Archive for 2014 - Page 63

Three jazz greats — Jamie Saft, Steve Swallow and Bobby Previte — prove that excellent music doesn’t always take long to make. The trio’s first record, , was recorded in about three hours in an upstate New York studio. Saft, who composed seven of the record’s 10 tracks, had high praise for bassist Swallow, who has played with Gary Burton,...

The last week of May closed the month with a bang (or a boom) in the world of bass. Our top 10 list this week kicks off with two monster videos, along with some great bass how-to’s, some new bass method and transcription books, the Bass of the Week and more. Here is your top 10 for the week of...

Molten Voltage has released The Tempode, a MIDI clock generator pedal for synchronizing up your MIDI-capable pedals to a single device. The Tempode can be used as a stand-alone device but is also compatible with all MIDI controllers. Built for simplicity, the pedal has MIDI in and out jacks and a pair of footswitches to start the clock or tap...

If you’ve listened to Live in Italy, with Jaco Pastorius, Bireli Lagrene, and Tomas Böröcz, you’ve heard one killer version of Jaco’s “Teen Town”. Now you can see a video of the trio performing the tune (with some other tunes/jams thrown in) live in 1986. Thank goodness we’re past the era of video tapes (and thank goodness they were around...

The 11th studio album from moe., , was supposed to have a completely different sound than the finished product. “Everything we started out to do turned into completely something else. An album that was supposed to be an acoustic based album recorded in a barn turned into a hard rock album recorded in Connecticut with a hip-hop producer. Go figure....

Hard to believe another month is coming to an end. But the good news is that it means we have a top 10 list of the most popular gear stories for the month. Thanks as always for reading, commenting and sharing. 1. Gibson Memory Cable With Built-In Recorder Gibson has unveiled a new development in the world of instrument cables...

Sometimes the path to music discovery is a long and winding one. I recently heard about Soul of America – a documentary focusing on singer Charles Bradley. I haven’t seen it yet, but I did start checking out music by the singer. One of the tunes was “The World (Is Going Up In Flames)” from the album, No Time for...

A new book features just about everything you need to play bass just like Paul McCartney on some of his most well-known songs. includes standard notation, the tab and a CD revealing how the bass should sound as well as the backing tracks to play along with. The melody and lyrics are also included for those who want to sing...

Rotosound has upgraded their Tru Bass RS88LD Black Nylon bass strings with a new computer controlled engineering process in their UK factory. The company says that the process, along with finishing by their craftsmen, add to the strings’ lifespan and playability. Rotosound describes the tone as “double bass-like.” The Tru Bass 88 was originally designed by James How for Jim...

Time for a new video by the guys we like to call The Dynamic Duo. This time around, bassist Evan Marien and drummer Dana Hawkins are doing their thing the tune “Encore”, a bonus track on the duo’s . Amazing, as always.

Sludge metal band Crowbar has released its 10th studio album, . It’s the New Orleans-based group’s first since 2011’s Sever the Wicked Hand and its first with bassist Jeff Golden, who replaced longtime bassist Pat Bruders after Bruders left to concentrate on work with Down. The album also comes during Crowbar’s 25th anniversary year. But although the guys are older,...

Back at the Winter NAMM show this year, we ran into our friend Vuyani Wakaba roaming the floor with a smile from ear to ear. He was overjoyed by his new HJC Customs Fretless Alchemy 5, which is this week’s Bass of the Week. Wakaba teamed up with luthier Harold J. Cagle for the custom creation. It features an African...