Archive for category Bass Jams

There isn’t much to say here! Just a wee quick Boss Loop RC-3 jam on the tune “acceptable in the 80′s” by Scottish Dance Legend Calvin Harris, who’s from my home town of Dumfries in Scotland.  At 6ft 5 he’s one of the few musicians I’ve met who’s taller than me….

Building the loop from scratch following Calvin’s original parts was fun but quite slow to watch, so here I cut forward to 2 minutes when I added in the legendary fat bass line.

J

This wee puppy arrived today.  The RC-3 is the latest version of the Boss loop pedal .  It’s great so far, can’t fault anything and seems to be seamless recording and playing back with no audio glitches.  It’s real easy to be accurate with your foot on phrase ins and outs too, which is what I was hoping for most of all.  It’s just down to you to keep your inner clock up.

I spent a couple of hours making some pretty random loop versions of jazz standards playing all the parts (not sure the bass excels at that – or maybe it’s just me – early days!).

Anyway, I ended up jamming a few funk things, and this one above is ＃2.

Here’s a clip of Jaco Pastorius showing how it should be done, tearing up a great solo with a looper back in 1979 with Joni Mitchell.  The original video version is on “Shadows and Light” the DVD.  This is the full solo, but the looped part starts about 3 minutes from the end.  Watch out…!

I spent a whole day this week recording a cover of Nick Drake’s ‘From The Morning’, from his 1972 album ‘Pink Moon’. This is the last track on the album and has always been my favourite.

Nick Drake (1948 1974) is becoming more and more known as an icon from 1970′s english folk music. Although he suffered from insomnia and depression throughout his life and died too young (26) his 3 studio albums have influenced so many since his death he’ll always be remembered.

This arrangement features my Overwater fretless on melody, Taylor acoustic on the original guitar part i did my best to learn ;-) and a bit of egg shaker and xylophone to boot.  The photos in vid were taken throughout the course tracking the sun across the sky on Christmas day 2010 at my parent’s home village in Scotland, UK….

Hope you enjoy, J

PS Pink Moon is an amazing album which you should check out if you don’t already know….