Bass Magazine digs into the latest releases of albums, books, and videos involving all things bass
Motörhead
Another Perfect Day Deluxe 40th Anniversary Edition [BMG]
MotörLizzy? Thin Head? When ex-Thin Lizzy guitarist Brian “Robbo” Robertson joined Motörhead in 1983, replacing “Fast” Eddie Clarke, no one knew what to expect. Another Perfect Day, the resulting album from this one-off collaboration, presented what Lemmy Kilmister called a more “musical” approach to the classic line-up’s full-tilt ferocity. Harnessed into more traditional guitar rock tropes enhanced by carefully crafted production, songs like “Back At The Funny Farm,” “Dancing On Your Grave,” and the single, “One Track Mind,” feature the band’s by-then patented hell-bound grooves draped in Robbo’s effects-laden, multi-layered guitar overdubs. And yet, Another Perfect Day proved that no matter how much you mess with the ingredients, Lemmy’s voice and bass playing, distorted and gravelly as they both are, would remain Motörhead’s calling cards. –Freddy Villano
“One Track Mind” Official Video:
Thin Lizzy
Vagabonds of The Western World 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition [Decca]
Vagabonds Of The Western World, Thin Lizzy’s third studio album, was initially released on the 21st of September 1973. After a two-year struggle for recognition, Thin Lizzy had finally scored a breakthrough hit after Phil Lynott started busking the old Irish folk song, “Whiskey in The Jar.” The single was released in November 1972 and rose to number 6 on the UK singles chart. Though the song was a hit and paved the way for Vagabonds of The Western World, their last with original guitarist Eric Bell, it was left off the full-length release. It would, however, appear on later reissues of Vagabonds as it does now on this 50th anniversary edition. But the real gems of Vagabonds are the original songs, like “The Rocker” and “A Song for While I’m Away,” which represent the sound of nascent Thin Lizzy finally finding their feet and starting on their journey to become one of the greatest rock bands of the ’70s, and for Lynott to be recognized as one of the best, if not most underrated, songwriters of his generation. –Freddy Villano
“Whiskey in The Jar” (with Lynott on guitar):
Mark Egan
Cross Currents [Wavetone]
Packed with the pungent flavors of the Big Easy and the bayou, Mark Egan’s latest is a standout in his storied solo career, thanks to his newly assembled trio featuring Gotham session ace and Saturday Night Live drummer Shawn Pelton and under-heralded Louisiana-born guitarist Shane Theriot (Neville Brothers, Boz Scaggs, Hall & Oates). The three cut live, with obvious chemistry, and then layered all kinds of colors on top, casting Egan’s famed fretless basses in a fresh light. The opener, “Pondhatrain,” establishes the pace with it’s swampy, quasi-second-line pulse and impassioned Threriot solo. The title track finds Egan setting up a bright, funky, Meters-like ostinato for him to emote over in contrast. “Pocket Call” gives a nod to “Cissy Strut” before encouraging stretching by all. “Roll with It,” with it’s relaxed cajun reggae groove, is awash in shifting tonalities and rich guitar and bass tones. “Big Sky” and “Nonc Rodell” are acoustic guitar and drum kit masterclasses, respectively. Elsewhere, Egan channels both Van Morrison and the Pat Metheny Group on the introspective “Sand Castles,” and ends with highly personal solo bass tributes to trumpter Lew Soloff and Jaco. –Chris Jisi
“Pocket Call”:
Saltpig
Saltpig [Res Freq / Universal Music]
Whether or not multi-instrumentalist Mitch Davis plays any bass on Saltpig’s eponymous is beside the point—his drop-tuned, fuzzy, stoner-metal guitar riffage dips into bass frequency territory, warranting serious consideration for its ambitiousness. The two-man band is comprised of Italy-based drummer Fabio Alessandrini and Davis on everything else. Davis is best known as a producer who has worked with artists including Damon Albarn, U2, Mark Lanegan, Billy Squier, Danger Mouse, Stephen Malkmus, and L.A. Guns, but Saltpig is much heavier. The music on Saltpig is of today but takes its cue from a time when there was just “metal,” minus all the subcategories—there’s something inherently nostalgic to their sound. While there are elements of doom/stoner/psych/occult metal and others, there is also an intentional disregard for certain expected conventions of those styles. It’s melodic but embraces dissonance. It’s noisy and dirty and evil sounding. It’s underproduced and real. Recorded onto analogue tape, and released on cassette, Saltpig thrives on a “distortion is never bad” ethos. Think Kyuss meets early Queens of the Stone Age. –Freddy Villano
Saltpig full album visualizer:
Gary Dial & Rich DeRosa
Keep Swingin’ [Outside in Music]
