Archive for August 2009 - Page 7

Bireli Lagrene, known for his guitar playing, can apparently lay down a mean Jaco Pastorius-style groove on bass too. Bireli obviously picked up a few pointers while touring with Jaco in the 80s. Or, as Jaco would say, “I know where I stole every note!”

Nick Oliveri, former bassist for Queens of the Stone Age, will be releasing his solo debut Death Acoustic October 6th, 2009. You may also know Oliveri from the bands Kyuss, The Dwarves and Mondo Generator. Oliveri has spent the last year in this home studio creating this album, featuring 10 tracks in total. Death Acoustic‘s track list includes: 1. Start...

Q: How many hours a day do you practice? Do you have any practice tips? A: Admittedly, I don’t practice as much as I’d like these days. I’m married, with dogs that need walking and a mortgage and am very busy playing bass for many different people (which requires a lot of shedding of it’s own kind. Transcribing or memorizing...

Today’s featured video shows off the skills of bassist Matt Bissonette. In this clip, Matt takes a solo break on his fretless, during the 2002 Joe Satriani Strange Beautiful Music Tour in The Netherlands. You can definitely hear a Jaco influence toward the end of the solo, but with a nice twist.

Bassist Stanley Clarke is rejoining Chick Corea and Lenny White for a world tour, starting September 2, 2009. The first show, at the Hollywood Bowl, will also feature Chaka Khan, Jean Luc Ponty and original Return to Forever guitarist Bill Connors! Connors’s appearance with the trio will mark the first Return To Forever reunion with the original members (the last...

Our own Damian Erskine has been quietly working with Pete Skjold for over a year on his own signature bass, and now the details are out. Damian was looking for a 6-string model, though the bass will be highly customizable and available in 4,5,6,7,”whatever” string configurations. Other features of the bass: Extremely deep cutaway for 100% un-hindered access to the...

This lesson is derived from Jon Burr’s The Untold Secret to Melodic Bass. Be sure to check out the complete method book in downloadable PDF, Kindle Book and the all-new paperback formats. This is the final chapter of “The Untold Secret.” We’ll be continuing the column by posting excerpts from “Another Look at Melodic Construction” beginning next week. As chord...

Here is a video of Victor Wooten performing a solo of “The Lesson” from his album Palmystery, released in April, 2008. “It doesn’t matter how you go about writing songs,” says Victor. “The music is coming from somewhere. If we think it’s our brain, or some strictly intellectual source, I would say we’re mistaken. Sometimes the songs show up quickly,...

In case you missed it, here are some of the most popular features from last week (August 2nd through 8th). In lessons, Jon Burr’s Untold Secret to Melodic Bass lesson series continues, with Rhythmic Overlays – Accents over the substrate. In Player Watch, we took a look at Alberto Rigoni and his CD, Something Different. Damian Erskine answers a reader’s...

Muse is preparing for the release for their newest album, The Resistance, on the Warner Bros label, to be available September 15th. Bassist Chris Wolstenholme gives his thoughts on TripleJ radio about the new album, the secret codes, involving the fans and the massive scale of some of the songs. You can get a first look at their single “Uprising”...

GuitarGuard has released a new product to help you keep your cables organized on your instrument: the Neverkind Cable Clip. NeverKink CableClip allows for secure control of your guitar and bass cables — on stage or off — at a suggested retail price of under $3.00. You can even get your band’s name or logo imprinted on the device. The...

A blast from the recent past, this is a stellar Christian McBride upright bass solo on the Ornette Coleman tune “Turnaround”. Christian is joined by Joshua Redman, Pat Metheny and Brian Blade.