Bass Extremes/CD

Rating:
Summary: I think this one is Victor's best CD. GREAT music for kids!
Review: I bought this at the music store and although I've also got A Show Of Hands, Yin Yang and the Bass Extremes Cookbook CDs, this is the one I play the most. The structure of it is 12 songs, with Victor and Steve Bailey and Jack Bissonette playing with very different feelings, then an intro with tuning tones and 12 brief interviews, re-sequenced, with Wooten and Bailey describing the techniques used on each song.

These Songs Are ASTOUNDING. And, IMHO, stronger than Cookbook, by the same guys. "Thumb Start My Harley" cracks my son up and makes my wife tap her foot, and has a drum solo that justifies the whole idea of drum solos. A Chick From Corea is a series of musical jokes derrived from Chick Corea's music, and again, makes you smile, tap your foot and nod your head in disbelief- are you realling listening to a drummer and two electric bass players with nothing else??? Emerald Forest and Moon Ridge are lovely, gentle explorations and Madonna Lee is the classic (Donna Lee) revisited. Every song is gem.

Part of the strength of this CD is that each piece is built around a technique that Wooten and Bailey want you to hear, an once they've displayed it and had fun with it, they stop. No boogieing on. Its virtuosity on display. For $10 more than a regular CD its well within affordable and you can give the music book to someone who reads music- all the songs are there in all their glory. Not that you'd be able to exactly sit down at a piano and play this... although that would be pretty wild too. Make that two pianos...

As a listener, the how-to sections are interesting too, since they take appart their interactions and explain what each is doing and how it meshes with the other two. If you want to know how jazz (or any other collaborative art) is created, these little seqments, recorded after the actual pieces, are mostly pretty illuminating.

But even if you just play the instrumental tracks this CD is a joy to own and treat to share. And great way to share humor and complexity and unique vision with other music fans. It's particularly superb while driving along highway 395 in the Mojave Desert, with the family, silly and beautiful and unexpected.

Rating:
Summary: CORRECTION! There are 8 songs, here's the list of tracks
Review: I wrote my review (which you kindly posted) from memory but I mis-remembered how many tracks there are on the CD. There are actually 8 songs, an intro to the lessons, then 8 lessons:

1) A Chick From Corea
2) Bangkok Blues
3) Stan The Man
4) Victor's Jam
5) Thumb Start My Harley
6) Exerald Forest
7) Moonridge
8) Donna Lee

9) Introduction and tuning

10) Lesson 1: A Chick From Corea
11) Lesson 2: Bangkok Blues
12) Lesson 3: Stan The Man
13) Lesson 4: Victor's Jam
14) Lesson 5 Thumb Start My Harley
15) Lesson 6 Emerald Forest
16) Lesson 7 Moonridge
17) Lesson 8 Donna Lee

To VERY briefly summarize the material:
A Chick From Corea is about triplets and 'country and western' sound. Victor plays the melody, while Steve plays chords.

Bangkok Blues finds Steve playing etheral false-haromonics over Victor's anchoring funky blues,then Victor plays hammer-ons over Steve's fretless chording.

Stan The Man: Dedicated to Stanley Clarke. Victor plays a tenor bass- ADGC - against Steve's chords, both take solos at the same time. The chord progresson starts gently so you can hear it, then they crank it up.

Victor's Jam: A funk workout from Victor and drummer Greg Bissonette.A range of techniques is used to keep with the drummer

Thumb Start My Harley: With Steve's fretless played through wicked distortion (like Pink Floyd's "One Of These Days") over Victors pumping foundation, which turns into competing, over-the-top triplet solos. Jack Bissonette's emphatic drumming morphs into a VERY complex solo, in correct time. As Steve says in the lesson intro, "If you think you have good time, pat your foot all the way through that at the tempo of the song and you
should come out right. Until you do, keep trying!" Victor will later explain how he does the very funky "open-hammer-pluck".

Emereld Forest: Victor arpegiates chords through sweet reverb while Steve's fretless sings a sitar-ish melody.

Moonridge: Steve's solo, a study for the right hand (6 string fretless) keeping the D string going, with chords and harmonics. If you had thought there were any limitations to electric bass this should put those fears to rest.

Donna Lee: Victor plays the scales using thumb and index finger, using thumb-down, thumb-up, index finger triplets. The scales are sewn together in the familiar tune, while Steve pays the chords that Charlie Parker copped from "Indiana" to support it. DENSE, with some call and response at the end. (Another take on the same classic tune appears as "Madonna Lee"
on the "Cookbook" cd.

Rating:
Summary: Good stuff
Review: The book/cd has some great tunes on it, and that alone is enough reason to pick it up. However, there are a few mistakes here and there in the transcriptions, but these are in places where they are just improvising anyway, so it doesn't really matter. It's good music to improve your technique on without sounding like fretboard exercizes.

Rating:
Summary: Very Nice
Review: Well im playing bass for 4 years now, and as being so i really recomend this book. This is definetly not for beginners, but more for advandced bass players. Wooten explains some cool stuff for those who want to play funky stuff and Bailey is the living Pastoruius. The songs are really cool and even cooler, you got the notes to them and the coolest they explain what they actually do both on the cd and the book. Go ahead.