by Darren Theriault
Ruts. Just that word makes me angry! We all fall into them. How to get out of them? “The Bassist’s Guide to Creativity” (by Chris Kringel, Elderly Instruments) gives you many ways to put down the razor blade and pick up your bass! The book is full of rut-bustin’ ideas to help [...]

Dois Gemeos – Dois Gemeos
Review By Brent-Anthony Johnson
Groovy. Just plain groovy! This is wonderful little ’06 release seems to have leaped out of the early 1960’s Bossa Nova recordings, most notably recorded by Joao Gilberto and Carlos Jobim. What a cool sound!! But, check this out, Dois Gemeos is Craig Shields and Larry Chaney of [...]

Upon My Head & LIVE At European Bass Day – Lorenzo Feliciati
Reviews By Brent-Anthony Johnson
Between the humorous hip-hop groove of “Horses,” the deeply Jaco-esque “Dedicated” and the beautiful chord study “Coffee Flavor,” Lorenzo’s fretted and fretless electric bass guitars and his acoustic contrabass sing, spar, dance, weave, and push the musicians on this pair of [...]

Urban Legend – Roy Vogt
Review By Brent-Anthony Johnson
Nashville mainstay and instructor Roy Vogt takes an interesting journey though the tracks of this release. The result is a “vibe-y” and chorus-laden journey with a good band of players. Roy’s playing is solid and the band plays great together. Guitarist Shane Roberts, and drummer Bryon Larrance are [...]

In Between & Those Days – Bernhard Lackner
Review By Brent-Anthony Johnson
Finally! A well-played, well produced, well-written, and even well presented CD by a great bassist/composer! This gives me hope! Bernhard’s ’06 and ’09 releases both sparkle with intent to reach beyond our happy little community of “32nd note slingers!” I listened to both these wonderful [...]

Bass In Your Face & Mother Father Preacher Teacher – Quintin Berry
Review By Brent-Anthony Johnson
Quintin hits several high notes on his 2008 release! Although a “bass CD,” there are several great tunes along with the killin’ grooves, and a heap of unexpected, well-played bass tones! On Bass In Your Face “Q” spaces the tunes [...]

Review by Matt O’Donnell
One of the coolest independently released books to be given to the bass community was Jim Stinnett’s “The Music of Paul Chambers”, a book of solo transcriptions played by “the Bird of bass”. Two more volumes of transcription books (including “Arcology”, a collection of P.C.’s bowed solos), Stinnett has taken it to [...]

Vail Johnson is best known for his work as the longtime bassist for Kenny G, but he is more than in line to be respected as a straight up solo artist with the release of his latest CD, “Come Together”. The album, as one might be able to guess, is an instrumental re-imagining of classic [...]

Review by Matt O’Donnell
I collect a lot of music. A big part of my life is as simple as that. My iTunes library just reached a cumulative 82,000 songs, taking up almost half of a terabyte. Every week, I collect pretty much every record that comes out that is made by anyone I’ve ever heard [...]

The Rolling Stones-Hot Rocks 1964-1971
Review by: Jodi Stevens
This book contains a great collection of tunes from the Rolling Stones’ early years. It contains the biggest tunes from the band’s first decade together, after they decided to stray away from being a blues/rock cover band back in 1966 (this great bit of history was provided on [...]