Copping the URB feel on EB

matthewbrown

matthewbrown

Jan 7, 2003
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mattbrownjazz.weebly.com
#1
There's a lot of "how do you make an EB sound like an upright?" going around, and I admit I've read and listened to quite a bit of it, because I love URB but don't play it any more. Getting the sound is one thing, but playing lines that draw on the tradition of jazz URB players is another! Having played URB for about 7 years or so, I got a sense of how URB players use open strings and drops, but I'm doing a deeper dive into the technical aspects of this now while I'm learning and relearning a bunch of jazz standards for some upcoming gigs. I'm starting a list of things I've found helpful so far in getting the URB walking vibe on EB and if you've done some work on this, I'd welcome hearing what you've discovered, to extend the list.
  • Open Studio, PDbass -- YouTube Channels
  • Practicing patterns for walking in Ist and IInd position (1,2,3,5; 1,3,6,5, triads)
  • Jazz Transcriptions
  • Single-string scales
  • Ray Brown's Bass Method
  • Transcribing (duh)
 
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#3
matthewbrown said:
There's a lot of "how do you make an EB sound like an upright?" going around, and I admit I've read and listened to quite a bit of it, because I love URB but don't play it any more. Getting the sound is one thing, but playing lines that draw on the tradition of jazz URB players is another! Having played URB for about 7 years or so, I got a sense of how URB players use open strings and drops, but I'm doing a deeper dive into the technical aspects of this now while I'm learning and relearning a bunch of jazz standards for some upcoming gigs. I'm starting a list of things I've found helpful so far in getting the URB walking vibe on EB and if you've done some work on this, I'd welcome hearing what you've discovered, to extend the list.
  • Open Studio, PDbass -- YouTube Channels
  • Practicing patterns for walking in Ist and IInd position (1,2,3,5; 1,3,6,5, triads)
  • Jazz Transcriptions
  • Single-string scales
  • Ray Brown's Bass Method
  • Transcribing (duh)
Click to expand...

I play mostly rock, but have been studying jazz for a better overall understanding of bass, music theory, etc. Ray Brown's Bass Method book, as you noted is excellent. The other book I've found invaluable is Mike Richmond's Modern Walking Bass Technique. This book has outstanding studies in walking.
 
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#5
Well, I am primarily an upright player. I own an electric bass which I use for special occasions (the load-in's just too crazy, or five of us are going to crowd onto our friend's porch to practice). I play the electric exactly the same way I'd play upright.

I note you mention "jazz standards" - well, the thing that most electric players seem weakest on when you hand them a lead sheet from the Real Book, is rhythm. NO, it's not acceptable for the notes to kind of ooze out at some time which never seems to be the right time. The right note at the wrong time, is a WRONG NOTE. Learn how to play rhythmically above all. If you have to just play the root for four beats every measure, but it's right dead on the beat - or, heck, if you have to mute the string and just make a muted "thump" - that's a thousand times better than playing all kinds of sophisticated notes that aren't in time.
 
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#6
turf3 said:
Well, I am primarily an upright player. I own an electric bass which I use for special occasions (the load-in's just too crazy, or five of us are going to crowd onto our friend's porch to practice). I play the electric exactly the same way I'd play upright.

I note you mention "jazz standards" - well, the thing that most electric players seem weakest on when you hand them a lead sheet from the Real Book, is rhythm. NO, it's not acceptable for the notes to kind of ooze out at some time which never seems to be the right time. The right note at the wrong time, is a WRONG NOTE. Learn how to play rhythmically above all. If you have to just play the root for four beats every measure, but it's right dead on the beat - or, heck, if you have to mute the string and just make a muted "thump" - that's a thousand times better than playing all kinds of sophisticated notes that aren't in time.
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Most of the electric players I know here are pros, and they swing just fine, although they often use a much brighter, more midrange-heavy tone than I favor. I have an archtop with flats and a piezo system for most jazz gigs now. It has a very satisfactory sound for walking bass, especially when I use a Tech21 Bass Driver with it. I think you can swing with a mid-rangey sound just fine, but I like a big fat tone these days.

I studied electric bass with Don Coffman at the U. of Miami (may he RIP). He doubled, but he taught me electric bass technique that was very different from what an URB player would use, much more like a guitarist or even a cellist (he had me work on a Bach prelude for cello and a bear of a bassoon solo). I was never too deep into the URB, tbh, so now I'm making up for a lost opportunity, I think. So I'm working on choosing notes for walking lines that would fit with what a good jazz pizz player would choose, with the closest sound I can muster and a solid feel and control of the tempos. That and knowing the tunes, I hope, will work out for me eventually. I've got more time to pursue my jazz playing, so I might as well brush up on it!
 
