Lick Of The Month #9

February's LOTM is a super versatile walking bass ii V I. I've taken it from the 'Solar' bass transcription I posted last week. It's really simple which makes it easy to apply to a lot of tunes.

Solar Bass Transcription

'Solar' from the album "Walkin'" by Miles Davis, is a full on ii V work out! This transcription looks at how Percy Heath approaches the first four choruses. The tune is 12 bars long and can be split into 4 ii V's of all shapes and sizes.

Lick Of The Month #7

Our last lick of 2012 is here, and it's a whopper!! It's a 3 bar long triplet assault played by Joe Henderson on Horace Silver's 'Song For My Father'.

The lick can be heard on this version of the song at about 4:20 over 3 bars of F-7.

Take The A Train Transcription

This week I've been looking at 'Take The A Train' and more importantly how bass legend, Anthony Jackson, played a chorus from it! Out of all the great versions out there I picked this one to see how an electric bassist tackles it rather than an upright player like all the other transcriptions I have done so far.

Dirk Lance with Willie's Nerve Clinic - New Tune!

Yo! I've just found out that Dirk Lance (Incubus founding member and all round bass legend) has formed a new group call Willie's Nerve Clinic. This self described "jazz/funk/prog" band have made a couple of songs from their upcoming album, Vampire Kiss, available for free download!

Here's my video I've just uploaded of me jamming over this awesome slap bass line, transcription of the main riffs from the tune are available to download from my transcriptions page.

Parker's Mood Bass Line

Sticking with my jazz blues studies this month I've transcribed the bass line under Bird's solo on the great tune, 'Parker's Mood'. There's a lot that I've learnt from looking at this bass line, most importantly the simplicity of a good bass line!

The first thing that I noticed about this line is that out of the 24 bars (2 full choruses of 12 bars) 22 of these bars start on the root note

Lick Of The Month #5

Hey everyone! This month's lick is another walking bass lick and is one I've pulled out of my transcription for the bass line on Charlie Parker's 'Now's The Time' available here!

Below is the video for the full transcription but you can hear this month's lick at 10 seconds and again at 32 seconds.

Another Way To Look At Autumn Leaves

Carrying on with Autumn Leaves, have a listen to this version by The Bill Evans Trio.

LaFaro takes a completely different approach to the Sam Jones line I looked at last month. Where as Jones seemed to take each chord and walk through it in quite a traditional approach, LaFaro treats pretty much the whole first chorus as one big C-, playing almost exclusively straight up and down the C Dorian mode. He does break out of this occasionally and outlines the chords a little more but in a more broken approach than Jones took. 

One example of this is over the same ii V I we used in the last post. 

Over the C- LaFaro plays R 3 5 R, goes back to C Dorian over the F7 and then plays 3 7 5 R for the BbM.

So there we have a very quick look at another way to approach the changes in this tune, it's not something I'd thought of doing before and I'm definitely going to be spending some time experimenting with this way of approaching bass lines. 

Click here to download the PDF, which on a side note I have now started uploading as PDF's as quite a few people were having trouble opening the XPS files. Enjoy!

Autumn Leaves Bass Transcription

Continuing the Miles Davis theme, here's a transcription of Sam Jones' bass line under Miles' solo on Autumn Leaves! This tune is full of ii V I's (4 majors and 5 minors per chorus!) which makes it a valuable tune to have some proficiency on. Next month I will be transcribing the full Miles solo that fits over this bass line to see how the two work together.

This is the first walking bass line I've transcribed and there where a couple of things in particular that I wanted to see how Jones approached; how he tackled two chords per bar, which crops up at the end of each chorus. And also his note choice on the C9. The C9 appears in bars 27-28 and 59-60. Both times this comes around Jones plays the same phrase, I would guess that this is to help the listener's ear become accustomed to where the end of each chorus is coming up. When I play over this section of the song I tend to get a very boxy and obvious bass line coming out as I play R - 5 or R - 3, something like that. Jones does start with R - 5 for the G-7, but then doesn't play another root until bar 31/62! The notes Jones chooses for the C9 are the 7th and 9th which help outline the harmony.

