Dane Alderson: At Home In the Hive

The Bassist Anchors Yellowjackets' Latest, Fasten Up

Chris Jisi / Apr 1, 2025

Dane Alderson: At Home In the Hive

The Bassist Anchors Yellowjackets' Latest, Fasten Up

Chris Jisi / Apr 1, 2025

Photo by Peter Figen

“Dynamics are paramount with Yellowjackets,” emphasizes Dane Alderson. “The music relies heavily on almost exaggerated dynamics. Gradually building to a full boil and taking it all the way down to a simmer again. It’s like telling a story.” His answer is part of his response to a question about what has made one of the premier groups in jazz so comfortable with the forty-something Australian-born bassist, now enjoying his tenth year in the quartet that boasts keyboardist Russell Ferrante, saxophonist Bob Mintzer, and drummer Will Kennedy. It’s no doubt Alderson’s ability to ride the swells both onstage and off that has earned him his stripes. “They are the most generous, professional, straight-shooting musicians out there,” He avows. “They’ve pushed and challenged me both in my playing and composing, and encouraged and helped me out in many areas of my life. Not a gig goes by that I don’t walk out amazed and grateful to be in this position.”

Alderson was a sideman for his first four years with the band when the three other members called a meeting one day to let him know that he had proven himself and was officially a Jacket and part of the family, with everything split equally four ways going forward.

Of course, Dane’s path to landing the gig in April of 2015 is now legend: Starting on drums, his dad’s instrument, at age 4 in his native Perth. Switching to bass at 13, inspired by Flea on his step-brother’s Red Hot Chili Peppers records. And getting into jazz and fusion as he entered the prestigious Western Academy of Performing Arts. A move to the States in 2012 wasn’t going quite as planned three years on, when he woke up one morning to an email from Will Kennedy saying the Jackets had seen some videos of him playing on YouTube and asking if he’d like to do some gigs with them. Recognizing the once in a jazz age opportunity and wanting to make a good first impression, Alderson memorized the 15 songs they sent him cold, so he wouldn’t have to have his head buried in charts on gigs. That work ethic, his jazz training, his understanding of dynamics and the “blues language,” and his versatility in grooving and improvising in the numerous genres the Jackets swarm to has led him to his “dream job.”

Most recently, Alderson headed west to record his fifth album with Yellowjackets, their 28th in 48 years of existence. Fasten Up [Mack Avenue,
2025] is yet another gem, rich in Ferrante and Mintzer’s nuanced compositions that result in inspired interplay and soloing. And it’s aptly named
after one of Dane’s two compostions on the record, which once again lead the ensemble to new musical terrain. Which adds another key reason the band made a wise choice on the bottom a decade ago. We caught up with Dane amid tour dates in support of the 11-track Fasten Up to get some insight into the project’s creative process.

What was the band’s concept going into this record?

Essentially it was to go in to the studio with eleven new songs, which were all stylistically different, and bring them to life. We had a couple of days of rehearsal before the recording at Henson Studios [in Los Angeles], to get our heads around the music, and then we cut them live in three days, with a little bit of individual overdubbing here and there. We had plenty of moments that surprised us in that they weren’t written out or arranged. They kind of fell together in the studio through making suggestions or trying out ideas at the last minute. We were pretty amazed by the experience and happy with how it all turned out.

What basses did you use and how were they recorded?

I had my main New York Bass Works fretted 6-string and fretless 5-string, both with D’Addario XT Coated Nickel strings, which I’ve been enjoying the sound and feel of. They went direct and via my miked rig, which is an Aguilar AG 700 head with an SL 210 and an SL 115 cabinet. Our engineer, Rich Breen, did a great job of blending the direct and amp sounds to get the fatness and clarity I was looking for. I had my road pedalboard, with a Boss OC-5 Octave, Boss TE-2 Tera Echo, and a Boss RC-5 Loop Station, but other than a bit of Octaver on a track or two, the basses are clean on the record. The lone exception bass-wise was my song, “Fasten Up.” I’d been wanting to try out my new New York Bass Works P-Bass and the song seemed to lend itself to that tone. So I took the track home and replaced my 6-string track with my P-Bass, except for a chordal vamp at the end that I left on there.

The opener, “Comin’ Home Baby,” written by bassist Ben Tucker in the early-’60s, has been much covered by jazz and pop artists. What led the band to add its name to the list?

Bob has long loved the tune and he brought in his cool arrangement of it, with some new turnarounds and key changes. I didn’t listen to a lot of verisons, I wanted to approach it with fresh ears. Groove-wise it felt like it needed to be heavy and nasty, like a freight train, so I kept my part simple and locked to Will’s drums, adding some palm-muting to alter some of the note durations and dymanics.

“Fasten Up” has a Herbie Hancock Head Hunters vibe, with nods to Chick Corea and Weather Report. Can you break down the sections?