Made with love and packed with pedigree, pianist Gary Dial and drummer Rich DeRosa lead this tribute to the late, great jazz educator, composer, and pianist Charlie Banacos. The New England-based Banacos was known for his detailed, diligent approches to jazz improvisation and composition—carried on via famous students like Jeff Berlin and guitarists Mike Stern and Wayne Krantz. Those three and other students and friends shine on this set of ten Banacos-written tracks (which also includes an accompanying 100-page book of music, anecdotes, and more). Bass gets a special bump here, beginning with “The Great Awakening.” Banacos apprentice Joe Hubbard’s astute arrangement boasts his rubato stretching at the top, percolating boogie groove under both the angular head and Krantz’s solo, and a searing solo of his own. Jay Anderson’s upright is featured on the swinging, 3/4 “Nero,” tastefully anchoring the 28-bar form and deftly soloing through the Trane-like changes. Berlin masterfully navigates the alternate changes-packed 16 bar blues, “A-440” with a chord-spiked groove and splendid, seeing-eye solo. Elsewhere, Itaiguara Brandao anchors “Bernie Burnola” and “Pluto Language,” and Matt Stavrakis grounds and blows on “Mummy’s Curse.” –Chris Jisi
Sevendust
Seven of Sevendust [BMG]
Seven of Sevendust is a nine-LP boxset and seven-CD boxset from American metal band Sevendust. Since their formation in 1994, Sevendust have earned three consecutive RIAA gold-certified albums, a Grammy nomination, sold millions of records worldwide, and toured with some of rock’s most renowned superstars. They built their success on songs like, “Bitch,” “Black,” “Denial,” and “Waffle,” all featuring the heavy riffs, angry vocals and thrash-like drumming that defined the alternative/nü-metal movement they helped spearhead. But Sevendust was a bit harder to pigeonhole than their contemporaries, also often referred to as industrial metal and post-grunge. This is due in large part to the soulful, accessible melodies that also permeated their music, and the bottom-heavy riffs and sub-hooks courtesy of bassist Vince Hornsby. A founding member, Hornsby never seemed to command the attention that some of his alt/nü-metal contemporaries did, like Fieldy (Korn) or Sam Rivers (Limp Bizkit), but the DNA is implicit, and his detuned approach to the instrument, like his brothers-in-low, though simple and foundational, is both nuanced in performance and identifiable in tone. –Freddy Villano
“Waffle” Official Music Video:
Art Farmer
Portrait of Art Farmer (Remastered)
Classic jazz recordings sound better than ever in high-resolution audio, thanks to the digital music era. The results can be sonically amazing, breathing new life into old master tapes. In 2023, Craft Recordings reissued a collection of some of the best recordings from the ’50s — the golden age of bebop, hard-bop, and free jazz. The collection is a deep dive into the sounds that define this era of jazz:
• West Side Story (André Previn & His Pals Shelly Manne & Red Mitchell, Red Mitchell on bass)
• Leroy Walks! (The Leroy Vinnegar Sextet, Leroy Vinnegar on bass)
• Something Else!!! (Ornette Coleman, Don Payne on bass)
• Tomorrow Is the Question! (Ornette Coleman, Percy Heath and Red Mitchell on bass)
• My Fair Lady (Shelly Manne & His Friends, Leroy Vinnegar on bass)
• You Get More Bounce With Curtis Counce! (Curtis Counce on bass)
• A World of Piano! (Phineas Newborn, Paul Chambers and Sam Jones on bass)
• Portrait of Art Farmer (Art Farmer, Addison Farmer on bass)
The sound of the newly remastered recordings profits from a better frequency range than the original LPs or other mp3 versions previously available. Listening to the high-resolution remasters offers a modern, state-of-the-art audio experience. Do yourself an audio favor: Find the new Craft Recordings reissue of any of these albums, and check out the hi-res wav or FLAC files, or the remastered album on CD or vinyl. The series was remixed and remastered from the original tapes by engineer Bernie Grundman, resulting in fuller bass and clearer separation in the rhythm-section sound.
Portrait Of Art Farmer
Let’s explore the deep relationship between trumpeter Art Farmer and his bassist brother, Addison — Art’s fraternal twin — and have a listen to the remastered recording Portrait of Art Farmer [Prestige, recorded April 19 and May 1, 1958, rereleased Nov. 10, 2023]. The album is a blend of Art’s original compositions and covers of classic tunes. At the time, Art was the new trumpet hotshot on the scene and had just been voted “New Star” on trumpet in Downbeat magazine. Addison Farmer played bass on many of Art’s albums recorded during the golden age of jazz.
Art and Addison moved to New York City from Los Angeles in the mid ’50s, but they had some personal differences, as brothers sometimes do. Art was a rising jazz trumpet star, striving for a career in clubs and concert halls playing jazz, while Addison opted to study classical music at Juilliard with the legendary bass teacher Frederick Zimmerman.
