Jennifer Clark - Double Bass, Bass Guitar

The Lovecats

The Cure
Bass: Phil Thornalley

One of the catchiest basslines on one of the catchiest tunes of all time. Genius! I transcribed this bassline as part of an arrangement I did of the tune for a jazz trio + singer the night before a gig, so it is not 100% accurate to the record - there are a few small variations in the tune not included here, and I had to take some liberties to make the arrangement work with a smaller band than the recorded version; regardless, I feel the essence has been preserved.

Transcription of "Lovecats" for bass (pdf) Added 28/9/2008

Duet

From "The Atomic Mr. Basie"
Double Bass: Unknown

This is one from the archives I found recently - I transcribed this around 1994, but a play through indicates that it is pretty reasonable. Unfortunately I can't find my "Atomic Mr. Basie" CD, so I can't verify the veracity of the transcription, not find the name of the bass player! This is one of my favourite Basie tunes by one of my favourite arrangers and composers, Neal Hefti. I suspect Hefti wrote the bassline for the part transcribed here; it certainly seems arranged, and is in his style. Tons of chromaticism and odd notes for wonky substituted blues chords. A classic. Contains the intro and first part.

Transcription of "Duet" (pdf)  Added 07/05/2008

If I Had You

From "Hag Leaps In" by "Bob Haggart's Swing Three"
Double Bass: Bob Haggart

Bob Haggart is well know for his composition "Big Noise From Winnetka", essentially a bass and drum duet. However, he accomplished many other things in his long life as a writer and arranger. In 1996 he released the above CD which contains a beautiful rendering of "If I Had You"; my transcription contains the bass introduction and Bob's solo. There is little in the way of flashy technique on display here, but Bob's elegant mastery of the changes is more than evident;

Transcription of "If I Had You" (pdf)  Added 05/05/2008

 

So What

From "Kind of Blue"
Trumpet: Miles Davis

Mile's solo from the seminal album, a great example of modal playing, transcribed for bass and trumpet;

So What: bass (pdf)  Added 05/05/2008
So What: trumpet (pdf)  Added 05/05/2008

Is This Love

From "One Love: The Very Best Of Bob Marley & The Wailers"
Bass Guitar: Aston Barret

Reggae basslines - the only context in which a bass guitarist can use major thirds and be taken seriously. This is lovely stuff, and having done the disgraceful thing of "busking" this bassline on gigs, I thought it was high time to learn it properly. There are some vagaries around bar 27 or thereabouts, but it seems to work well!

Transcription of "Is This Love" (pdf)  Added 05/05/2008

In A Mellow Tone

From "Sir Duke" by Duke Ellington
Double Bass: Jimmy Blanton

When I first heard Jimmy Blanton it blew my mind - he was truly one of the pioneers of modern bass playing. The following transcription contains the intro, where the bass is featured, and the head of this 1939 recording;

Transcription of "In A Mellow Tone" (pdf)  Added 05/05/2008

Bernie's Tune

From "The Best of the Gerry Mulligan Quartet with Chet Baker"
Double Bass: Bobby Whitlock

Transcription of "Bernie's Tune" (pdf)

There is also a MIDI file with some (awful) computer generated chord voicings to give some context to the bass. These can be removed by panning the audio hard right;

MIDI of bass on "Bernie's Tune"

 

African Marketplace - Abdullah Ibrahim

(I recently found this transcription and blurb from many years ago lurking on my hard drive, all but forgotten. So here it is...)

As far as I know there are a couple of recordings of "African Marketplace", but this one interests me more because the introduction is performed by an electric bass. The line is driving and catchy, and works against a backdrop of 16th note hihats from the drummer. It can be deceptively difficult to play for those not accustomed to African music; note that the first note in the phrase is often a ghost note played precisely on the one of the bar. In most Western music, this type of emphasis will anticipate the beat, and I initially had to think hard not to do this. Once established, however, the groove has a life of its own.

Something else worth pointing out is the two bar nature of the introductory phrases - the first of the pair has an ascending tail, the second a descending tail. The exception is bar eight, which is ascending instead of descending, but the line goes back to the usual pattern in bar ten. I transcribed quite a lot of this intro to try to find a pattern in the variations, but I don't think there really is one, I have the impression they are based mostly on feel. The most notable variation is the lack of a ghosted 16th note at the beginning of some phrases, which instead start right on the G note.

The pickup for the melody enters on at the end of the ascending bar, followed directly in the next bar when the melody enters proper by another ascending bassline. Thus the pattern in the introduction has been broken, and the emphasis shifts, in this case to four bar phrases: ascending, descending, descending, ascending. This occurs for the first eight bars of the melody, before reverting to the two bar phrase similar to the intro for the next eight bars.

Transcription of "African Marketplace" (png)