Sure. It started out with a drum groove I came up with at home on my V-Drums kit. Then I picked up my bass and came up with a line that fit the drum groove, and I added a progression of mostly sus chords on keyboard. It definitely has that Herbie Hancock with Paul Jackson on bass vibe and also the Dave Weckl band with Tom Kennedy, which had a huge impact on me. The second section where we play a unison line that has a Chick Corea flavor is something I found on my Boss R-300 Loop Station. I used to use it on solo and duo gigs at home in Virginia. When I plugged it in there were a bunch of ideas I’d recorded to play along to, and one was this section. My bass solo on the track is basically over this section, as well. There’s a third section of the song, with descending chord patterns, and then there’s the repeated tag at the end, which is a series of chords inspired by the harmonies of Joe Zawinul and Weather Report. I took my 6-string, set a metronome on slow and started fooling around with chords. Some were quite bizarre but I managed to make them work in a progression. To add to the drama, I had the whole tune together but the melody didn’t come to me until shortly before the recording.

What more can you offer about the P-Bass on the track?

It’s the design of the amazing luthier Dave Segal of New York Bass Works, who has endorsed me since 2017. He did a modern take on the P-Bass [the RSVP4-22], giving it a shorter cutaway on the bottom. He made five and offered to send me one to see what I thought, and I fell in love with it. It has D’Addario XL Chrome flat wounds, and the whole experience has been quite liberating for me. Coming from a 6-string bass to one with four strings, one pickup, and just a volume and tone knob got me thinking and playing differently. It’s like the meat and potatoes of the bass guitar. I brought it on a month-long tour with the Jackets and having to play their music with two less strings was radical. It forced me to think more melodically and economically, but it was so much fun having that tone and grooving out on it with Will.

“Will Power” has an odd meter and a snaking bass line seamlessly wrapped around the melody.

That’s classic Bob; it reminds me of his song “Inevitable Outcome” on Coherence [Mack Avenue, 2016], my first record with the Jackets. It’s always exciting to hear Bob’s bass lines because they’re lines I would never come up with myself. It took a second to realize this is in five, given the overall syncopation and where the kick and snare are. And then the bass part is in perfect counterpoint to the melody Bob and Russ are playing.

Russell’s song “November 8” has him playing the rhythmic role on piano while Bob and you—on fretless—play the elongated melody on top.

That song took us a minute to wrap our heads around and because of the odd meter. The title is a play on 11/8, and we were each feeling the pulse a little differently, which was cool because we weren’t all sitting around waiting to mark off the one. We each had our own accents and how we felt the beat. I used my fretless because the melody I play with Bob had a lot of long notes that I wanted to make sing. Russell’s compositions always keep you on your toes but the beauty of this band is we all trust each other’s instincts and musicianship, so if we’re hearing or feeling something differently we just go for it and it always comes out well in the end.

Yellowjackets Live at Birdland in New York City, January 2025:

The gorgeous ballad “The Truth of You” is another fretless track rich in non-root notes and leading tones.

Russell brought in the demo of the song the week before recording and even though we had tunes rehearsed and ready to go, we knew we had to add it. In addition to the long chord tones there are parts where I’m doubling the piano bass line, and in the solo sections I’m playing off of a written part. That was my approach throughout the record when it came to solo accompaniment: take elements of the written bass lines and use them in my improvised support parts because the original part lets you know what the composer was going for. It’s a way for me to stay true to what Russ or Bob were hearing.

“The Lion,” with Raul Midón guesting on vocals and guitar has a world music feel and a busier than you’d think, bubbling bass line.

This is one of my favorite songs to play from the record, I love the six against four feel. Russ had a pretty specific syncopated bass line that works as a counterpoint to the melody and what he plays on piano. There’s a lot going on but it doesn’t sound busy because it all fits so well together. I used a lot of thumb and palm muting to get a rhythmic, percussive sound and feel. Originally this song was going to feature [guitarist/vocalist] Lionel Loueke, thus the title, but he had a scheduling conflict. Raul came onboard and knocked it out of the park. I’ve been a huge fan of his ever since I saw him playing his song “State of Mind” on YouTube.

Bob’s big band-minded “Swingmeister” rides your fretless ostinato in two.

Right, it’s sort of like [Miles Davis’] “All Blues,” the written bass line feels so good and if you break away from it too quickly you can lose something. Also, Bob asked me to stick with it for awhile and play around with it. I played it through his solo before finally walking for Russ’s piano solo. It has an interesting form, basically a 16-bar blues with some twisty changes. This was the first tune from the record we’ve performed live and it’s a lot of fun to play.

“An Interesting Dream” has a cool 3/4-with-a-backbeat feel.

It’s a solid, fat 3/4, classic Jackets’ feel and I have to credit the influence that Gary Willis had on me when approaching it. Gary has a lot great tunes and grooves in three, and I immersed myself in them. This was a cool concept Bob had featuring his EWI, and it came together fairly quickly in the studio—maybe a couple of takes. I love the jam over the unison ostinato at the end. It sounds like it could be a different meter but it’s just where the notes are placed.

