Bass Is The Place: How Being A Bassist Made Me A Better Musician
I play several different instruments but in the capacity of an actively performing musician, I am primarily a bassist. And like many bassists, I started out as a guitarist. I had been playing guitar...
View ArticleLive-Evil: Miles Davis Deconstructes The Blues on Sivad/Honky Tonk (1970)
Sort of continuing the Miles Davis theme from my previous post, I want to discuss one specific piece of Miles from the early seventies: “Honky Tonk” (a studio recording on the album “Get Up With It”)...
View ArticleBorn To Be Blue: Grant Green (1935 – 1979)
The last couple of weeks I’ve been listening to a lot of Grant Green. There are three tunes in particular that I keep returning to. They are “Blues In Maude’s Flat”, “Cool Blues” and “It Ain’t...
View Article“Please, sir, I want some more.” . . Grant Green Part II
This is a continuation of my previous post about the great Grant Green. One of the points I made during that post is how Grant Green’s playing is an excellent source of coping lines (or if you prefer,...
View ArticleStick Theory Continued: Another Chapman Stick Guitar Video
I thought I would post a new video of me performing on the Chapman Stick Guitar. Here I’m doing a couple of choruses of the blues standard “Nobody Knows You When Your Down And Out”. It’s a fun song to...
View Article“Give Me A Ticket For An Aer-O-Plane”: Joe Cocker 1940 – 2014
For those of us who came of age in the late sixties – early seventies and for whom the music of those years made an indelible imprint on our souls, this has been a tough month. In the past several...
View ArticleGroove Is In The Heart: Charlie Hunter Video On The Importance of Rhythm
I’ve made no secret that I’m a big fan of Charlie Hunter. What he does is amazing and unique (please check out my previous post on Charlie Hunter here:...
View ArticleWork Song: The Paul Butterfield Blues Band/Cannonball Adderley Quintet/The...
As I continue to practice on my Chapman Stick guitar, I have a list of tunes that I am currently working on and a list of tunes that I plan to work on. One of the songs that just went from the “will...
View Article“Let Me Play The Blues For You”: The Guitar Genius Of B.B. King (1925 – 2015)
After dealing with various health issues during the past few years, the legendary B.B. King passed away last night at his home in Las Vegas. He was 89. I was lucky enough to have seen B.B. King live...
View Article“You Got The Silver. .” : Great Keith Richards Quotes On Music
“I mean, give me a guitar, give me a piano, give me a broom and string, I wouldn’t get bored anywhere.” “I firmly believe if you want to be a guitar player, you better start on acoustic and then...
View Article“So You Wanna Play The Blues . .” : Cool Blues Guitar Instructional Videos...
Confession time. I don’t think I’m a particularly good straight blues guitarist. I’m o.k. but my style is more Grant Green than B.B. King. But I love B.B. and all the other Kings. I grew up listening...
View Article“So You Wanna Play The Blues . .” : Cool Blues Guitar Instructional Videos...
With September 18th marking the 46th anniversary of his accidental and tragic death, it seems like a a good time to mention Jimi Hendrix. In addition Legacy Recordings has announced the release of the...
View Article“So You Wanna Play The Blues . .” : Cool Blues Guitar Instructional Videos...
Continuing my little mini series on instructional blues guitar videos, I want to call to your attention a cool website called Learning Guitar Now w/ John W. Tuggle (http://www.learningguitarnow.com/)....
View Article“Blues for New Orleans” . . . : Duke Ellington, the New York Public Library...
So here I am, fourteen years old and just starting to get into jazz beyond the contemporary bands of the day. I wanted to go deeper but the the number of records one can buy on a fourteen year old’s...
View Article“Might Be Your Man” . . . : “One Way Out”– A Comparative Study In Blues
My cable provider has a section of channels called Music Choice which are basically a bunch of audio music channels with each channel dedicated to a specific music genre/style. I sometimes put it on as...
View Article“Don’t Ask Me What I Think Of You”. . : Peter Green (1946 – 2020)
I always said that one of the advantages of being a bassist is that you can get to the opportunity to play and learn from some good guitarists (if you’re lucky). A great guitarist who I played with a...
View Article“She Caught The Katy” . . . : Taj Mahal
I don’t know about you but I can use some music that puts a smile on my face. . . Most of the time when people think of the blues, they think sad music about suffering. Then there is Taj Mahal (real...
View Article“I’m Just A Demon In Disguise” . : David Bromberg’s Final Big Band Show
A couple of weeks ago I was home on a Saturday night with no specific plans when I got a call from my old friend Errol, someone who I have been in bands with on & off for over thirty years. He had...
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