Even though Addison was leaning in the other direction, Art still hired him for jazz gigs and record dates. In a 1990s interview with Anthony Brown at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Art recalled, “[Addison] was taking lessons from the main bass teacher at Juilliard, a guy by the name of Fred Zimmerman. Zimmerman said, ‘You’re a serious student. You have talent. I think you should apply for a scholarship. I’ll tell you what to do.’ Addison did it [followed Zimmerman’s advice] and got a 100% scholarship for four years at Juilliard. He did that, and when he came out [to New York], he started working back with me again, but I was opposed to his going into Juilliard, and we had sort of a split. He could read and all that stuff. So, that sort of put a split between us, which lasted for a while.”
Despite his aggravation with his brother’s career path, Art Farmer was loyal to Addison and included him when he could on recording sessions. But Addison did not quite compare to the top jazz bassists on the scene. He was still in his 20s, studying classical bass with a demanding teacher, and trying to do some jazz gigs on the side. Art recalled their differing approaches to music: “He was doing some local gigs — some — but he wasn’t going out on a gig on the road. He couldn’t do that. If you compared his playing to somebody like Doug Watkins, for instance, Doug was more into the street type of playing — that’s the guy who was playing with Horace [Silver], and Addison just wasn’t to that point. He would’ve gotten there, but he was at a different temperament from me. He was more methodical…We organized the Jazztet and it just didn’t happen, so I let him go. We had a split; we didn’t see each other for some time.”
Art may have been selling his brother short. Addison had the goods to be a top player on the jazz scene, but he had chosen the classical path. When he ventured into a jazz setting, he proved himself to be a strong player time and again on recordings. In the original liner notes to Portrait of Art Farmer by Nat Hentoff, Art talks about his brother: “He played better on this date than on any other session we’ve made. He even surprised me, and I should know what he can do. Addison is just beginning to get to the place where he can count on himself. He’s still studying — he has one more year at Juilliard — and so he hasn’t had much time to play in recent months. But he knows where he’s going!”
Stablemates
“Stablemates” is the most challenging tune to play on Portrait of Art Farmer. Composed by saxophonist Benny Golson, the composition had already been recorded a few times in the ’50s and was quickly becoming a jazz standard. Miles Davis first recorded the song in 1956 on Miles: The New Miles Davis Quintet [Prestige, Paul Chambers on bass]. Bebop legend Dizzy Gillespie recorded his version in 1957 on Dizzy in Greece [Verve, Paul West on bass].
Art Farmer’s version of “Stablemates” from ’58 moves along at an athletic clip: the half-note equals 116 on the metronome. This tempo is often tricky for rhythm sections. The quarter-notes are relentless, but the tempo is not up, rather more of a top of the middle tempo. Addison plays his quarter-note pulse with a bit of space between the notes. He doesn’t have the long, connected Ray Brown- or Paul Chambers-type quarter-notes that were coming into fashion at the time; he straddles the old-school style of the ’40s and early-’50s bass giants like Oscar Pettiford, Nelson Boyd, Tommy Potter, and Gene Ramey. Addison hooks up nicely with the dancing, bopping, swinging beat of Roy Haynes on the drums. Haynes was one of the most influential drummers on the scene at the time.
In Nat Hentoff’s original liner notes, Art says, “I think that it’s one of the best tunes written by one of our contemporaries. It’s a disciplined tune and it gives you something new to play. There isn’t a bunch of chord patterns just to have chord patterns.”
“Stablemates” is indeed a disciplined tune — if the player makes the tricky changes and holds the unorthodox form, the tune plays itself! The form is 36 bars long. The A sections are 14 bars long, and the B section is eight bars long. (See below for a “Stablemates” walking bass line étude.) “Stablemates” is a standard still often played today. If you play straight-ahead jazz, you need to know this tune!
The Brothers Reunite
Despite the musical differences between the twins, Art and Addison eventually found reconciliation in their personal relationship. Tragedy struck on February 20, 1963, when Addison suddenly fell ill and died at age 34 from a heart condition. Art recalled his shock and deep remorse, saying, “Somehow, Addison and I got friendly again, and then he died. Thank God we were friendly when he died. Talk about a shock. Like from one day to the next, he was gone.”
Many bassists who are celebrated today as role models and heroes shared the same destiny of a death far too soon: Jimmie Blanton (age 23), Oscar Pettiford (37), Doug Watkins (27), Paul Chambers (35), Scott LaFaro (25), and Jaco Pastorius (35). It’s a reminder to stay in the moment, live every day fully, and not carry grudges.
Art, relieved that he had reconciled with Addison before his untimely death, said, “I’m just grateful that we had come back together before he died, ’cause damn, to think about us being on the outs and him dying. That would’ve been awful…So, you really can’t take anything for granted…Life is very precarious.”
Five Classic Art Farmer Albums with Addison Farmer on Bass:
- Art Farmer–Benny Golson, Meet the Jazztet [1960, Argo]. Contains the original version of the jazz standard “Killer Joe.”
- The Aztec Suite [1959, United Artists]
- Modern Art [1958, United Artists]
- Farmer’s Market [1956, New Jazz]
- Art Farmer Quintet featuring Gigi Gryce [1956, Prestige]
A “Stablemates” Étude (Transcription)
