Archive for August 2009 - Page 2

Here’s Charles Mingus, playing one of his greatest tunes, “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat”. This performance took place live at Montreux 1975, with Don Pullen on piano, George Adams on tenor sax, Gerry Mulligan on baritone sax, Benny Bailey on trumpet, and Danny Richmond on drums.

Chicago-based jazz group, Klang, has just released Tea Music on the Allos Documents label. Originally formed as an improvised music series in 2006 that didn’t sustain, the band lived on. Klang was started by clarinetist James Falzone and features vibraphoist Jason Adasiewicz, bassist Jason Roebke and drummer Tim Daisy. If you are not familiar with Roebke, he should be on...

Bassist Charlie Haden celebrates his 72nd birthday this month. After a lifetime of music (he’s been recording over 50 years!) KPLU’s Nick Morrison has compiled a top 5 list of songs which best describe Haden. Morrison describes Haden as building his own musical highway rather than running a set path: “To follow him down that freeway is one of the...

We posted a player-watch piece on bassist Catalin Rotaru in July. Catalin has been gracious enough to share his insight into the double bass and his career as a professional classical performer and educator. In case you missed our last post, he served as associate principal bass in the Romanian National Radio Orchestra, principal bass in the Sibiu Philharmonic Orchestra,...

It’s been a while since we featured a Les Claypool video… too long in fact. So, here’s one of Les and Master of Puppets at Bonnaroo in 2008. His bandmates include MIRV, Sam Bass, and Paulo Baldi.

Bassist Larry Knechtel has passed away. Knechtel died August 20th at Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital in Yakima, Washington, at the age of 69. There is no official report for the cause of death, but it is believed he suffered a heart attack. Knechtel had a long music career as a player and studio musician. He was a member of the...

After their latest national tour “What Happens in Vegas” as a headliner, bassist and original member Cash Colligan has decided to leave The Cab. The Cab have been doing well, they were signed to Decaydence Records in May 2007 and released their debut full-length Whisper War in April 2008. The Cab has released the following statement on their MySpace Blog:...

Q: How do you approach the line between creating an interesting melody while soloing as opposed to playing chord tones and notes that harmonize better. I suppose the two blur into one really but is there a point where you worry less about the changes and more about finding an interesting melody to fit over the top and vice versa....

Goatika Lab – comprised of Tony Levin on bass, Artem Yakushenko on electric violin and mandolin, Sergey Klevenski on winds, Boris Nazarov on percussion programming and special effects, Pavel Mikhailuk on didgeridoo and vocals, Jagannat on tabla, Evgenia Tedjetova on vocals and Jovis Bubrowski on didgeridoo – performed live at the Moscow B2 Club in 2007. This video captures one...

The New RockStar Philosophy Book, a new music business book, is now available for free download. The book is the creation of two authors working as The New Rockstar Philosophy, started to “help artists learn more about what’s going on in the ever-changing music industry, to inspire them to embrace entrepreneurship, and give them them the tools for DIY 2.0”....

EBS has released another new pedal, the EBS MetalDrive is a high-gain distortion pedal designed specifically for the bass. The MetalDrive is the eighth pedal in the “Black Label” series released by EBS. The pedal was inspired by bassist John Moyer of Disturbed. EBS had been modifying a MultiDrive pedal for Moyer who required overdrive as well as metal distortion....

Meet bassist Adam Tanner (aka ZenBeer), our player in the spotlight for August 25, 2009. Bio: I mostly play solo (ZenBeer). I have three solo CD’s out with ItsAboutMusic: The Cosmic Trigger EP, Grand Unified Chaos and, most recently, Bass, The Universe and Everything. It’s all bass, all the time! I played at the Denver Bass Bash in 2009 and...