Bass Link Blast - Semi-occasional version 2.13r4v17

1. Meshell Ndegeocello is giving us all a free track from her new album. She is one fonky melinated womans as Ms. Badu might say, and a seriously sick bass player, so I am sure it is groovy. Pick it up here or from her facebook page.
2. Joe Hubbard has an article about ear training as he learned it from Charlie Banacos, a guy who was the Yoda for improvised music and taught Joe, Jeff Berlin, Mike Stern, Alain Caron and thousands of others. Good stuff indeed.
3. I found some old podcasts that Christian McBride did back in 2006. In this one he talks about the role of the bass, a topic the man knows a great deal about. Listen up!
4. Miles Davis died twenty years ago this week, and here a UK magazine talks about his last couple of projects which included Prince and some rappers.
5. Shockingly, the Pat Metheny and Larry Grenadier duet gigs are freakin' amazing. Um, duh.

Joe Hubbard's New Bass Track

Joe is a British bassist that studied with Jeff Berlin (I think), and played with Gary Neuman for many years. He just released a new tune on Soundcloud, so check it out. 

Adventues On Haskell Avenue by Joe Hubbard Bass

Free Album Download from FreekBass

Boots Collins protege Freekbass has made his latest album available for free on BandCamp.

On the one, baby.

http://freekbass.bandcamp.com/

Brian Beller On Bass

Mr. Beller has released a new live record and also recently posted his entire catalog up on Bandcamp.

Beller has played with some scary, scary, people in the past - Dwezil Zappa, Steve Vai, Mike Keneally (also on his new album) and probably a bunch of others who are equally terrifying.

If you like rock-y, (but not dumb) fusion-y, (yet not wanky at all) grooves that have gritty yet sophisticated bass playing, go check out his new album "Wednesday Night Live". It covers a lot of ground, has a high ridiculoso content and will keep you listening for a while.

Basso Approved!

http://bryanbeller.bandcamp.com/

Daily Licking 038: JB Blues Progression

Here is a jazz-ed up blues progression that Jeff Berlin uses in his book on chord tones.

There are two versions of the audio, one at a tempo ridiculoso of 200 bpm, and one at a human tempo of 120 bpm.

Same drill as before, these are mp3s that play 5 times through the progression (so 60 measures total), but they are loopable so if you play them in any app that allows looping (and is any good at it) it will keep going and going.

I use Quicktime player, it works great, its free, and it's already on your machine if you have a Mac.

Blues at 120 bpm

http://www.divshare.com/download/14491642-914

Blues at 200 bpm

http://www.divshare.com/download/14491643-cfd

There are some extra juicy chords in this progression, some might look a little strange if you are used to playing the standard 3-chord I-IV-V blues. There are a bunch of extra dominant chords for the turnaround, a couple diminished chords sprinkled here and there, and even a fancy little thing called a tri-tone sub.

This tri-tone sub character shows up in measure 4, it is that E7, right after the Bb7 and right before the Eb7.

Here is the idea behind this crazy thing - the most important notes (other than the root) of any chord are the third and the seventh, because those are the notes that give away what type of chord it is, either major, minor, dominant, whatever. So those notes matter the most and the rest are somewhat secondary. There are a lot of piano players that don't even play the root sometimes, they just leave it out.

Now for the wild part: these two different chords, the Bb7 and the E7 have exactly the same third and seventh, they are just switched!. So that means if one were sneaky one could actually use one in place of the other if one wanted to make things sound a little more interesting. Check it out.

If we were going to follow the "rules" we would put a Bb (and lets just go ahead and make it a dominant since this is a blues shall we?) in front of the Eb, so we would get Bb7 to Eb7, or V to I. And that is how measure 4 starts, with a Bb7. So far so good. But then comes this E7. Huh?

Since you are a chord spelling master, you can peer into this mystery to see what notes make up both of these two chords in measure 4, the Bb7 and the E7.

Bb7

1. Bb
   
2. D
   
3. F
   
4. Ab
   

E7

1. E
   
2. G#
   
3. B
   
4. D
   

Notice anything? The important notes, the third and the seventh of both chords are THE SAME, just inverted. No way. Ya-huh. The third of one is the seventh of the other and vice versa. Oh, they try and deny it by going all enharmonic, but Ab is the same thing as G# remember, so when we pierce their little web of lies what we have is:

Bb7

1. Bb - root
   
2. D - third
   
3. F - fifth
   
4. Ab (G#!) - seventh
   

E7

1. E - root
   
2. G#(Ab!) - third
   
3. B - fifth
   
4. D - seventh
   

This is a tri-tone sub, you take a chord a tri-tone away from the chord you want to substitute for because it has the same juicy important notes (third and seventh) as the original chord. E is a tri-tone, or a flatted fifth away from Bb, but they both have a G# (or an Ab) and a D in them so they can behave very very similarly, and if you want, you can use one in place of another.

Now instead of a measure of a single Bb7 chord, this progression does some ridiculoso extendo by adding that E7 after that Bb7 and now there are two different (but the same!) chords per measure and some additional choices are available for soloing instead of just have one chord per measure as a garden variety I-IV-V blues usually has.

So there ya go. The Tritone Substitution. This doesn't necessarily make the progression "better" or anything, it is just another way to add some interest to a blues.

Daily Licking 037: Playalong ii-v In All Keys

(fixed the link to the wrong mp3. Doh.)

