Archive for 2011 - Page 31

Jazz bassist Christian McBride has hit another milestone in his career with the release of The Good Feeling, his first full big band recording as a leader. The 11-track album features large ensemble arrangements of his own songs as well as jazz standards like “Broadway,” “The More I See You” and “A Taste of Honey.” McBride first got a taste...

Meet Blackie Dawson, a 18-year veteran of the low end, and our bassist in the spotlight for September 27, 2011. Bio: I have been playing bass since I was 19 years old. I spent many years just playing along to Iron Maiden, early Metallica, Black Sabbath and Dead Kennedys tapes and CDs. In 2007, I started playing bass in my...

M Basses has announced the Elite line of basses, stepping up from their Mj designs with more options while retaining the classic style. Available with Alder, Ash, or Mahogany bodies topped with your choice of figured wood. The maple necks feature Indian rosewood or maple fingerboards. The basses are passive and come standard with Nordstrand NJ4 single coil J-style pickups...

Do you play electric, upright or both? Tell us about it in the comments, or on our Facebook page.

More previously unreleased Jaco Pastorius gold: a live performance of “Birdland”, performed by Weather Report in Pennsylvania in 1978. Drummer Peter Erskine’s father Dr. Fred Erskine filmed the concerts in both Reading and Washington, Pennsylvania. Peter shared with Rick Suchow, “The sound came direct from the front-of-house mix board, engineered by Brian Risner, and my dad was using an old...

Chickenfoot has released their second album, ironically entitled III. The group consists of bassist Michael Anthony, singer Sammy Hagar, guitarist Joe Satriani and drummer Kenny Aronoff, who replaces Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers while they go on tour. Anthony, who is a former member of Van Halen, says the new album has a lot more meat. “It’s...

Planet Waves has released the NS Mini-Headstock Tuner, designed in cooperation with Ned Steinberger. The discrete tuner has a ratcheting clip to fit to your headstock and a 360 degree swivel for easy adjustments. Instead of a microphone or cables, the NS Mini Tuner utilizes a piezo transducer to detect pitch and displays the reading on a multi-color display. Red...

To our regular readers, the name Zander Zon is a familiar one. The unique bassist has had many of his piccolo bass and altered tuning performances featured here, as well as his album, Sonorous. Bassline Publishing has just released a transcription book featuring tunes from Zander’s album, Zander Zon – Sonorous Bass Transcriptions. The book contains full transcriptions for every...

Bassist Ariane Cap plays a duet (with herself) dubbed “Bach Me Up”. Ariane performs this on her 6 string Marleaux Consat.

Bass, bass and more bass! Last week, we saw it all in the world of gear from the crazy snowboard bass to Blast Cult’s new line of basses – including one unique Miles Mosley model, complete with chalkboard paint. Plus, our bass of the week, the stunning Xylem 5-String Black Limba. No Treble readers enjoyed some of our favorite videos...

Fender has released the Classic Series ’70s Precision Bass, paying homage to the P-bass of yesteryear. Made in Japan, the basses include era-specific features like the bass-side thumbrest, the ’70s-style large headstock logo and a bound neck with block inlays. The bass has an alder body with a C-shaped maple neck and fretboard, which has a 9.5″ radius and 20...

Hal Leonard has published an updated edition of Steve Gordon’s The Future of the Music Business guide. This third edition is designed to teach musicians on how to succeed in the music business, using new digital technologies, from selling music online to marketing on the social web, raising money for recording projects, creating hit songs in the digital age and...