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Tal Wilkenfeld Embarks on Fall Tour
Tal Wilkenfeld will be hitting the road this fall for a tour that will take her up the West Coast. Starting at Phoenix, Arizona’s Musical Instrument Museum, the trek will snake up California before heading through Oregon and Washington. Wilkenfeld and her band will wrap up on October 13th at the Biltmore in Vancouver, British Columbia. Part of the tour...
Nordstrand Pickups Announces Big J-Blades
Nordstrand Pickups has announced the Big J-Blade, a jazz-style single coil pickup that’s built with a continuous sensing blade. The new model will come in two versions with different winds to provide two unique tones. “One wind provides a ‘warm and wooly’ tone, while an alternate wind provides a ‘clean and clear’ tone,” the company writes. “Plus, as proven by...
Metallica: Moth Into Flame
Metallica has given another preview of their upcoming album Hardwired… to Self-Destruct, due out November 18th. Similar to “Hardwired“, “Moth Into Flame” is another thrasher anchored by bassist Robert Trujillo, who also handles backup vocals. Trujillo recently said that the albums sounds crushing. “Sound-wise, it’s got a lot of firepower,” he said. “I’m excited about the songs, but I’m also...
No Treble Founder Featured on Contrabass Conversations Podcast
Ever wonder how No Treble came to be? Founder Corey Brown shared the details in the latest episode of the Contrabass Conversations podcast, hosted by Jason Heath. Starting with his beginnings in music, Corey chronicles his journeys with the bass and the web. Get the scoop on his work with the Jaco Pastorius website, No Treble, and more by listening...
Steve Harris’ British Lion Announces European Tour and Live Album
Iron Maiden bassist Steve Harris is taking his band British Lion on a European tour throughout November and December. The trek, which is their most extensive outing to date, will focus on the club circuit while visiting countries they’ve yet to play. It will also include new music from the band. “It’s been great fun taking British Lion out on...
Preparing for a College Bass Audition
Q: I am thinking about entering a music program when I get to college. How should I prepare for playing bass in a college program? What will I need to know? How good do I need to be? A: Whenever I speak with younger players getting ready to enter a collegiate music program, my first instinct is usually to tell...
The Bassmonsters: Live in Prague
The 2016 BASSEUROPE convention just wrapped up, and it was quite a week of bass goodness. Held in Prague, the event included tons of double bass performances and clinics. Here’s a clip of The Bassmonsters performing during the convention. The song is the group’s theme song, written by the talented bassist and composer Simón Garcia. This lineup of the Bassmonsters...
Pickpocket’s “Sojourn” Was a Long Time Coming
Craig Strain’s band Pickpocket has released its debut album, Sojourn, after a decade’s worth of work. Strain, who is the band’s leader, primary songwriter and bassist, first began playing bass at age 14. He’s worked in a variety of genres throughout his career, including jazz, hip hop, folk, pop, rock, country, rnb, soul and funk. And now, he’s celebrating the...
Reader Spotlight: Eamonn Morris
There’s a great scene in the movie School of Rock, where Jack Black’s character asked one of the students what she had been playing during music class. The student tells him it was a cello, and he said “here’s a bass… tip it on it’s side, and ‘cello’, you’ve got a bass.” While that’s not the exact story of bassist...
Creative Bass Lines: Beat Displacement
Here we have the second installment of the Creative Bass Lines, and this month, it’s “Bass Gruv”. For this we’re looking at a Headhunters-esque bass groove I wrote. This would fit the harmony of an E dominant 7th chord, or for a crunchier sound, try setting up a vamp with an E7?9, too. I wanted to introduce some of you...
Jonathon Burgess and Sophie Aked: No Love Dying
Bassist Jonathon Burgess sent us this video of his project with vocalist Sophie Aked. In this video, the cover Gregory Porter’s terrific tune, “No Love Dying.” We always dig the bass and vocal duos, and this one is no exception.
Matt Brewer Returns With Quintet Effort
Jazz bassist Matt Brewer (Greg Osby, Steve Coleman, Vijay Iyer) leads a quintet on his latest recording, Unspoken. All the members of the quintet are top-notch players and improvisers younger than 40: tenor saxophonist Ben Wendel, pianist Aaron Parks, guitarist Charles Altura and drummer Tyshawn Sorey. Together, they bring to life seven original Brewer compositions, and their versions of Bill...