14 BASS MAGAZINE ; ISSUE 4 ; bassmagazine.com
Janek Gwizdala
minutes long, and the record is under 40
minutes. It’s like a vinyl Cannonball [Adder-
ley] record from the ’50s — I wanted to cap-
ture that spirit.
“Tourbillon” has some subtly shifting
time feels.
My concept was to let Phil and Ruslan
choose the tempo for their solos. So at the end
of the head there’s a slight pause and the new
tempo begins. Phil chose to bring the tempo
back a bit, and Ruslan pushed it forward a lit-
tle. The title refers to an addition to a mechan-
ical watch that enables it to keep accurate time
no matter what angle the watch is at.
The ballads “End of the Story” and “Your
Secret Lover” have a Mike Stern flavor, both in
the writing and guitaristic components.
Absolutely, Mike is a huge influence,
especially his great ballads, like “Wing and
a Prayer,” “What Might Have Been,” “Bird
Blue,” and many more. “End of the Story”
started as a bass solo piece, with a sort of
John Mayer-ish guitar opening and ending.
Then I wanted a big, ECM trumpet sound
for Philip’s melodies. “Your Secret Lover”
is very influenced by the relationship be-
tween the bass note and the melody note
— the way Mike uses them as a composi-
tional tool — and there’s a hint of Sting in
there, too. “Lover” is just me and Clarence
playing live, with my accompanying chord-
al part via my TC Electronic Ditto Looper
on some of the track.
“Light Years” has a memorable melody and
an interesting bass sound.
I always try to write vocal-like melo-
dies that can be easily sung. As with “Tell
Me,” I didn’t want to play the melody, but it
wasn’t quite clicking on piano or trumpet, so
I tracked the bass line first and I overdubbed
the melody and my solo, which is the lone
overdub on the record. As for the bass line,
I used my Boss OC-2 Octaver — one of the
original Japanese-made units — with the [dry
sound] level and oct 2 knobs turned off and
the oct 1 knob turned all the way up. The fat
tone translated well in the mix sitting under
Clarence’s kit, which has more of a lighter
jazz sound than a heavy fusion sound.“The Creatures” is the other ambient,
rubato track.
That was completely improvised. I was
messing around with my effect pedals and
using my volume pedal to swell in different
sounds, and John [Patitucci] came in to ask
me how I was doing it. I figured if he thought
what I was doing was hip, let’s roll tape and
see what we get. We did one pass, with the
guys lightly adding appropriate colors on
their instruments. I had three parts going:
Lows through the Boss OC-2 Octaver, mids
through a Frederic Effects BugCrusher, and
highs through a Boss PS-5 Super Shifter.
The title track is rich in dynamics, with an
open feeling.
I love using dynamics in writing, like the
band dropping out for the piano interlude
halfway through the head, or Philip soloing
with only Clarence in support. When I write
I often think ahead to playing the tune live.
How can I write the tune so that we’re not go-
ing to get bored playing it night after night?
Or, how do I write something that isn’t too re-
strictive in terms of a lot of notes or the form,
so we can keep it loose and stretch out? As for
playing open, I got a lot of that from my best
teacher at Berklee, Hal Crook, who taught us
various ways to play free on the form and oth-
er music-opening concepts. Plus, Clarence
plays with people like [trumpeter] Dave Doug-
las and [keyboardist] Uri Caine, who are mas-
ters of playing freely within the music.
Let’s discuss your signature Mattisson basses.
I met Anders Mattisson through Henrik
Linder at a NAMM show, and in three weeks
he built a prototype that is still my main bass
three years later. My concept for the instru-
ment is that it have an organic sound but
great tone over the full range, which for me is
a 5-string with a high C string. I like econo-
my of movement, so I went with a 32” scale. It
has an alder body, which is chambered, an ash
neck, and a maple fingerboard with 28 frets
— which gives me a high E on the 28th fret of
the C string. There’s also a zero-fret for a more
consistent sound between fretted and open
string notes, and a Hipshot Xtender [detuner]
on the E string. The pickups are Aguilar Super