#7
Well, I'd say get your two-beat playing dead solid, then go to four-beat walking.

For "standards" there's typically a kind of characteristic way people play a tune, whether it be how the horn players handle the melody, or how the rhythm section handles their bit. Being solid on that would be important, which involves lots of listening.

Again, we don't know all of your background, so I'm just kind of guessing here. I may be telling you stuff that's way too basic, or way too advanced.
 
#8
Listening and playing. I know it sounds simplistic, but those are the things. Listen to all ages of jazz. Ted Gioia advised not letting yourself be turned off to earlier jazz, by the quality of the recordings.

Learning melodies, both by ear and by reading. Remember that upright is taught as a melodic instrument. Learning to accompany comes later. I believe that reading is important because it will be part of what gets you onto the bandstand. But learning by ear is also important.

Upright players are also taught to focus on tone production. You need to get all of the variety of tones that you paid for, whatever kind of bass you play.

Don't do anything that will hobble your technique, such as palm muting (my opinion, I know there are respected players who disagree). Don't assume that bands want the dull, thumpy tone of earlier recordings. Upright players don't want that tone, even when playing older material.
 
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#9
I'm a rookie bass player, but my ears have been listening to other instruments I play for a lot longer. I reckon the instrument and strings also has a lot to do with it. I have several basses, and the one that sounds most like an upright is a cheap ($100 used Harley Benton cheap...) 32" scale fretless acoustic bass guitar with Low Tension Flats on, played with the plucking hand pretty much on the fingerboard. That doesn't mean that a better quality fretless ABG won't sound better, just that this is OK at UB imitations even with me driving it :)
 
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#10
Maxra said:
I'm a rookie bass player, but my ears have been listening to other instruments I play for a lot longer. I reckon the instrument and strings also has a lot to do with it. I have several basses, and the one that sounds most like an upright is a cheap ($100 used Harley Benton cheap...) 32" scale fretless acoustic bass guitar with Low Tension Flats on, played with the plucking hand pretty much on the fingerboard. That doesn't mean that a better quality fretless ABG won't sound better, just that this is OK at UB imitations even with me driving it :)
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There are lots of instruments and setups that will get you in the ballpark, I think, even if you can't nail it (and we can't, let's face it!). The instrument I'm pictured with was a cheap Michael Kelly ABG with flats, and it worked well. Ir looked good in a bluegrass band, too!

Lately, I've been listening to Bob Cranshaw's electric playing; he doubled and used to play EB with Sonny Rollins --I checked out a track by Eric Alexander, Secret Love,; Cranshaw is walking on EB on it. Listening to Dave Holland play electric was worthwhule, too. It may be that some of the most characteristic URB approaches to walking don't translate well to EB; I'm still listening and experimenting. While I think getting the sound close is helpful, Jaco swings like mad on Mr. Gone, and his bass tone... well we all know what Jaco's tone was like!
 
#11
matthewbrown said:
There are lots of instruments and setups that will get you in the ballpark, I think, even if you can't nail it (and we can't, let's face it!). The instrument I'm pictured with was a cheap Michael Kelly ABG with flats, and it worked well. Ir looked good in a bluegrass band, too!

Lately, I've been listening to Bob Cranshaw's electric playing; he doubled and used to play EB with Sonny Rollins --I checked out a track by Eric Alexander, Secret Love,; Cranshaw is walking on EB on it. Listening to Dave Holland play electric was worthwhule, too. It may be that some of the most characteristic URB approaches to walking don't translate well to EB; I'm still listening and experimenting. While I think getting the sound close is helpful, Jaco swings like mad on Mr. Gone, and his bass tone... well we all know what Jaco's tone was like!
Click to expand...
You know, there was jazz music before 1970.

Snarky, I know, but there's a point.

If you want to play in a jazz-standard straightahead way on a bass instrument (whether it be an electric bass guitar, tuba, bass sax, or double-bass), I think you need to go back to the elders. Start with guys like Wellman Braud, Pops Foster, Adrian Rollini, Jimmie Blanton, and so on. If the recording quality puts you off, listen to some modern masters in that vein: Uwe Ladwig, Matt Tolentino, Vince Giordano.

Then I'd suggest a lengthy course of listening to the swing and bebop players - Pettiford, Brown, Walter Page, and so on.

Emulate what they're doing on their bass instruments (mostly double-bass, but I've thrown in some bass sax and tuba players here and there), on your bass instrument.