As you may expect what I got from this transcription was a whole lot more! There is so much even from the two choruses I have gone through that I won't be able to highlight every example but I'll go through some of my favourite moments.

The first thing that I noticed about this bass line is the use of very simple ideas, it most definitely makes me realize the art of not over playing, filling the role of a bass player and supporting the soloists. A great example of this comes in bar 24 over the Eb major.

I often feel that while I'm walking it's a crime to go back and play the note I've just played for fear of sounding boring, Jones proves this isn't the case again on bar 41 playing C octaves over a C-7. Again on the Am7b5, Jones plays R R b5 R, clearly outlining the overall harmony on that bar.

Continuing from Jones' simple ideas, I was also quite surprised at the amount of standard arpeggios I found. Pretty much every time the double bar of G-7 comes around he will play up and down the G- arpeggio, the same thing happens when the BbM7 EbM7 come around.

Another feature that really stood out to me was the shape of the line being played. You can clearly see from the example below without even needing to play the line how much it flows. This is pretty much a constant feature through the song, as well as through most jazz bass lines! This smoothness is definitely something to strive for when creating your own line.

The final point to make with this is his use of chromatic notes to lead you into the next bar. This is something that has been heavily covered in online lessons but when you play through this transcription you will see why! 

Two examples of this stood out to me in this transcription, the first in bar 46 where Jones plays a chromatic leading note on beat 3 and 4 instead of just 4. The second was in bar 54 where Jones plays an E natural over the F7, the third of the chord, but he uses this as a passing note to a Bb (5) on beat 1 of the next chord, EbM7. This example is below and also doubles up as a nice ii V I to learn.

For more on this specifically visit Scott Devine's website and look for his lessons on beginning walking lines.

Full transcription available here!

And here's the video :)

So What

If you've ever struggled to play over a modal chord progression then learning this Miles Davis solo is a must!

Davis tends to stick to the Dorian mode for the majority of his solo, as you would expect, although he occasionally uses a C major triad instead. (bars 35 - 40) One interesting use of this is in bar 57 where he uses the C major triad on the end of an Eb-7 section, essentially bringing in the D-7 a bar early. 

In bars 41-44 Davis plays a few licks taken from the Blues Scale, I especially like his quick use of the flat 5 coming back down to the root.

At the end of a 3 bar long Eb Dorian run, Davis uses some chromatic notes (bar 25) leading back into the D-7. Although these notes are not in Eb-7, they are all notes from the D-7.

G = 4th of D-

A = 5th of D-

D = Root of D-

Another tool Davis uses is the repetition of a simple melodic idea, starting on bar 3, he develops a short melody from the Dorian mode. This melody makes an appearance again at bars 46 - 47 as well as closing the solo at bar 65. This helps to give his solo a sense of continuity and structure.

Click the here for the full transcription, this solo is packed with licks that can be adapted for use in your own improvisations, another favourite is the Eb Dorian run in thirds, bars 53 - 56! There's just too many to list here, so grab the transcription and dig in!

She Loves You Transcription

This is a classic song from The Beatles which I will be playing at the weekend, with Friends Of The Bride, for the happy couples first dance. The full transcription is available for download here. If you're playing along with the original it seems to be slightly flatter than standard tuning so don't worry if you're sounding a bit out!


The form for this song is about as straight forward as it gets, with each section lasting a very unoffensive 8 bars and Sir Paul keeps the bass relatively simple playing root notes and fifths with the occasional passing note and one or two 8th note runs.


The main point of interest for me in this song was the one bar of syncopation after the 'She Loves You' refrain, bar 18 (bar 1 in the example below). Here McCartney shifts the accent from beats 1 and 3 where it stays for most of the song to beat 1 and  the 'and' of beat 2, before quickly jumping back in to the regular beat 1 and 3 accents.

A very effective yet simple technique that's well worth practicing. Nicely done Sir! 

Maiden Voyage Transcription

If, like me, you struggle finding interesting ideas soloing over static chords then take a look at my transcription from the first chorus of Herbie Hancock's 'Maiden Voyage'. It's packed with licks to get around static chords, check out the transcription here. Following on the same theme I'm working on Miles' solo from the classic 'So What'. Should be up next week, videos to follow!