Daily Licking 028: Bass Line For Head to Mr. P.C

A brief respite from the tenorisms of Mr. Coltrane for today.

Rather we shall take a look at what the songs name sake, Mr. Paul Chambers, is doing down there at over 200 bpm while Coltrane is busy abusing those poor chord tones.

So, below are the first two choruses of the bass line, the one played during the melody of Mr. P.C.



Some Momentos de Ridiculoso of Distinction:

1. He doesn't always play roots on the downbeats, (beat 1). He sometimes plays the third or the fifth of the chord several times, on both the C and the F


2. Repetition. He repeats himself. I said, he repeats himself. He plays the same patterns in the same place during both choruses, notably, the first two measures each time.

3. As we know, Trane is playing B naturals during his solo, but on these two choruses, Mr. Chambers is all about B-flats. It will be interesting to see if he changes during the solos...stay tuned.
   

Just like the solo, this is chock-full-o' serious ridiculoso, just of the bass line kind. There are one measure minor patterns, one measure dominant patterns, two and four measure minor patters...all textbook examples of great bass lines, lines that are little solos and melodies all to themselves.

Oh yea, remember this is stupid crazy fast? Yea. It is. This thing zips right along. But of course, this bass line would work and sound great at any tempo. Also included is audio of the two choruses with Mr. Coltrane mixed out (sorry, John) and a little eq to minimize the boomyness of the bass.

(Update! - PaperBag from Talkbass pointed out that an "a" needed to be a "c" on measure 4 of the second chorus. Fixed! Bounty for any other clams that are found.)

Mr. P.C. Melody Bass Line at 250 bpm

bass 4/4 tempo 250 | CMin7 c4 d eb c | eb c c eb | c d eb f8. g16 | g4 a bb a | Fmin ab4 g f eb | c eb f ab | Cmin7 g f eb d | c d eb bb+ | Ab7 ab f c ab+| G7 g d8. b16 c4 d | Cmin7 c bb a ab| g c a d | CMin7 c4 d eb c | eb c c eb | c d eb f | g bb c g | Fmin c- d eb e | f g ab f | Cmin7 g f eb d | c d eb bb+ | Ab7 ab eb c ab+| G7 g d b d | Cmin7 c bb a ab| g c a d |