Electric Bass Lines No. 4 - Carol Kaye

ELECTRIC BASS LINES NO. 4

by CAROL KAYE

© Copyright 1971, 1986, 2004 by Carol Kaye

International Copyright Secured Printed in U.S.A. All Rights ReservedNo part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the Publisher.

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Foreward by Ray Brown

As a bass player, having worked side by side with Carol Kaye on numerous Movie and TV calls and recording sessions, I have come to know how great she is on this instrument and what contributions she has made. Also having John Clayton as a student for the past year, I have seen great strides, and what is more important, the future progress he will be making. I recommend this book highly as I do all of the Carol Kaye material.

Introduction

This folio represents various types of tunes, mostly in the Soul style of music, of my original bass lines from the indicated hit records. They represent much of what is being written today in the studios for Electric Bass players although some of the tunes had no bass lines written and were improvised lines on my part at the time of recording them (from l965 through 1971). The rest had skeleton parts written which I had to "improve" upon to help make the recording feel good. Today’s musician is called upon to read more and more and so I felt that this book was necessary for practice. The hit records are all familiar and the parts will be good for sight-reading practice as well as study in continuity. It would be a good idea to purchase these records to play along with. The tempo indications are approximate as the band rushes and drags in spots, feel was the utmost important thing. The bass doesn't sound very distinct on the earlier recordings as on the later ones, but one can play along with these and benefit by it.

Lately, it has been pleasurable to hear so many fine bass players play so tastefully in all of the new great Rock groups. One of which is John Clayton, Ray Brown's protege who I am proud to say, mine also. He assisted me in the music preparation of this book and my heartfelt thanks go to him for the arduous work he has done. We both hope you like this book and that it will be a challenge and a pleasure to play.

Sincerely,

John Clayton, 1972 combo winner of the Pacific Coast jazz Festival contest (The John Clayton Trio). Worked with Louis Bellson, Herb Ellis, Craig Hundley, and Monte Alexander.

John Clayton went on the road in the I970s playing elec. bass with the great Count Basie Orchestra, finished his university education, married and had 2 wonderful children, one of whom, Gerald, is also making a name for himself in jazz piano. John has had a great musical career and jazz recordings producing some fine jazz CDs with his famous band, the "Clayton Hamilton Orchestra", along with his brother Jeff Clayton and Jeff Hamilton. Be sure to catch them and get the CDs, see John’s website at: www.johnclaytonjazz.com. I owe a lot to this uniquely talented person not only for his work on this book, but also for his enduring friendship, a quintessential great musician.

Boots

Back In My Arms

Out of My Head

Good Vibrations

If I Could Build My Whole World Around You

Wichita Lineman

I Chose to Sing the Blues

You’ve Made Me So Very Happy

Don’t Change on Me

Understanding

I Was Made to Love Her

This was recorded with Stevie Wonder present as a young man. He often tells his band “it was Carol Kaye who recorded bass on IWMTLH”. The first riff was written and the very first bar was written as well as the Db and Eb triads. The rest I improvised according to the style they wanted. It’s very easy to play fast 16th notes with lots of definition with the hard pick, flat wrist picking with the beat technique I’m know for, no problem – I had been playing quite a few dates that way. I’ve always picked close the end of the neck, where you get the best sounds – other dates producers wanted a “picky” kind of sound. As an in-demand studio bassist, you had to be able to produce all kinds of sounds, ranging from the bassiest of the sounds (listen to my sound clips on Library on my website www.carolkaye.com) to the clickiest of sounds (“Mission Impossible” etc.).

The date was one of the “cash-dates” we did unfortunately. Sometimes our group of hitmaking union musicians would do “cash-demo” dates and then insist that company join the Musician’s Union but we didn’t do that with this company – and soon we understood as they played “demos” for us to copy a style from, that these were not demo dates but hit tracks we were recording for them. You never make demos from demos, you make hit tracks like what Mr. Gordy wrote in his bio book “all the great tracks coming from LA in 1964”. Motown has always had offices out here in LA since 1962-63 (SunsetVine Towers building, 2 floors of suites of offices), and when someone finally reported these dates to our Union, suddenly Motown “announced they were moving to LA”.

I remember this bass line, have always written about this and other recording in my 1969 cassette bass course and described how Detroit musicians started Motown with their fine hits in my many seminars and teachings since 1969 but that we did sone good recording for then too out here in LA. When I saw Stevie Wonder at a recent NAMM Trade Show, he immediately hugged me and we chatted a while. He verified that I recorded this hit with him, and that I had played on a few other recording of his for that period of time also. I enjoyed playing bass with him at a mid 1960s Shrine Auditorium concert – Leonard Feather wrote a review of this show where I played guitar with the Oliver Nelson big band, guitar with the Jimmy Smith Jazz Trio and bass with “Little Stevie Wonder”. The crown went wild, it was a memorable night. CAROL KAYE

Feel So Bad

Willie

Feelin’ Alright