If flexible, play-any-style bassists were at one end of a continuum opposite those who developed their own thing and stuck with it, Rocco would be the latter team’s tug-ofwar anchorman. Rocco has played like Rocco ever since the band formed in Oakland, California, 40 years ago. There’s the clipped staccato 16th-notes, the ghost-notes and muting, and a rhythmically busy, forward leaning approach to funk that perfectly suits Dave Garibaldi’s energetic drumming and the band’s tight horn arrangements. Rocco digs in hard with his right-hand fingertips, and, as he explained during the video shoot, his fingerboard approach involves fretting most notes with his first two fingers, laying his left ring and pinkie finger across the strings for muting, and shifting positions frequently.
Rocco demonstrated his idiosyncratic technique using his chorus part from the band’s 1972 hit, “You’re Still A Young Man.” First, an overview: The tune is in a slow but groovy 6/8, and Rocco’s part further subdivides the eighth-note beats into 16th-note triplets. The staccato notes on beat two of the first two bars match both the drum and vocal phrasing, especially the abrupt final syllable of “ba-by” in bar 2, but make sure the notes that aren’t marked as ghost or staccato get their full rhythmic value. Though Rocco uses his smaller fingers to fret the fifth and octave at the beginning of bar 1, he mainly keeps his fingers close together and his hand shifting to achieve the muted sound and ghost-note triplets that lead the neck-spanning line as it wanders from chord to chord. For more style ideas to steal from Rocco, visit www.bassplayer.tv.
WHAT IS HIP
• After undergoing a 2002 liver transplant, Rocco has been back on the road playing around 150 dates per year with T.O.P.
• He’s been developing signature instruments and amps with The Bass Company and Eden respectively. He’s already playing Eden’s Rocco Prestia 8x10 cab on the road and he’s expecting a matching Eden Rocco head soon. Rocco has played Dean Markley Strings since the 1970s.
• Tower Of Power just finished a new album of cover tunes with guest performances from Joss Stone, Tom Jones, Huey Lewis, and Sam Moore.
• The group is celebrating its 40th anniversary with a special October concert at San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium.