You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Bass Solos that Are OK. - #160

Episode Date: July 19, 2018

Today, Peter and Adam list their 7 favorite bass solos. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Ennis and I'm Peter Martin And you're listening to the You'll Hear Podcast Daily Jazz Advice coming at you Well what are we coming at them with today Well I love this title I think you came up with this one Yeah I know it always seems spontaneous But we put a little bit of thought of this what is it It's seven bass solos that are okay

Just okay or yeah well I mean okay is being pretty generous for a bass solo Wow No I'm just kidding no go ahead No bass solo is good just keep in mind I'm already looking at this list some of these bass players are large gentlemen it will come and kick your butt and are still alive. No, we always, this is like a running theme in the podcast. We throw a little shade to the bass solos because, you know, they're a big solos.

That's a running theme in jazz, actually. But no, these solos are up there with any instrumental solos. These are some of the best musicians in jazz, some of the best soloists in jazz. And let's be honest, bass players don't get their due. Hence the name of this episode, seven bass solos that are okay. Yeah, they're okay. They're all right. So it's a little bit of a playoff.

words too because he used some incredible solos actually but they're okay they're okay yeah all right we got number one uh christian mcbride ham hox and cabbage now this is from his 2013 13 trio record christian sands and ulysses owens and this is he i mean he does the melody on this uh it's okay it's okay it's as good as a bass solo could be no it really is amazing and this is also my favorite um um sound that that christian mcbride can get you know like straight down the middle little blues, like everything feels a trio. A lot of walking, a lot of soloing, but just a lot of... Big sounds, you know, blues feel, great stuff, man.

No, I mean, he's an amazing solace. I mean, I've played with him a lot over the years, and it's, you know, you really... He's such a combination of an incredible soloist and then just an incredible foundational bass player, you know, like doing everything, all the hard work of supporting the band. just so dependable with the beat and with the sound. So then when he goes to solo, it's kind of like, whoa, he becomes a horn player. He becomes, you know, this super versatile player without the usual limitations, physical limitations of the instrument. Yeah, it's pretty incredible.

Yeah. I mean, it's okay. Yeah, it's okay. Yeah, exactly. Now we've got to be careful. Yeah. It's just okay. All right.

So number two, I'm going to go with Ray Brown, because I'm thinking about Christian McBride, really his sort of musical father, a lot of these guys' musical. father. And I love, I mean, so many great solos for Ray Brown, but things ain't what they used to be, what he plays on the Duke Allington, on the duo record. And I'm forgetting, actually, maybe the records called things ain't what they used to be. It's on Pablo, great black and white cover from the early 70s, Duke Allenton, Ray Brown. I love that record, his sound, his beat, the solo, the melodic stuff that he plays. I think it's a great, you know, sort of representation. It's a little bit funny because it's not necessarily the situation you saw Ray Brown.

And we think about, you know, with the Oscar Peterson Trio, with his trio, playing with great singer situations. But it's really an exposed place to see his wonderful, well, his okay soloing. There's so many great Ray Brown solos, though, on all the Oscar Peterson Trio stuff, too. Yeah. Yeah. But that's not what I picked. That are okay.

Yeah, just okay. All right. So for number three, I'm going with Charlie Hayden on Ornette Coleman's Lonely Woman. And iconic track, iconic solo, Charlie Hayden starts off the track with these great, like, double stops that he does. And I mean, what a great sound. What a great band. What a great solo. Yeah, what an okay solo.

Yeah, the solo's okay, but Charlie, the great, Charlie. So just a quick little aside about Charlie Hayden, he, I got a chance to do a tour with Roy Hargrove in, like, 1994. And we did a series of concerts over like a week or 10 days with Charlie Hayden's quartet at the time. Nice. And kind of traveling around Europe with him and got to hang with him and stuff. And he was such a generous and kind soul, amazing musician and was so generous with us, kind of young musicians, didn't really know what we were doing. But he'd come and eat with us and hang and stuff. But we kind of this joke is, you know, Charlie kind of talked like, hey, man, you know, Charlie Hayden here. And so Roddy Whitaker, another bass player who I don't think is on our list, but should be on there.

We're an incredible soloist. My good friend Roddy Whitaker, great bassist out of Detroit, was on the tour. And we were good friends and joking around all the time and stuff. And, you know, so we would call each other. It's like pre-cell phone, call each other in the hotel room and be like, hey, Rodney, it's Charlie, man. You want to come? Let's get some dinner, man. You know, just sort of joking around.

And apparently one time Charlie called Rodney. for real was like, hey, Rodney, it's Charlie. You want to go get some food? And Rodney's like, come on, P, man. Shut up, man. He's like, no, man. This is really Charlie. He's like, ah, that's funny, you know.

He's like, no. Oh, hey, fine, then, you know, hung up. So, anyway, I always think of that. That's the great Charlie Hayden, for sure. Okay. So next, I'm going to go with Robert Hurst. Yeah. And his, this is funny because it's not really a solo,

but it kind of, this might be our first unofficial solo. That's just, okay. But his playing, you know, I mean, so many great things on his own albums. But, you know, before I even knew, it was right around the time I met him, they did a record, Wenton Marcellus live at Blues Alley. And it was quartet. It was kind of the first, around the beginning of the time when Winton stopped playing quintet and went with a little bit more exposed thing,

when Brantford actually went to play with Sting, and they had their big first breakup or whatever, Bramford and Winton. But Bob Hurst was a young bassist who came in after. Well, he had several bass players like Charonette Moffitt and some different folks. but like when Bob Hurst came in there, that was really like the foundation of that next period with Marcus Roberts on piano. Jeff Watts was kind of the holdover from that first quintet. But Bob Hurst playing on Just Friends on that track on, and I was thinking about this too because there's a pretty good transcription of what he plays kind of floating around the internet. You can see.

