed in "Red Garland" and the thing started feeding me tunes, great tunes. Every now and then it verges away from stuff I dig and then I just tell the system, "nah, I don't dig it". Similarly, you can train a station by giving certain selections a thumbs up. There are quick and easy links to metadata about the music, and links for buying the music if that's what you want.

I really dig it. When I'm working at the PC it's pretty much all I listen to these days. I'm hearing tons of stuff I haven't heard before...

(The Standard Disclaimer: I'm not involved with Pandora or the Genome thing in any way. Just a satisfied user.)
 
#9
I agree with some of the recs above, but would add wtih my highest possible endorsement:

Oscar Pettiford's record/cd "Another One".

Holy Snikies that's a great jazz bass record. Spend $10 on that CD and it will be the best/cheapest bass lesson you'll ever purchase.

-tk
 
#10
Fantastic bunch of suggestions you guys! I got a lotta samples to go hunt down.

my 'jazz expert', a young lady who is a sax professional, working on her masters at one of the big music schools, is coming by tonight to jam some [she is determined to get me to playing jazz bass! ]. She had my same question and has a few things for me to listen to....
 
#11
Cannonball Adderly w/ Miles Davis- Somethin' Else
Oscar Peterson w/ Ray Brown on B- We Get Requests
Christian McBride- anything
Paul Chambers- Paul Chambers Quintet (w/ Donald Byrd, Clifford Jordan, Tommy Flannigan, & Elvin Jones. Blue Note)

This kind of music was the one thing in my life that made me want to continue living when I was a teen.
 
#15
OK, Merry Christmas guys...! and, to give you a better 'fix' on what we're after, this is the tempo/signature, groove we're wanting:
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed] Burrell - Jeannine

the instrumentation is secondary, as long as there is a bass and some drums! if you have some more of this silo, let me know.
z
 

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