Archive for September 2012 - Page 5

All the best of the best in bass (which is already great to begin with)… Here are the top 10 stories, lessons and videos for No Treble for the week of September 9-15, 2012. 1. Esperanza Spalding with The Roots: Live Performance of Weather Report’s “Predator” My friend Marsha was telling me about Esperanza Spalding performing a Weather Report tune,...

The Stooges are back to making new music, says bassist Mike Watt. The band, which hasn’t released any new material since 2007’s The Weirdness, is still in the very formative stages of writing. “I’ll tell you this: James Williamson a few months ago had me put bass on nine songs that he gave to Ig [Iggy Pop] and Ig is...

Philadelphia soul groups always hit the spot with me, so when Ted “Blyss” Gould, sent in his all bass cover of “People Make the World Go Round” by the Stylistics, I was sold. Enlisting the help of drummer Dante “Taz” Roberson, Blyss shows up in triplicate in the video playing the bass line, melody, and the chords. His axes are...

Tony Levin has released an iPad app version of his book Crimson Chronicles: The 80’s, which documents his time with the legendary prog rock band King Crimson through pictures. Levin, who is also an avid photographer, includes hundreds of photos from his collection to show what life in the band and on the road was like. Beyond the photos from...

Bassist/educator and Youtube bass phenom Thomas “MarloweDK” Risell has taken his excellent how-to approach to DVD with the release of Beginning Slap Bass DVD with MarloweDK. (MarloweDK is also a No Treble contributor). The DVD includes 25 slap bass licks and exercises, complete with onscreen notation and tab, close ups and slow motion video. Each lesson starts at full tempo,...

I spent some time working out the bass line to Vulpeck’s awesome “It Gets Funkier”, which of course was recorded by the excellent Joe Dart. Which led me to search for more stuff by Joe. Which brought me to this awesomeness: a bass duet of the Barney Miller theme. Joe is joined by Jack Stratton, who stepped away from the...

Steve Lawson has released Invenzioni, the first of three albums with guitarist Mike Outram. Recorded in 2010, the album was the first time the duo had ever played together, though the music would suggest otherwise. “We’d never played together, we just set up our stuff and started playing,” said Outram. “What you hear is two people playing music together for...

Like many other bass players, I’ve traveled a long and winding road before discovering my passion for the instrument. A few years of piano lessons, three months of playing the flute, and a handful of years in the school band’s percussion section were just a few of my “trial and error” experiences before making the right connection with the bass....

Here’s another mind-blowing video by Italian bassist Serino Gianni, who takes a stab at Bach’s world of counterpoint with a composition for two basses. Gianni plays each part on separate sides of the screen with incredible precision and musicality. This one takes a few views, because you’ll be looking back and forth at the different parts as they go by.

While Van Halen’s tour is on hold, due to Eddie Van Halen’s emergency surgery, Wolfgang Van Halen is going to be staying busy. The bassist is joining Creed and Alter Bridge guitarist Mark Tremonti on tour. Tremonti is touring in support of his solo effort, All I Was, and had planned to tour with bassist Brian Marshall. Marshall plays with...

This week we take a look at the Citron AE4 and AE5 Swallow Basses built by luthier Harvey Citron in collaboration with jazz legend Steve Swallow. Citron first presented Swallow with one of his acoustic/electric basses, and their work went from there. It was Steve’s perfectionism that pushed the bass builder to invent a new bridge. “Working with Steve has...

Nathan East’s prolific playing has graced so many albums, it would probably be easier to list who he hasn’t work with rather than who he has. The Philadelphia-born, San Diego-raised bassist picked up his first 4-string at 14 after studying cello in school and went on to be one of the world’s most in-demand session players. He’s been called on...