Daily Licking 031: Bass Line for Chorus 5 & 6 of Mr. P.C.

Well, caught up with the tenor solo finally, both are all the way up to chorus number 6.

This bass line keeps getting more and more interesting, this guy is just as nuts as Coltrane. Let us examine these next 24 measures.

Daily Licking 030: Bass Line for Chorus 3 & 4 of Mr. P.C.

Two more choruses, (chori?) coming at you and guess what, this guy breaks the rules too.

To B natural

Some funny things start happening in these two choruses, and I don't mean funny ha-ha.

For one, a suspicious number of b naturals start showing up in the bass line. I think he is in cahoots with Mr. Coltrane. Up until this chorus, he would play B flats, but what do you think, do you think he and Coltrane got together beforehand and agreed to do this? Or do you think that now that he is three choruses in, and Mr. P.C. has heard Coltrane go all honey-badger bananas and spray B naturals everywhere, so him and his radar ears just said "Oh it's like that, huh? Okay, it's on!" and started throwing natural sevenths into the bass line as well. That is a bass player that is listening, right there.

Daily Licking 029: First Two Choruses of Bass on Mr. P.C

More bass this time, once I started I couldn't stop myself, so maybe we will catch up with the tenor solo and do the bass line up to chorus six as well.

Walking? More like running.

At this tempo it is more like a sprint than a walking bass line. But, just like Coltrane, does P.C care? Of course not. Let's see how he attacks this thing at a tempo this crazy.

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.

"Whims of Chambers" Duet

This is the first thing I ever actually sat down and transcribed. It is the head to a blues by one of (if not THE) most recorded bass player in the history of bass playing, Paul Chambers.

This guy played on "So What" and "Giant Steps". Right there, he is legendary, but that only represents about .01% of the recordings he was on, it must seriously be in the thousands. And as far as who he played with, it is basically anyone you have heard of between the years of oh..say 1956 and 1965, it is ridiculoso! If you are into playing jazz, you gotta know this guy. It's like entire books could be written about him or something!

Here is the head in both bass clef and that other clef. You can give the other copy to a piano/guitar player and do a unison line like they did it on the recording. Horn players are gonna have to transpose it themselves if you have one those playing along. Take a listen to what it sounds like on the video at the end of the post also. Make it swing! Use your favorite blues changes for the soloing.