BOBBY VEGA’s successful career with everyone from Sly & the Family Stone to jam-band favorites KVHW is due to many of his diverse talents: a great ear, superb tone, and sensitive musicality. But it’s his unmatched pick technique that continues to astound and inspire. When asked about his brief stint with the band subbing for Rocco Prestia, Vega demonstrated his unique approach to the Tower Of Power classic “What Is Hip.”
At the Key Club concert on Saturday night, NATHAN EAST (right) presented Earth, Wind & Fire’s VERDINE WHITE (above) with a BASS PLAYER Lifetime Achievement Award, then took on the challenge of playing the melodies for “Boogie Wonderland,” “Fantasy,” and “Shining Star,” with White, EW&F guitarist Greg Moore, drummer Keith Carlock, and keyboardist Jeff Babko. “Fantasy,” in particular, enabled Nathan to apply vocal-like interpretations in the spirit of Earth Wind & Fire vocalist Philip Bailey (with whom East collaborated on Phil Collins’s 1984 No. 1 hit “Easy Lover”). This example is typical of Nate’s approach on the out chorus. For the first four bars, he stays close to the original melody, adding expressive slides and hammers where felt. The next four measures are more interpretive, as Nate lays off the downbeat of bar 6 and then loops the melodic phrase. In bar 7, he issues a counter-melody, with a trill on the long note, for emphasis. Bars 8, 9, and 10 follow similar alternate melody paths, utilizing hammers, pull-offs and slides. Even harder to translate to the written page is how Nathan subtly laid back on many of his phrases.
CHRIS CHANEY, who brought L.A. drum ace Gary Novak to play djembe in his clinic, addressed the importance of knowing the fingerboard. For maximum knowledge of any single position, Chris demonstrated playing triads through the cycle of fourths in first postion, starting on whatever note in the triad lay on the E string (Ex. 1). To help navigate the neck horizontally, make arpeggios and exercises more musical, and inspire creativity, Chris played two-octave triads through the cycle of fourths (Ex. 2) using these rules: Before each chord tone, play the next scale tone above and half-step below that chord tone.
REGGIE HAMILTON’s clinic focused on odd meters and making them feel natural, leading him to present a happening one-bar exercise he wrote, called “Seventeen.” The piece serves multiple purposes, including helping make an odd-meter flow like 4/4, and developing right-hand independence both rhythmically and by having to use thumb, index, and middle fingers. Reggie, who can be seen doubling on Bonnie Hunt’s new NBC daytime talk show, advises, “Start slowly. Practicing too fast only teaches the brain the mistakes you make. By slowing the pace, your muscle memory will better adapt, and your brain only has to learn one way—the right way. Also, always use a metronome because developing a great internal sense of time is the first step to having great time on the bandstand.”
Among the various topics addressed in a wide-ranging clinic, French phenoms HADRIEN FERAUD and DOMINIQUE DiPIAZZA (a teacher and mentor of Feraud’s) compared and contrasted their right-hand four-finger technique, when playing on one string. Feraud noted that he adapted his approach from Matt Garrison, using index, middle, ring, and pinky plucks in a row, while keeping his right wrist, hand, and fingers curled around the strings (leaving his fingers almost perpendicular to the fingerboard). DiPiazza evolved his own concept, with a thumb pluck followed by ring, middle, and index plucks; this requires more of a flat wrist and hand against the strings, while still curling the fingers.
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Finally, 17 bassists and drummer Greg Bissonette converged for the three jam tunes that closed the concert (“Let’s Groove,” “Well You Needn’t,” and “Feelin’ Alright”). As usual, musical director STEVE BAILEY found himself in a position to play melodies, chords, bass lines, and whatever else made the tunes work. When asked for a lesson, he joked, “I was thinking of submitting four bars of rests to stress how important it is to lay out when trying to be musical playing with multiple bassists!” Instead, Steve offered the cool solo intro figure he played on his fretless 6 to kick off “Feelin’ Alright,” which is in the style of Artie Butler’s piano part on the original 1969 Joe Cocker version (with BASS PLAYER Lifetime Achievement Award recipient CAROL KAYE on bass). Adapted here for 4-string, you’ll need a two-octave neck to play the descending figure in bar 4, but Steve notes the entire part sounds fine down an octave, as well.
