Archive for 2012 - Page 30

The Wood Brothers have released the second installment of their live set with the release of Live, Volume 2: Nail & Tooth. The duo recorded the live sets during their 20-date U.S. tour, featuring covers from some of their biggest influences, including songs by Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Allen Toussaint. Bassist Chris Wood, who also handles vocals and harmonica and...

The Shuker Singlecut Elite is one beautiful instrument. Built by luthier Jon Shuker in the UK, the bass is highly customizable with options running from number of strings to top wood to construction type. Standard features include a 7-piece laminated neck made of maple, wenge, and padauk, a walnut body core, and a fingerboard of either Rio Rosewood, ebony, or...

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” might be a familiar phrase to most of us, but Victor Wooten has evidently never heard of it. Or, if he has, he’s never heeded its advice. With his ground-breaking A Show Of Hands CD, Wooten launched himself into the limelight of the bass community (and the greater music community too), proving himself...

Alistair Lasken sent in this video of Peter Kastner playing a funky version of the jazz standard “Nardis.” Peter has a simple drum track to accompany him and his Rob Allen MB-2 fretless bass. (Check out our Bass of the Week feature on the MB-2.)

Contemporary jazz quartet Fourplay have released their thirteenth album, entitled Esprit De Four. Originally formed in 1991, the band currently consists of bassist Nathan East, drummer Harvey Mason, keyboardist Bob James and guitarist Chuck Loeb. This is Loeb’s second recording with Fourplay and the band is taking advantage of the new direction. “In the songwriting and recording process, we were...

Led Zeppelin has confirmed the release of Celebration Day, a film of the one-off reunion concert they performed at London’s O2 Arena in 2007. The film will be shown in theaters worldwide October 17th with CD, DVD, Blu-ray and LP formats and hitting shelves on November 19th. Anchored by bassist John Paul Jones, the band reunited for the concert to...

Q: I do regular cover gigs, but I also play with a few original artists and I’m worried about them conflicting. I was wondering how you balance your “work” gigs with your “fun” gigs? A: I have touched on this in previous columns, but this is a topic worthy of its own dedicated discussion. For starters, this is a subjective...

Here’s an incredibly energetic duet by Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen and pianist Tania Maria. NHØP is in his usual top-notch form with ridiculous speed and agility. Check out his masterful right hand technique at the 2:12 mark, and then be ready to want to practice.

Megadeth has announced a 20th anniversary edition of their seminal album Countdown to Extinction, which will be released October 16th in a box set as well as in digital format. The two-disc lift-top box set will contain a remastered version of the album as well as a previously unreleased 1992 concert recorded live at the Cow Palace in San Francisco,...

Josh Townsend is a bassist with one very cool nickname (“Bass Mountain”). Josh, like many others in the spotlight here, has awesome parents who helped him get his start in music at an early age. But it wasn’t until his high school years did he discover the bass, and that – as is also the case with many – was...

Last time, we kicked off a bass line construction series of lessons with a study in improvising on some funk in the key of C. This time around, we’re focusing on some new phrasing ideas for the trusty old minor pentatonic scale. In this case, we’re using the A minor pentatonic scale: A, C, D, E, G The exercise covers...

It’s a very rainy day here today, and this tune seems to fit perfectly. Of course, any time we feature Avishai Cohen is a good day to us. Here’s Avishai with his trio, performing the tune “Remembering”. Avishai really starts getting down around the 2:25 mark!