The Jazz Bass Book - Technique and Tradition Book/CD (Softcover) (Bass Player Musician's Library) [Paperback] Review

This book is essentially an annotated and expanded collection of columns originally published in Bass Player magazine. As such, it's more of a disconnected set of essays than a narrative; the discussion of significant bass players is somewhat spotty, and doesn't go into great detail on their music and style in the way that (for example" Todd Coolman's "The Bass Tradition" does. But it's still both entertaining and educational. The chapters, being mostly self-contained, can be read at random as the reader's interest dictates.
The first section of the book is primarily short snapshots of significant bassists, each being composed of a short biography accompanied by brief musical examples. The latter section- almost an appendix- consists of longer examples of styles and techniques. It's not really a method book, but it does offer some insight into styles and harmonic and rhythmic concepts for the beginning or intermediate jazz bassists. The accompanying CD helps illustrate the musical examples for those whose reading and playing techniqueare at a more basic stage.
All in all, a very entertaining and useful book for jazz bassists of all abilities, and an excellent choice for bedside reading.

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Product Description:
More than a playerÃ-s manual, this book portrays jazz bass as a vital element of 20th century American music. Citing examples from key recordings in the jazz canon, the book defines the essence of the musical contributions made by more than 70 important jazz bassists, including Ray Brown, Eddie Gomez, Charles Mingus, Milt Hinton and many others. Bassists get expert guidance on mastering proper technique, practice methods and improvisation, plus new insight into the theoretical and conceptual aspects of jazz. The companion CD featuring bass plus rhythm section allows readers to hear technical examples from the book, presented in slow and fast versions. It also offers play-along tracks of typical chord progressions and song forms.

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