The second of your two solos on the record occurs on Bob’s bright swing tune “Broken.”

I think that might have been Russell’s suggestion because it’s a fairly short tune that moves through the changes quickly. I’m totally cool with having two solos on the album. I love playing bass in general so if there are solos that’s fine and if I’m just grooving that’s fine, too. For me, when I’m walking it’s related to soloing anyway. I had a great teacher at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts named Paul Pooley who would encourage me to practice my soloing lines while walking—so essentially spell out the chords in my walking lines. Jeff Andrews, who I had a lesson with, and Tom Kennedy are two other electric bassists who had a big influence on my walking lines.

“The Unresolved Question” is a title that’s captured perfectly in the music.

I believe Russ is referring to the big philosophical question: Who are we and why are we here? And the song has a very mysterious, dark, minor kind of sound and vibe that fits the subject perfectly. I felt I could capture that best on freltess, plus there are a couple of brief bass melodies that lent themselves to fretless. I like how the end kind of fades out on the opening vamp, resolving on an unexpected chord, which furthers the air of mystery.

“Xemeris,” your composition which closes the record, is certainly its biggest departure.

I think so, the guys said it was territory they hadn’t really covered before. I sent Bob the opening section, with the pulsating bass line and the matching melody that harmonizes it, and he thought it was cool and encouraged me to develop it. The main inspiration behind the piece is my love for and fascination with electronica and programmed music; two artists in particular: Squarepusher, who as most know is a bassist, and Aphex Twin, a DJ and programmer—especially his ambient music. Also, I’m a big fan of Bjork and some of the sounds and effects she uses are an influence here. The song started from an idea I’d had on my laptop for a few years. My concept was to have a combination of programmed music and a live band playing together, as well as the sense of having a heavy and chaotic bottom with something simple and hopefully singable on top. The title is a word I made up after reading about galaxies and stars.

Your bass plays interesting roles, first doubling the relentless programmed synth bass, then doubling the keyboard chords in the next section, and improvising grooves behind the soloists.

That’s right, and as with “Fasten Up,” the chordal pattern in the second section is another idea I found on my old loop station that I used to play along with for my solo spot on live Jackets gigs. Originally I wanted just piano there, but the guys were like, Man, you should you should play the chords on bass, along with the piano, so I did. The guys worked extra hard to learn the piece and add their creative input, and I couldn’t be happier with how it came out.

What’s upcoming for you?

We have a busy year with the Jackets, in support of Fasten Up. We’re doing a number of dates with [vocalist] Kurt Elling celebrating the music of Weather Report. It’s been a dream come true to get to grab my fretless and play the Jaco role on Kurt’s arrangements of songs like “A Remark You Made,” “Three Views of a Secret,” “Palladium,” “Black Market,” “Elegant People,” and “Continuum,” which has a vocal and bass intro. At home I’ve been doing remote tracks for various artists, as well as a little teaching. And I’m perpetually working on my own record, getting songs and ideas together.

Bass Buzz – Transcription

As he has on his two previous studio albums with Yellowjackets, Dane Alderson takes the veteran unit in new directions on his two forward-minded compositions. The record-closing “Xemeris” is a programmed-music-meets-live-band epic rich in sonic imagery. Ex. 1 shows the intro and A section bass line with Dane doubling his programmed MIDI part on his 6-string. He offers, “My original loop was basically B minor pentatonic and it evolved into the harmonies on the track.” Dig the interesting tab choices as he plays some A’s and D’s as fretted notes and others as open strings. Try to sit squarely in the pocket with even notes as you mimic the mechanized part.

Examples 2a, 2b, and 2c are from Alderson’s Head Hunters-reminiscent title track. 2a shows the intro and A section groove. Lean ahead to drive the part, and be aware of the turned-around feel that makes the second 8th-note sound like the downbeat. The hammer-on at the end of measure 2 only happens in the intro.

2b has the B section groove doubled by keyboards both in unison and with a matching line a fifth above. Keep in mind you’re playing both a melody and a groove, so lock in both in pulse and phrasing.

Finally, 2c contains Dane’s 6-string chord arpeggio part in the outro, at 5:14. The chord shapes are similar and use the open C string as a pedal or drone. The root is always on the A string, fretted by the second finger; the flatted 7 or sixth is always on the G string, fretted by the index finger; and the minor third is always on the C string (except for the Ab6 chord, where it’s a major third), fretted by the third finger. Be sure to leave enough room beneath your second finger on the G string to allow the open C string to ring on all the pull-offs. In the plucking hand use your thumb for the A string, your index for the G string, and your third finger for the C string. Overall, think accompaniment as the keyboards are playing a similar, almost montuno chordal part. Right after this on the track, Alderson enters with a bass part outling a C7 arpeggio which drives home the section’s C7b9 tonality. He explains, “I wanted the track to end with a feel of chaos and tension.”