Archive for June 2009 - Page 6

Soft Machine bassist Hugh Hopper has passed away at the age of 64. Hugh was diagnosed with leukemia in 2008 and had been receiving treatment. Hopper was an innovative bassist with a distinctive fuzz-bass sound. He’s credited as one of the leaders in the prog-rock/jazz fusion movement that included Yes, King Crimson, Pink Floyd and others. Fans can sign the...

Fretted or Fretless? How about both? Check out Johnny Brown doing some fretted/fretless solo bass during the 2008 NAMM show in Anaheim, California. Tip of the hat to Danny Mac.

Abraham Laboriel is the man, and doesn’t seem to get the credit he deserves these days. Check out Abe in this live performance in Japan. Bonus points to anyone who knows the line-up/concert details. Just post in the comments.

This weekend’s Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl will include two days of great music and great bass players. Highlights include Dave Holland with his big band, Esperanza Spalding and John Patitucci with the Wayne Shorter Quartet. Here’s a more complete lineup: Saturday performances include Jimmy Cobb’s So What Band featuring Wallace Roney, Norman Brown’s Summer Storm 2009, The...

How often do you find yourself jumping from site to site for you favorite bands, trying to find out when they are on tour? SongKick makes it easy! It is a social-concert site dedicated to concert recommendations. You can import your Last.FM top 50 to track, post pictures from concerts you’ve attended, track specific bands, or track other people and...

Our new Twitter friend Alun Vaughan sent us this video featuring bassist Todd Johnson performing with Alun at a Bass Masterclass in Cardiff, Wales last year. For more, check out

The John Entwistle Bass Book is a new book featuring transcriptions of Entwistle’s amazing bass lines from 19 songs by The Who. Transcriptions are presented in standard notation, tabs, and chord symbols and detailed performance notes are included as well. The 127-page book also contains a section on Entwistle’s career, playing styles and equipment.

This is the first in a series of three lessons from my new online course Contemporary Techniques For Bass Guitar.  This lesson is an excerpt from my new book/DVD, Tapestry, which is scheduled for release in September. The song illustrated here is called Ebenella and was written by a good friend of mine, Rob Gourlay. These techniques are the same...

Holy smokes!

Kai Eckhardt and Blue Coast Records producer Cookie Marenco hit the studio last week and recorded Kai performing four new solo pieces. The duo used a new recording technique called E.S.E. (Extended Sound Environment), which “brings the Live performance to you in a holographic sound experience”. The team used five microphones and Kai played three of his instruments during the...

We’ve all heard about “chordal scales.” Chordal scales are useful; they contain the chord tones—we really need those!—and a set of neighbor and passing tones that will sound reasonably and reliably good. Chordal scales are emphasized in a lot of teaching methods. Are they the basis of what we need to know as bass players? Do we make our lines...

Today’s featured video showcases the work of Austrian bass player Robert Riegler, performing Ralph Thenner’s Passing Glance. Enjoy!