Bass Magazine – Issue 4 2019

98 BASS MAGAZINE ; ISSUE 4 ; bassmagazine.com

IN

1976, I heard the Jaco Pastorius

recording of “Donna Lee” from

his debut album Jaco Pastorius

[Epic/Legacy/Sony]. Jazz educator Jamey

Aebersold was holding court in a listening

class I was attending — an academic version

of what musicians call “hanging out, spin-

ning sides.” I was amazed by Jaco’s effortless

rhythmic approach, the fluidity of his lines,

and how he got inside the harmony. Jamey’s

take on Jaco’s performance was simple:

Modern jazz bassists should be able to play

solos over complicated chord changes and

fast tempos as fluently as horn players.

As I continued practicing the jazz lan-

guage on electric and double bass, I knew it

was possible to play intricate bebop lines on

unwieldy low-end bass instruments — main-

ly because Jaco had set the bar high when he

recorded alto saxophonist Charlie Parker’s

standard “Donna Lee.” Other acoustic and

electric players also thrilled me with their

solo techniques: Stanley Clarke, Eddie Go-

mez, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, and

Miroslav Vitous. Inspired by these great so-

loists on acoustic and electric bass, plus all of

the incredible players on other instruments, I

made a point of learning bebop melodies and

solos by Charlie Parker and others, imitat-

ing the phrasing and swing of the saxophone,

trumpet, and piano, the main solo instru-

ments in bebop ensembles. There are hun-

dreds of standard bebop melodies and chord

progressions, and these compositions make

up a large part of the jazz repertoire from the

mid 1940s through the late ’50s.

Let’s look at an étude based on the chord

progression of Charlie Parker’s often-played

composition “Confirmation.” The form is 32

bars long, AABA, consisting of four eight-bar

phrases. The harmony is framed by a series

of IIm–V chord sequences moving from the

Play along with John’s

bebop bass lines and

melodies in his new

video lesson series at

DiscoverDoubleBass.

com

and johngoldsby.com.

Inside The Changes Of “Confirmation”:

A Bebop Étude

Jazz Concepts | By John Goldsby

CONNECT

CHECK IT OUT Listen to the Warne Marsh Trio featuring Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen playing

“Confirmation” [The Unissued Copenhagen Studio Recordings, 1975, Storyville].

CHECK IT OUT Mr. Sunny Bass fills his YouTube channel with walking bass play-along lines for jazz

musicians. Here’s his take on the chord changes to Charlie Parker’s “Confirmation.”

CHECK IT OUT Forrest and Eric at jazzadvice.com break down how Charlie Parker approaches

improvising over “Confirmation.”

CHECK IT OUT Check out the original: Charlie Parker with Percy Heath on bass, playing “Confirma-

tion” in 1953.