Articles by Kevin Johnson - Page 734

Today is bass legend Ron Carter’s birthday, and we’d be remiss if we didn’t celebrate with some of his incredible playing. Here’s the bassist’s Golden Striker Trio, featuring pianist Mulgrew Miller and guitarist Russel Malone playing their namesake tune, originally performed by the Modern Jazz Quartet. Happy Birthday Ron Carter!

After 20 years of work making and repairing stringed instruments, Meaulnes Laberge formed ML Basses to focus on building electric basses. One of his striking instruments is the Volcan, an edgy yet elegant design available in 4- and 5-string configurations. Featuring bolt-on construction, the Volcan is built with a light maple body, three-piece maple neck and an Indian rosewood fingerboard....

Fender has introduced the 2012 line of Pawn Shop guitars, which they claim are inspired by their eccentric creations from the ’60s and ’70s and are “guitars that never were, but should have been.” Included in that lineup is the Fender Pawn Shop Reverse Jaguar Bass, an instrument that takes their classic design and flips the body as well as...

NOFX has released 126 Inches of NOFX, a special box set containing 18 of the band’s classic 7? vinyls. Containing 82 songs, the collection is filled with limited and formerly out of print titles as well as previously unreleased material. The box set is limited to 1,792 copies, and all of the vinyl will be colored gold. The band, fronted...

Solo bassist Simon Little has released his third album, [un]plugged. Taking a step in a new direction, Little recorded the album on an acoustic bass guitar. “The entire album features my new Breedlove acoustic bass with minimal effects from my Line 6 Pod X3 Pro and Lexicon MPX G2,” the bassist explains. “Each track is a live solo improvisation using...

Warwick has added to their Rockbass Alien Deluxe line this year with a new 6-string model. The acoustic bass shares many features with its predecessors, including a laminated spruce top with laminated bubinga for the back and sides, and a mahogany neck with a rosewood fingerboard. The 6-string instrument departs from the 4- and 5-string models by utilizing Fishman’s Prefix...

Bassist Uriah Duffy sent us a video of his latest group, Points North, rocking out on their tune “High Wire.” Between the blazing unison riffs and Uriah’s snarling slap bass, this is a project we’ll be keeping an eye on.

Höfner has expanded their Ignition series with a new version of their Club Bass. First introduced in 1965, the Club Bass is is a hollow body, single-cut design, and the new Ignition model provides a cost-effective version for vintage bass lovers. Available in right and left-hand models, the bass has flame maple sides and a spruce top with a sunburst...

You may remember Johan Hansén-Larson from his unbelievable note-for-note performance of Cannonball Adderly’s solo on “Minority”. The bassist sent us a video of one of his current projects with trombonist Kristian Persson. Besides laying down some really nasty grooves, Hansén-Larson gets some time to shine in a bass solo starting at the two minute mark.

Epiphone has announced a new, limited edition of the Jack Casady Signature Bass in a rare Silverburst finish. Limited to 500 instruments, the semi-hollowbody bass is built with set-neck construction with a mahogany neck and laminated maple top, back and sides for the body. Designed by Casady in collaboration with Epiphone, the bass sports a low-impedance JCB-1 humbucker. “I went...

There are so many players I get inspired by, but whenever someone asks me who my favorite bass player is, I always say “Ray Brown”. His groove, technique, melodicism, and swagger always captivates me, so I was pumped to find this clip of him featured with Dizzy Gillespie’s Orchestra in 1947. At a mere 21 years of age, you can...

Nearly nine months after parting ways with Michael Todd, Coheed and Cambria have announced Zach Cooper as their new full-time bassist. Cooper, who played with AM to AM, got a cold call to audition from the band’s manager. The group made the announcement with a YouTube video introducing him. Coheed and Cambria is currently in the studio working on the...