Bakithi Kumalo: Change For The Better

BAKITHI KUMALO’S BASSES SURE MAKE THEIR PACES THROUGH Change, from such lush sonic sojourns as “Mountain Walk,” “Thula Sana,” “Healing Song,” and “Sweet Potatoes,” to the sunlit Afro-pop of “Stimela,” “Help for Darfur,” “Stand Up,” and “Oh Mama”—not to mention “Keeping Up” and “Basement Bassman,” solo ruminations on fretless and upright, respectively.

Ex. 1a contains the two-bar opening upright phrase of “Mountain Walk,” a tune in 6/8 with a 4/4 undercurrent throughout. Ex. 1b shows the tune’s main rhythmic figure, which Bakithi played with chopsticks on a tabletop. Ex. 1c occurs at 2:18. The first three eighth-notes of bars 1 and 3 are the basic shape of the fretless part running through most of the track. Here, Bakithi focuses on the tabletop rhythm in Ex. 1b to play a rhythmically busier part. Note how the end of bar 1 and all of bar 2 lock in with the rhythm. Ex. 1d occurs at 3:14. Here Bakithi changes the vibe of the tune by focusing on the 4/4 side with this cool, syncopated, Zulu-flavored part.

Ex. 2 shows the upright groove Bakithi settles into on “Basement Bassman.” Inspired by Cachao, he combines an Afro-Cuban tumbao—plucking the open G, D, and A strings with his right hand—with an African hand drum part played by patting his left hand on the top or front sides of his upright. He advises learning the right- and left-hand parts separately at first, and then putting them together.

The dynamic ten-track disc is awash in dense soundscapes, with multiple basses of all timbre and range subtly panned amid joyous vocal and percussion choirs. Kumalo recorded the album in the basement studio of his Long Island home, aided vocally by wife Robbi and their two daughters, plus well-placed guest slots by keyboardists Bill Smith and Beledo, saxophonist Mark Gatz, and Josh Groban cellist Collette Alexander. In between home sessions, Bakithi spent 2007 and 2008 composing for the CW Network TV show Life Is Wild, recording and touring with Groban, and maintaining a steady gig load with Paul Simon.

The album is inspired by all the amazing change I’ve been through in my career. To come from a little village in South Africa and ultimately have a family and own a home in the U.S. is unbelievable. To have become a successful bassist in the land of Stanley Clarke, Jaco, and Marcus Miller is nothing less than a dream come true. I feel like I’ve completed a circle, and that has led to a lot of reflection. Whenever I’ve been waiting in the car to pick up my kids from the playground or a music lesson, I’ve found myself thinking back over my early life, and melodies and rhythms would come into my head. So I would go home and start building the tracks, playing bass, guitar, percussion, and singing. Eventually, I added guests I thought would fit in well.

The other realization I had was that my five previous CDs were all collaborations, and while I liked much of the music, I always had someone advising me to go in a certain musical direction to fit a format, or changing something after I’d left the studio. This disc is 100 percent me, start to finish.

First, by being myself. I’m not a soloist— my thing is to lay down grooves and play melodically in between. So that was my focus. I started by messing around with feels on upright, which I’ve been enjoying playing in recent years. But I knew I wanted to have the tonal colors of multiple basses. I would have each bass follow a different percussion part, whether it was playing a bass line, a melody, or a countermelody. The challenge was in the panning and mixing, to make sure they blended and weren’t too boom-y. It even came down to alternating righthand placement on different basses to get just the right tones.

Yes, Robbi and the kids and I all sing, and I do some chanting. Vocals are a big part of my bass development, as well. I learned my very first bass lines from a capella groups. In my village, Sunday church consisted of groups walking around singing and playing drums. When they’d pass by I would listen and emulate the lowest vocal line on my bass, and it sounded good! To this day I sing my bass parts in my head; all the lines on [Paul Simon’s] Graceland [Warner Bros., 1986] were sung. Picking up the fretless after hearing Jaco was perfect for me because it lets you do vocal-like slides and effects. At the same time, the rhythmic side of the bass was equally important to me. I always viewed it as part of the drum family. I used to sit on my cousin’s kick drum when we played, and just lock in with him.

Like they say, change is the only constant. In Paul’s band, the change has been the transition from Steve Gadd to Charley Drayton on drums. Both are world-class groove and time drummers, but they still play differently. It has been fun to reinterpret all the music with Charley, who really did his homework on the African material. Other than that, I look forward to making another CD with a slightly different focus, and watching my kids grow. They change every day!

GEAR

Basses Warwick Streamer 5-string, fretless Warwick Streamer 4-string, Marleaux 5-string, fretless custom 4-string and fretted 6-string, German full-size acoustic bass, circa 1900
Rig Aguilar DB 750 head and GS 410 4x10 cabinet
Effects DigiTech BP50 Bass Modeling Processor
Strings DR Hi-Beams, Fat-Beams, Red Devils, and Black Beauties
Studio Aguilar Tone Hammer Bass DI, Aphex 204 Aural Exciter/Big Bottom, Fostex PM-2 studio monitors

CAN BE HEARD ON

Bakithi Kumalo, Change [BaliDali, 2009]; Lorraine Klaasen, Africa Calling [Justin Time, 2008]; Leo Blanco, Africa Latina [Ayva Music, 2008]; Josh Groban, Awake [Warner Bros. 2007]; Paul Simon, You’re the One [Warner Bros., 2000]

CURRENTLY SPINNING

“I’ve been listening to a lot of kids’ music, like Robbi’s CD [Music Makes Me Happy, BaliDali, 2007], and plenty of traditional African music, especially the late Miriam Makeba, plus some Miles and Mingus.”