Bass Player is the world's most comprehensive, trusted and insightful bass publication for passionate bassists and active musicians of all ages. Each issue delivers the latest tips and techniques that are guaranteed to make you a better player.
When John Paul Jones completed the recording sessions for his band Led Zeppelin’s fourth album in early 1971, he would scarcely have realized at the time that the album was destined to be the subject of a magazine cover half a century later. Here we are in 2021, though, still awe-struck by the songwriting, the musicianship, the majesty, the sheer over-the-top ambition and the huge presence (pun intended) of the record that was never formally titled Led Zeppelin IV. In this issue we celebrate the unique genius of JPJ, and take an appreciative look at those classic bass performances back in ’71. There really is no other bass player like him. We’ve gone above and beyond (up the stairway?) to bring you interviews with a wide cast of bass players…
“I had a good friend in high school who played bass—he would play along to bands like Black Sabbath and Deep Purple in his bedroom. He ended up getting a new bass, and gave me his old one. I don’t remember what kind it was, but I started off learning Black Sabbath songs on that bass. I know my parents had to have been very concerned about me at that point—but to their credit they never said anything! “The first bass I bought was a Dixon Rickenbacker 4001 copy around 1975, and I still have it. I used the Dixon for a long time, but I finally bought a real Rickenbacker 4003 five years ago. I’ve fiddled with any number of other basses, but haven’t spent any real time with…
The veteran amp-builders Ampeg have announced a “powerful yet lightweight” Rocket Bass series of amps, comprising five RB models in 1x8, 1x10, 1x12, 1x15, and 2x10 speaker configurations. They cost from $209 to $909. Each amp boasts a three-band EQ, Ampeg’s Super Grit Technology (SGT) overdrive, XLR line outs (except the RB-108), aux inputs, and headphone outs. “We wanted to design the ultimate bass combos, sacrificing nothing in terms of tone or aesthetics. Rocket Bass is designed for the practical player who doesn’t want to give up stage-ready looks, roadworthy construction, and killer tone, just because they prefer the practicality of a combo amp,” says Dino Monoxelos, Ampeg’s Brand Marketing Manager.…
Queen & David Bowie, ‘Under Pressure’ (1981) It’s D. And it’s A. And it’s D again! One of John Deacon’s most instantly recognizable bass-lines ever, the ‘Under Pressure’ riff was perfectly counterpointed by a piano stab, a weird, live-sounding vocal and guitar and a cheesy rapper from Dallas. That’s right—the song and its iconic bass-line were given a whole new life in ‘Ice Ice Baby’, the dreary 1990 hit by Vanilla Ice, who sampled it and repackaged it for a younger generation of consumers.…
What is it with bass books at the moment? There’s loads of them coming out. Two more essential reads are on the way, the first from Ron Carter and titled Chartography—Reinvented Transcriptions.It includes five of his performances of the jazz standard ‘Autumn Leaves’ with the Miles Davis Quartet from 1963 to ’67. The maestro explains the concept with the words: “This is the first book that explains all the factors that go into what has made the greatest bass-lines in history so great. And that is context... By looking at how a bass-line evolved over multiple choruses and performances, you will understand that a one-chorus transcription cannot help a bass player find out how that bass-line was actually built, much less how to write one like it himself.” Next up…
“To this day I don't know how it happened, or how I got through that gig...” I play in the heavy metal band Angel Witch, and after trying out a few different basses, I use a Fender Jazz these days. When I first joined, there was quite a bit of overdrive on the bass parts and I tried a Rickenbacker copy, but it just didn’t match up to the Jazz, although I did change the Fender bridge for a hi-mass unit, because I need my setup to be as functional as possible. I want to be very self-sufficient, and a Jazz bass is really good for that, because the tone is great—the sound man has to work really hard to screw it up. “When we play live, obviously not under…
