Archive for 2013 - Page 53

The National Endowment for the Arts has announced the 2014 NEA Jazz Masters, which is the nation’s highest honor in jazz. Among the four recipients this year is bassist Richard Davis, who they will be honoring for his “lifetime achievements and exceptional contributions to the advancement of jazz.” Born April 15th, 1930, Davis began singing with his family vocal trio...

Tapestry Audio has introduced the Time Traveler, an auxiliary BPM synchronization pedal that syncs up a pedalboard’s time-based effects. The utility pedal sends out preprogrammed BPM presets to any pedal that has an external tap tempo jack, allowing for all of the external effects’ beats per minute to be unified. The Time Traveler has two outputs and offers up to...

Lessons and how-to columns are among the most popular features on No Treble. Here are the best of the best for June, based on readership. Looks like the bass community is getting things done! As always, thanks for reading, commenting and sharing. 1. Chord Construction: A Guide for Bassists Damian tackles this reader question in this Ask Damian Erskine column:...

Steve Lawson shared this one with us on Twitter saying, “[I] think you might enjoy this solo bass cover…” Well Steve, your hunch was correct.

Artisan Bass Works looks at things from a different angle. The Ohio-based company licenses ANSIR Technology, which is a patented neck design that puts the fretboard into a more natural playing position. ABW puts the design to use on their Classic Series to add their own touch to common bass styles. The Artisan Bass Works Classic basses are available in...

Olivier Babaz continues to amaze me with each video he puts out. His specialty is playing upright bass and kalimba simultaneously, and this time he’s putting the combo to use on The Police’s “Message in a Bottle.” Impressive!

Three months after beginning an open audition to fill the shoes of longtime member Adam Duce, Machine Head has announced their new bassist is Jared MacEachern. MacEachern has a history with the band, as his previous group Sanctity toured with Machine Head in 2007, during which time the bassist filled in harmony vocals after Duce was injured. His bass playing...

Q: I play with the Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots (Arlington, VA). The only founding member of the band who’s been with the band longer than I have has just decided to call it quits. He was responsible for the riffs on our first album, which is also still under production. Now while I am the band’s primary vocalist/bassist/songwriter, he...

A few months ago, Marta Altesa impressed us with her play-along to Jamiroquai’s “Time Won’t Wait”. We just heard from another impressive young bassist, Poliana Magalhães, who shared some of her videos with us. This play-along to Jamiroquai’s “Runaway” is a lot of fun. Poliana said, “I tried not play like the original song. It’s just a simple version.” Whatever...

Meet Luke Boismier, a multi-instrumentalist who seems laser focused on one thing: music. When I read the first sentence of Luke’s reader spotlight entry, I knew we had to pick him for this week’s feature. As I read more, I was even more convinced. Luke is No Treble’s reader in the spotlight for the week of June 24, 2013. Bio:...

Our Facebook friend Cuzin’ Locust Johnson (AKA Mark) shares some old school goodness with us – his 1973 Acoustic Control Black Widow Bass. Acoustic Control Corporation’s Black Widow bass began in 1972, along with a guitar model of the same name. This was the company’s first and only guitar and bass model, according to the All The Transients guide to...

When I started to get into bass playing about nine years ago, Victor Wooten was the guy I was looking up to and learning the most from. Judging by the playing of John Oz (AKA “Jomyloon”), I’d say that this might also be the case with him. The Victor influence is definitely there, and that’s not a bad thing. Check...