As an upright player who owns an electric, that's what I do when I play electric.

As to tone/.sound, I'm using the thing that was designed to simluate the uprighit bass - a Precision Bass with flats, a piece of foam under the strings at the bridge, and the tone control rolled all the way off. It doesn't sound exactly like an upright, but it doesn't need to - it sits in the same place tonally, and if you play standard line and patterns that are characteristic of the jazz standards' performance practice you're following, it sounds dandy. I mean, if you played those same lines on tuba or bass sax, people wouldn't be running around with their hair on fire trying to get the exact sound of an upright bass on bass sax or tuba. In this music, "bass" is a role, not an instrument. You don't want to come across with a super-bright Rotosound Rickenbacker all-treble-all-the-time sound, but that's true whether you're using an upright with a pickup, an electric bass, tuba, marimba, bass sax, or contrabassoon.
 
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#12
turf3 said:
You know, there was jazz music before 1970.

Snarky, I know, but there's a point.

If you want to play in a jazz-standard straightahead way on a bass instrument (whether it be an electric bass guitar, tuba, bass sax, or double-bass), I think you need to go back to the elders. Start with guys like Wellman Braud, Pops Foster, Adrian Rollini, Jimmie Blanton, and so on. If the recording quality puts you off, listen to some modern masters in that vein: Uwe Ladwig, Matt Tolentino, Vince Giordano.

Then I'd suggest a lengthy course of listening to the swing and bebop players - Pettiford, Brown, Walter Page, and so on.

Emulate what they're doing on their bass instruments (mostly double-bass, but I've thrown in some bass sax and tuba players here and there), on your bass instrument.

As an upright player who owns an electric, that's what I do when I play electric.

As to tone/.sound, I'm using the thing that was designed to simluate the uprighit bass - a Precision Bass with flats, a piece of foam under the strings at the bridge, and the tone control rolled all the way off. It doesn't sound exactly like an upright, but it doesn't need to - it sits in the same place tonally, and if you play standard line and patterns that are characteristic of the jazz standards' performance practice you're following, it sounds dandy. I mean, if you played those same lines on tuba or bass sax, people wouldn't be running around with their hair on fire trying to get the exact sound of an upright bass on bass sax or tuba. In this music, "bass" is a role, not an instrument. You don't want to come across with a super-bright Rotosound Rickenbacker all-treble-all-the-time sound, but that's true whether you're using an upright with a pickup, an electric bass, tuba, marimba, bass sax, or contrabassoon.
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Thanks for this interesting post!

This is pretty much what I've been doing, and what this thread was directed toward facilitating, I hope. But I started studying jazz seriously in high school and later at U. Miami in 1974. I started out listening mainly to Paul Chambers, Pettiford and Milt Hinton. At the same time, fusion was breaking through, and when I heard Bright Size Life, I heard electric bass in a whole new way, especially with respect to timbre and articulation. I vary my tone considerably depending on the situation. Lately I'm going back to listening to more mainstream players doing standards and bebop again but in the past I was more interested in different stuff: Scofield, Rosenwinkel, McLaughlin, Corea, Oregon. I have pretty broad tastes -- I also play classical guitar and listen to a lot of that repertoire. I also listen to early jazz and ragtime.

I atake the approach you use on your Precision sometimes when I use my MTD, although I vary my opinion about muting, depending on the situation. If I'm playing swing for music theater, I also use an URB IR patch on m Zoom A3. I often use a mute -- URB played with no amp and with gut strings is my sonic model. But modern URB tone has changed due to the availablity of better amplification, and a mute on a bass with mag pups doesn't get that sound, IMHO. Instead, I use a hollowbody archtop with piezo pickups. There's a world of tonal difference between Milt Hinton's early recordings with the MJ! and Eddie Gomez's work with Bill Evans, I think, so I try to keep that in mind when I'm trying to get an URB vibe - there's more than one way to approach the timbre. You are absolutely right about playing standard lines and characteristic patterns, and that is what I am most focused on now.
 
#13
matthewbrown said:
... I started studying jazz seriously in high school and later at U. Miami in 1974. I started out listening mainly to Paul Chambers, Pettiford and Milt Hinton. At the same time, fusion was breaking through, and when I heard Bright Size Life, I heard electric bass in a whole new way, especially with respect to timbre and articulation. I vary my tone considerably depending on the situation. Lately I'm going back to listening to more mainstream players doing standards and bebop again but in the past I was more interested in different stuff: Scofield, Rosenwinkel, McLaughlin, Corea, Oregon....
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I'm about five years younger than you, but there wasn't much happening musically between your 1974 and my 1980 except disco and fusion jazz. Certainly in those days, we thought the Blue Note recordings of the 50s were "ancient traditional jazz". But in the ensuing aeons, I've done a LOT of dance band work which led me back to the 1930s, and even the 20s. I also was fortunate to work in a professional "small big band" all through the Great Swing Dance Scare of the 90s, so I got thoroughly schooled on swing music.

