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Reader Spotlight: Carter Lee
Meet Carter Lee, a bassist who has covered a lot of ground – spanning Canada, Boston, NYC, Nashville and LA – and all focused around music. Carter is No Treble’s reader in the spotlight for the week of November 23rd, 2015. Here’s his story… Bio: I am a musician, husband, hockey fan and LA resident. I am originally from Canada...
Advanced Bass: The Tritone Substitution Matrix
When learning to play your bass, an overkill of theory can often paralyze your results while performing. Many musicians have learned the theory of Tritone Substitution, but when trying to apply this information, they often end up short-changed. In this bass lesson, we’ll cover a simple but direct concept for the immediate application for Tritone Substitution based on the presence...
Edgar Meyer and Victor Wooten: Webbed Feet
We’re celebrating Edgar Meyer’s birthday today with an awesome throwback bass duet with Victor Wooten. The pair has fun with Meyer’s original tune “Webbed Feet” in this 1991 clip from Kentucky Educational Television’s “The Lonesome Pine Specials”. Both bassists push their instruments to the limit while making musical jests over the light-hearted groove. “Webbed Feet” first appeared on Meyer’s 1987...
Unreleased Live Material from Weather Report’s Jaco Years Gets Release
Jaco Pastorius and Weather Report fans have an early present this holiday season — Weather Report –The Legendary Live Tapes: 1978-1981. The previously unreleased tapes, sourced from the jazz-rock-fusion band’s soundboard recordings and from bootleg recordings, are arranged so that they reflect key performances, rather than the band’s typical set lists of the era, which featured the late Pastorius’ revelatory...
Tool and Primus Announce Winter Tour
In what promises to be one of the most anticipated tours of 2016, Tool and Primus are teaming up for a set of tour dates in January. The 8-date trek is a rare outing for Tool, who have seldom played more than 20 shows in a single year since 2007. Kicking off on January 9th in San Diego, the tour...
Bass of the Week: Lea Bass Guitars Dumpster Bass
As they say, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. That’s why luthier Scott Sterling of Lea Bass Guitars decided to create the Dumpster bass. Although the bass has a fine fit and finish, the components didn’t start out that way. “This bass started out as an ‘upcycled’ experiment in tonality – all the wood is from dumpsters in my...
Vulfpeck: 1612 (Live)
Back in 2011, we shared a Vulfpeck video for the first time. We became instant fans, as did many of No Treble’s readers. Over the years, we’ve watched the band do more and more – releasing EP’s each year, followed by the genius move of Sleepify, and finally to the release of their . But nothing was more thrilling than...
Jesper Lundgaard Live Record Released
Danish jazz bassist and composer Jesper Lundgaard celebrated his 60th birthday in 2014 by performing with Italian pianist Enrico Pieranunzi and Danish drummer Alex Riel. Their performance at the Jazzhus Montmartre, Copenhagen, which focused on the American songbook, is now available as the record, 60 Out of Shape. Here’s the trio’s interpretation of “All the Things You Are”: 60 Out...
Weekly Top 10: James Jamerson, New Ariane Cap Lesson Series, New Bass Gear, Top Videos and More
Welcome to our weekly installment of the reader favorite edition of No Treble. Here are the top 10 stories, columns, lessons, videos and more. Thanks as always for reading, watching, commenting and sharing. 1. Martha Reeves with James Jamerson: Live on Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert 1974 There’s not a whole lot of live footage of the late, great James Jamerson,...
Maddie Jay & The pH Collective: No Going Back
Maddie Jay has released her second track with the The pH Collective – one she describes as “some good ol’ fashioned new age acid jazz.” The tune is “No Going Back,” which was written by Maddie with arrangements by the band. This one grooves.
Bassist Pens Book on Extending Past the Root
Ben Hands, bassist for the British progressive metal band Endeavour and onetime No Treble Reader Spotlight subject, has released an e-book on bass playing. Beyond The Root: A guide on how to approach chord inversions for bass players is designed to help players extend their harmonic vocabulary and discover more options when creating bass lines. The books uses examples from...
Seymour Duncan Releases The Apollo Jazz Bass Linear Humbucker Pickup
Seymour Duncan has added to their line of bass pickups with the Apollo Jazz Bass Linear Humbucker. The new model employs two coils that sit next to each other under a standard single-coil-sized cover. Duncan’s head of R&D Kevin Beller designed the pickups to get a warm, traditional sound with modern attributes to clean up the sound. “I’ve been playing...