But it's like it's the solo, like the interplay and the interaction with him and win. It's almost like a horn player. And then, you know, Marcus Roberts, there's some interaction, but he's kind of does some sparse things. But that's a great, sort of early Robert Hearst and his playing. It's just okay. All right. For number four? Are we on four or five?

One, two, three, four, five. Number five, I'm going to go with Scott LaFaro playing milestones from Bill Evans. I forget what record this is on, actually. I'll have to look it up. But great track of Bill Evans' trio playing milestones. Scott LaFarro plays. an incredibly memorable solo, first solo after the head, as he often did. And I mean, just beautifully melodic and inventive and very creative, especially for the time,

but holds up to this day. That was a very young Scott LaFaro. Very young, Scott LaFaro. Might not have been of legal age even at that point, right? He was super young. Yeah, that would be good to find out, actually, how old he was. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, really, really okay solo.

Yeah, it was okay. Well, that brings us to number seven. And this one, it was... Number six. No, no, sir. We got Christian McBride, Charlie Hayden, Scott LaFaro, Robert Hurst, Ray Brown. That's five, like I said. So here we go with number six.

Okay, Paul Chambers. And it was funny because I was trying to remember a particular bass solo, and I did like, instead of going to my album collection, which is not conveniently located, I went to a little thing called Google. Oh, I heard of that. Yeah, yeah. And put in Paul Chambers' bow solo. And then I actually found a different solo that I wasn't even looking for

that I'd never even heard Well, I've heard this, but it's been a long time I definitely wasn't thinking about it But there's video, I'd never seen this video before And so this has quickly become my favorite Paul Chambers bass solo Well, it's not my favorite, it's okay, actually But being able to see him is pretty cool

It's still just an okay solo But this is on Green Dauphin Street With Coltrane And I think, I mean, the video I'm seeing It's just caught a little bit of piano It sounded like Winton Kelly on piano Yeah, that's, I couldn't tell from the angle you showed me.

But yeah. But I mean, if you, if you go on YouTube and just search Paul Chambers, Bow, Green Dolphin Street, you'll hear this. And this is just, I mean,

it's really right in that Paul Chambers bowed solo style, which Paul Chambers excelled at that style. He was a master of it. He had his Paul Chambers stuff together. Man, his PC stuff. But it's so cool to see him playing, and I loved his bowl solo.

I mean, I know, you know, I know a lot of people think that, you know, even talking with Christian McBride, he'll, he's, I'm always like, man, do the bow. like man I'm not really about, I'm like, oh my God. They get very self-conscious about the classical cats.

Because they're not doing it all the time. Yeah. You know, but you know it's funny, classical cats get a little self-conscious about their pits. They do. They're not doing that all the time. They're not doing that all the time. Yeah. Well, I think it's number seven.

I know you got a little off track there. It is number seven. One of my favorite OK-based solos, and that's Jaco Pestorius on Donnell Lee. I mean, he pretty much has the whole head. He has the whole solo. It's just him in percussion. And it's amazing. It is, it is, this is our only electric solo here.

Well, we say, so it's not. just okay. Now we're finally leaving just okay. Yeah, it's all right. No, it's still just okay. I mean, it's a bass solo, so it's still just okay. For electric, it's okay. If it was on acoustic, it would have been incredible. Oh man, if it was on acoustic, it would have been amazing. Yeah, I mean, a tour de force. I don't even know what that means, but this is definitely a tour to do okay. A tour do okay. Tour do okay. No, but check out all these bass solos. These are, this whole list, I think, is there are some really good. There might have been some horn players and pianists that have learned that

Jaco solo, perhaps? I know every electric player tries to learn it or tries to play part of it. You know, the thing about all these solos are, is you should transcribe them. There's a lot of good stuff in all these. Like if you've done all the great piano and horn solos and you want to just do something okay, then do one of these. Exactly. Okay, well, I think we've thoroughly pissed off every bass player, you know, and I even mentioned, you know, Christian, McBride, Bob Hurst, Roddy Whitaker, Charlie Hayden, these were formerly friends of mine until today, my apologies.

But no, this was a fun one. This was a fun one. Do we want to look at some ratings? Let's talk about the ratings and reviews, because we took a couple days off. We never do that. We took a cable because our self-esteem now, we might be killed by a bass player soon, so we better, this is almost like our last test, that's going to be the last episode. But we're looking, we're back to looking for seven-star reviews.

I'm back on the seven-star bandwagon. Oh, you are? You're fully on it now. Well, because, you know, we've gotten some people that have put, you know, five-star ratings I understand because they weren't able to push the seven-star button. They couldn't find it. It's hidden in the Apple podcast system. But then we did get a couple of comments in the reviews where they're like, man, this is a five-star, five-star podcast for sure. And I'm like, okay, you can write seven stars. At least you do that. You know, even if you can only press the five stars for the rating,

it's in the review. We're looking for seven stars in the review. Is that cryptic enough? No, I think that's totally doable. And, you know, anybody with any kind of okay kind of attitude would be able to make that happen. Yeah, it's just okay. You can say that in the thing. But you can go to openstudio network.com slash podcast. That'll take you to where you can leave the ratings, you know, all the different places is accessible. You can leave a comment.

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