When one realizes that there was a whole world of jazz music BEFORE Diz and Bird started their experiments at Minton's, one can understand a lot better what those guys, and the hard-boppers immediately after, were doing.

My path is a bit different than most players here, as up till about 2010 I was a saxophonist exclusively and it wasn't till then that I took up bass; and I started out as an upright bass player, and that has continued to be my focus. So I already knew how the tunes were supposed to sound, and what I had to do was learn how to make it sound like that. (Of course there is always room for interpretation, but I'm talking about at least can you play XYZ and make it sound like you more or less know what you're doing.) The whole fusion thing, to be quite honest, feels very dated to me, both the tonal qualities of the music and the content. I still listen to it, but I doubt I'll ever play that style again. While Bix's stuff still feels - what would you say, not "modern" - maybe "active". Yeah, you can tell you're playing old tunes, but Bix and Louis and Chick Webb and Red Norvo still feel "relevant(?)" or "meaningful" in a way that 70s fusion doesn't. And guys from later, like Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Arthur Blythe, World Saxophone Quartet, Lester Bowie, Ronald Shannon Jackson, could maybe be crammed into the "fusion" box, some of them, but not really. And they too still feel "relevant/meaningful" to me.

But anyway, if I were launching into a new act of my music career, i.e., standards, on bass, I'd go back to the elders (and I don't mean "elders" like Ron Carter, Jaco, and NHOP; I mean "elders" like Pops Foster, Walter Page, Wilbur Ware, Art Davis, Jimmy Garrison, MIlt Hinton, Israel Crosby, PC, etc., ) I'd work on getting my two-beat playing solid, then move to walking.

Actually, that IS pretty much what I did in learning how to play jazz upright bass, after I had gotten some basic technique together.
 
#14
turf3 said:
I'm about five years younger than you, but there wasn't much happening musically between your 1974 and my 1980 except disco and fusion jazz. Certainly in those days, we thought the Blue Note recordings of the 50s were "ancient traditional jazz". But in the ensuing aeons, I've done a LOT of dance band work which led me back to the 1930s, and even the 20s. I also was fortunate to work in a professional "small big band" all through the Great Swing Dance Scare of the 90s, so I got thoroughly schooled on swing music.

When one realizes that there was a whole world of jazz music BEFORE Diz and Bird started their experiments at Minton's, one can understand a lot better what those guys, and the hard-boppers immediately after, were doing.

My path is a bit different than most players here, as up till about 2010 I was a saxophonist exclusively and it wasn't till then that I took up bass; and I started out as an upright bass player, and that has continued to be my focus. So I already knew how the tunes were supposed to sound, and what I had to do was learn how to make it sound like that. (Of course there is always room for interpretation, but I'm talking about at least can you play XYZ and make it sound like you more or less know what you're doing.) The whole fusion thing, to be quite honest, feels very dated to me, both the tonal qualities of the music and the content. I still listen to it, but I doubt I'll ever play that style again. While Bix's stuff still feels - what would you say, not "modern" - maybe "active". Yeah, you can tell you're playing old tunes, but Bix and Louis and Chick Webb and Red Norvo still feel "relevant(?)" or "meaningful" in a way that 70s fusion doesn't. And guys from later, like Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Arthur Blythe, World Saxophone Quartet, Lester Bowie, Ronald Shannon Jackson, could maybe be crammed into the "fusion" box, some of them, but not really. And they too still feel "relevant/meaningful" to me.

But anyway, if I were launching into a new act of my music career, i.e., standards, on bass, I'd go back to the elders (and I don't mean "elders" like Ron Carter, Jaco, and NHOP; I mean "elders" like Pops Foster, Walter Page, Wilbur Ware, Art Davis, Jimmy Garrison, MIlt Hinton, Israel Crosby, PC, etc., ) I'd work on getting my two-beat playing solid, then move to walking.

Actually, that IS pretty much what I did in learning how to play jazz upright bass, after I had gotten some basic technique together.
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Playing in two offers so many possibilities! Right now I'm working on a lot of Ray Brown, particularly the recording he made of Our Love is Here to Stay with Ella and Satchmo. Great stuff. :)
 
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