Archive for September 2015 - Page 7

Acid jazz band Incognito celebrated its 35th anniversary with a 2014 performance in London at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire. That show is now available on record as Live In London — 35th Anniversary Show. Featuring the tremendous Francis Hylton (Afro Celt Sound System, Gianna Nannini) on bass, the two-disc set ranges across the band’s long history and includes favorites...

Dwarfcraft’s new Paraloop is a utility pedal designed for adding flexibility to your signal chain. The stompbox features two effects loops that are “normally closed,” which the company explains as meaning a buffered clean signal comes through each. It has a single Send level knob that allows for boosting each loop or – if both loops are empty – acting...

Emre Kayaalp reached out to me with one beauty of a bass – his recently acquired 1969 Gibson Les Paul. According to the Wikipedia artcile on the instrument, the Gibson Les Paul bass “is a bass guitar first manufactured by Gibson in 1969, just after the relaunch of the Les Paul guitar in 1968.” That bass didn’t sell well, and...

Sometimes it’s not the notes you play, it’s how you play them. Kate Davis proves that point in this beautiful duet with guitarist Rob Moose on her song “Keep An Open Heart,” filmed for the One On One Sessions at City Winery in New York City. Davis keeps a simple beat with roots and fifths while playing up on the...

The personnel of Brand X ebbed and flowed over the years for the jazz fusion band. Famed drummer and vocalist Phil Collins was often a member, and one of the more stalwart presences in the both the band’s mid-1970s-to-1980 and 1992-99 incarnations was bassist Percy Jones (Tunnels, ex-Soft Machine) who appears on a new Official Bootleg Series Release, Brand X:...

Q: I’ve been getting my walking together and have started to become comfortable and natural sounding playing perfectly functional harmonic lines through changes that highlight the harmony well. It’s all just basically chord tones and scalar patterns with occasional chromatic approaches. In sum, I think I’ve passed walking 101 and am ready to move on. When I listen to and...

Andrew Gouche recently posted a set of videos from his time playing with Chaka Khan. “I’m very proud of my time as Musical Director with CK, We had a great team!,” Gouche wrote. Here’s a great clip of the bassist laying it down with Khan on the Rufus song “Stay,” live in 2011. Gouche sets up the groove with a...

Prolific bass and guitar transcriptionist Steve Gorenberg (he’s written transcriptions of work by Iron Maiden, Boston, The Rolling Stones, Queen and more) also uses his talents for a different kind of instruction — warm-up exercises. His book, Warm-Up Exercises for Bass Guitar, provides players with a slew of stretches, coordination exercises, pentatonic scales, major and minor scales, and arpeggios. The...

Meet Charles Berthoud, a bassist living in Boston – by way of London – who is now graduating from Berklee and ready for the next step in his musical journey. Here’s his story… Bio: I am originally from London, England, and now, about to graduate from Berklee College of Music, I am on the brink of beginning my career as...

If you love the bass, you’re going to really love this collection of videos. These are the top 10 most watched videos by No Treble readers in August. Enjoy! 1. Herbie Hancock with Tal Wilkenfeld: Actual Proof Herbie Hancock has never been short on great bassists to play with over his career. Here’s a killer clip of his band being...

No Treble reader Bruno Dumant sent me this video recently of Cuibul performing a tune called “Ne Vom Topi.” “I particularly dig the tone of the ABG the bassist uses, very warm, very different from a double bass tone,” Bruno said of this acoustic session. We loved the tune, and the bass work by Andrei Boico.

Thrash metal band Anthrax, known to many for its early songs like “Bring the Noise” and “I’m the Man,” is still playing (a followup to 2011’s Worship Music is expected later this year or in 2016) and plans to hit the road this fall. With Frank Bello on bass — he’s been handling the low end since 1984, with the...