5 jazz bassists

J. J. is perhaps the most influential trombonist of the 20 th century. Virtually all contemporary tro mbonists -both jazz and classical -are indebted to him for inspiratio n, for taking t he instrument away from cheap type-casting and propelling it to the foreground of musical expression. His exploration into practically every aspect of trombone playing brought about such innovations as:

Texas State University-School of Music master's thesis, 2014

My objective with this thesis is to investigate and document the extent to which Jamerson appropriated the skills he acquired in jazz and blues environments into a popular music context, arguably transforming the role of the bass guitar. Biographical information and excerpted transcriptions of his bass lines will inform my analysis of Jamerson’s musical style and evolution. The formal analysis with accompanying transcriptions will be drawn from his career at Motown Records, with mention of his session work for other labels, illustrating both the development of his style and explaining how his recorded output virtually created the model for contemporary electric bass guitar performance. Additionally, this thesis will expand the historical record on Jamerson while correcting errors, creating a selective, centralized and updated source list for the literature on Jamerson while expanding the amount of musical analysis of his specific bass lines and, with the analysis, solidifying the direct connection between Jamerson’s jazz experience and his eventual evolved music persona.

2020

This exegesis is tied to the CD, ‘Portrait of New York’ – an assortment of inventive musical compositions to explore diversity in electric jazz after 1970, and three multi-faceted live performances focused on electric bass from that period. It is an investigation that examines my journey, through the CD recording, three performances, transcription, analysis and research, utilising some pivotal contemporary jazz composers and electric bassists from the late twentieth century. The electric jazz period post- 1970 was an exploratory time when composers began merging other music styles and genres with jazz in the search for new ideas and concepts. The CD recording represents the outcome of a five-year research process and a musical and personal journey to New York City to rehearse and record the CD with Omar Hakim, Mike Mainieri, Rachel Z and other well- known jazz exponents. To develop these broad considerations, I constructed a semi-autoethnographic narrative that focuses on my creativ...

This article explores Jaco Pastorius's efforts to legitimize himself as a jazz electric bassist. Even though the instrument had existed at the margins of jazz for decades, by the 1970s it was overwhelmingly associated with rock and funk music and therefore carried with it the stigmatized connotations of outsider status. Building on the work of Bill Milkowski, Kevin Fellezs, Lawrence Wayte, and Peter Dowdall, I situate Pastorius's career within the broader context of 1970s jazz fusion. I then analyze how he deliberately used his public persona, his virtuosic technical abilities, the atypical timbre of his fretless electric bass, and his work as a composer and bandleader to vie for acceptance within the jazz

2000

American String Teacher, 2008

International Review of Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, 2014

This paper examines relevant works on jam session, focusing on how this performative prac- tice has been approached in jazz literature. Starting from bibliographical research and the fieldwork the author analyzes to what extent these works reflect poor and decontextualized perspectives on a performative practice that is crucial for the development of the creative process, learning and construc- tion of professional musicians’ networks. The existing studies on the jam session are insuffi- cient for obtaining considerable information about this practice in its musical, social and cultural settings, namely in terms of its functioning and role in the context of the jazz scene. The musicians’ discourse is often neglected in most works on this topic.

The Tower Magazine, 2014

A brief history of Israeli jazz and an introduction to Itamar Borochov's first album, "Outset"

In the history of jazz, only a very few bassists have played ‘left-handed’ on a ‘righthanded’ instrument. This ‘idiodextrous’ approach is an embodied phenomenon that affects the body-instrument interface, giving rise to unique physical and sonic consequences. Each idiodextrous bassist studied here was mostly self-taught and ‘intuitively’ applied this unconventional handedness approach to a conventional instrument. Studying this rare practice raises questions that challenge traditions of string instrument playing and expose arbitrary prejudices against unconventional handedness approaches. Since its defining trait is the ‘reversed’ order of the strings in relation to the body, idiodexterity challenges assumptions about the ideal stringings for different musical contexts. The malleability of identities and cultures in jazz is arguably more receptive to unusual handedness approaches than is the classical tradition. In the context of jazz improvisation, idiodexterity may even facilitate the development of a ‘uniquely idiodextrous’ vocabulary of musical phrases and techniques. This paper is an attempt to succinctly encompass the issues central to idiodextrous double bass in jazz, within the scope of a one-year MA by Research programme, and to make recommendations for future studies. Four main areas of research have been investigated: Instrument, Body, Identity and Vocabulary. Interviews with bassists of varying handedness approaches, with luthiers and with body experts have been employed to address this unique subject, compensating for the effective non-existence of any previous academic literature. The insights of these expert practitioners contribute new knowledge on this rare and intriguing practice.