Spent some time goofing around with GarageBand and the many minutes of hard work (not really), have resulted in a handy play along file that others may find some use for. Ya can't have too many ii-v's to practice. Use it to work up some of the ii-v licks posted previously, or your favorite lick from Pent-up House or just to practice soloing on, there are a million and one uses. Goes great on salads too.

The track is very very simple rhythmically, just whole notes, so you can really hear how any notes you play fit (or don't) against the chords. There is also no bass so you can add your own.

Here is a simple chart that shows the order of the progression. The mp3 is loopable so it will continuously repeat until you get the lick nailed. Click on the chart, save to disk, blah blah all that.

To loop the audio, just load the mp3 in Quicktime Player (free for mac and windows), and just select "Loop". Ta-da. Done. Then bust out your favorite ii-V-I lick and practice moving it through each key.

http://www.divshare.com/download/14480543-5e1

Some other things to do that are fun:

1. Play just the third of each chord as a whole note. Record yourself so you can hear what that sounds like. Then do the 5th, 7th, etc to hear what each note sounds like against each chord.
   
2. Run the arpeggio of each chord up and down.
   
3. Play other arpeggios against the chord, for instance on Dmin, try a F maj, or an Amin arpeggio, on the G7 try a Bmin7b5 and go up to the ninth. HA! Tricked ya, that is just the G7 starting on the third! But check it out, play around with stuff like that.
4. Start a scale on the third of each chord and go up in 8th notes. Try different scales (appropriate ones for each chord type). Where does the end of the scale leave you relative to the next chord? A nice juicy note?
   
5. Play different pentatonics against each chord, on Dmin7 try Amin, Emin, and even, wait for it, Bmin.
6. And of course, practice walking lines over the progressions. This is the most common progression there is in a lot of improvised music, so you can't ever go wrong trying different ways to connect these chords.
   

Enjoy. And if there are any other progressions y'all would like to see let me know, or if you would be interested in how to make your own, I could do a post on that as well. Ciao!

Daily Licking 033: Bridge and Last 8 of Bill Evans on Oleo

Without further ado, let us continue. We left our hero approaching the bridge to Oleo, with 8 full measures of nothing but dominant chords for him to smite and lay waste to. Let us witness the destruction that ensues!

I added the generic Rhythm Changes for the bridge, just so you can see how many altered notes he plays against the standard chords. Again, no nice little box patterns in this solo for bass, it is all about melodic shapes that don't come from Bass-land. Knock yourself out analyzing those notes against those bridge chords. For instance on the D7 he plays F naturals, A flats, D flats - its a free for all!

Daily Licking 025: McCoy Tyner's Full Blues Chorus Solo Phrase

Okay, still not recovered to handle another 12 measures of Coltrane tonight, so instead...McCoy Tyner.

McCoy is one of the last living old timers, between him and Sonny Rollins, they represent some of the last living links back to the early days of bop all that jazz has been through since then. The list of people McCoy has played with is like a history book of jazz - Coltrane, Brecker, Jones, Garrison, Henderson, Dorham, Blakey ... the list has all of 'em. How many albums has he been on? 100? 500? A heck of a lot. He even had Derek Trucks play on his last album, so he is just about making music of any kind, even now in his 70's.

I have been listening to Inception, McCoy's debut album as a leader, every day since I found it. He plays so many cool things on each tune every time through there is something new and awesome lurking around in there.

Case in point - the song "Blues For Gwen". It's just a blues right, every jazz album has one. What's the big deal. Well, check out the entire chorus below which is basically one crazy long complete phrase ridiculoso that McCoy just kinda rattles off like it was nothing as the eighth chorus he takes (at about 2:03). .

McCoy playing it at tempo (about 225 ish)

McCoy Speed for Bass

bass lick 4/4 swing 70 tempo 230 | Bb7 ab+ f g ab g e f g | ab f gb ab f db eb f | eb c d eb d bb a g | db+ b~ b db (a b) gb ab a | Eb7 ab+ f g ab g eb d c | db f db4 eb8 d db4 | Bb7 r8 d f c+ a bb [d- f g] | f gb a gb f eb db b | Cmin7 gb+ b bb gb e bb+ a g | F7 f e eb g d c f eb | Bb7 d bb g f bb4 bb4 | Bb7 r1 |

McCoy Half-Speed

Half Speed For Bass

bass lick 4/4 swing 50 tempo 112 | Bb7 ab+ f g ab g e f g | ab f gb ab f db eb f | eb c d eb d bb a g | db+ b~ b db (a b) gb ab a | Eb7 ab+ f g ab g eb d c | db f db4 eb8 d db4 | Bb7 r8 d f c+ a bb [d- f g] | f gb a gb f eb db b | Cmin7 gb+ b bb gb e bb+ a g | F7 f e eb g d c f eb | Bb7 d bb g f bb4 bb4 | Bb7 r1 |

You bust out a phrase like this on your next solo and watch the props you get. Wow.

You think it is gonna end, but it doesnt end, it just keeps going and then at the end it just parks itself with a "how do you like them apples, huh?" finality to it. A whole chorus as one phrase takes some big ears.

Bravo!

Jamerson and Marvin Gaye isolated tracks from Heard It Through The Grapevine

Here is a mix of just the vocals and the bass from "Heard It Through The Grapevine". There are a lot of these individual tracks floating around the internet these days. I combined just the vox and bass from a set of the 8 different I grabbed off the net that also included the drums, organ, and strings.

When you hear just the bass and the vocals together it is 4 minutes of solo ridiculoso of the highest order. That's some feel right there.


Download James Jamerson and Marvin Gaye - Grapevine