In Season Deux of Know Your Bass Player on Film, Rob Stoner comments on Johann Sebastian Bach’s importance to modern day bassists. 

“Bach’s left hand is were bass started….” https://youtu.be/eTGeRO3aqSA

By Tony Senatore 

Johann Sebastian Bach might seem an unlikely role model for aspiring bass players, but his influence looms large for many. Jack Bruce considered Bach “the ultimate in bass players” and asserted that bassists could learn everything that there is to know in conventional harmony from listening to him. When reflecting on my earliest experiences as a bassist, Bach’s Six Suites For Violincello Solo as well as Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin were integral in developing my overall concept.

Perhaps the best example of Bach’s influence on bass guitar is Glenn Cornick’s work on Jethro Tull’s Stand Up (1969). The third track on side one of this seminal record was Ian Anderson’s arrangement of J. S. Bach’s “Bouree.” Cornick’s solo over the changes of “Bouree” was radical and revolutionary for the time.

I recently learned the track for a video featured on Know Your Bass Player, and noted some similarities between Cornick and Steve Swallow, both tonally as well as stylistically.

I asked Steve if Bach factored into his approach as a bassist, and if he was aware of Cornick, since they were contemporaries.

Steve conveyed that neither Jethro Tull nor Glenn Cornick provided any influence or inspiration, but that he shared Cornick’s “clear fondness for Bach.”

He continued,” I consider Bach the ultimate source of contrapuntal bass lines, and the Cello Suites the one essential bass text.  I know the ‘Bouree’ Tull played, and I used it as lesson material when I taught in the mid-70s at Berklee, and I appreciate that Glenn nailed it without pretense, as a bass player should.”

In this first edition of KYBP Tool Talk, KYBP Adjunct Professor, Bergen County New Jersey Bureau Chief Tony Senatore discusses the Gibson EB2-D with Steve Swallow.

Earlier in the week (March 2020), I posted some live Gary Burton videos ranging from 1968 to 1972. This garnered a lot of attention from my Know Your Bass Player cohorts Joe Gagliardo and Charles Lambiase. The videos featured Steve Swallow, one of the very first jazz bassists to play electric bass in an era when there was much hostility towards it, on electric and acoustic bass guitars. In the videos from 1968, Steve was playing the electric bass with his fingers, and by the 70’s had transitioned to playing with a pick, which helped him to forge his signature sound.

Gary Burton Molde 1974 https://youtu.be/i_TIVHp0epM

Gary Burton in Copenhagen 1968 https://youtu.be/CL6CcAbDSBQ

Charles, Joe and I marveled at Steve’s style and tone, and the three of us started guessing as to the what went into it, from the pickup configuration he used, to his strings and amplification. His choice of the Gibson EB2-D was key. Joe just added a dual pickup EB2-D that was stolen from him when he first started out, and Charles and I both own the single pickup EB2.

Charles noted that the silk winding on Steve’s bass strings was light blue, thus, we were able to deduce that they were Rotosound Jazz Bass flatwound strings. Rather than guess, I decided to send Steve a message to see if he could remember some of the things we were hoping to find out.

As it turns out, he was able to remember more than I imagined he would:

Tony,

I wish I could tell you more about my use of the EB2, but the truth is I’ve forgotten a lot.  At the time I was playing that instrument I knew next to nothing about electric bass, and I cringe a little when I hear my playing from that time.  But I must say Roy Haynes sounds incredible in the video you linked me to.

I have no idea what pickup, or combination of pickups, I was using.  The instrument was completely un-modified.  It was the first electric instrument I ever picked up, at the precursor to the NAMM show, in Chicago in 1969.  The strings were, I’m pretty sure, flat wound – they were whatever came with the instrument, and I subsequently ordered replacements from Gibson and just assumed that they were best for the instrument.  Initially, I played through a Gibson amp as well, but I soon figured out that it was terrible, and got an Ampeg B15, the classic flip-top.  I think that’s what drove me to play with a pick: the Gibson bass had a fat, dark sound and so did the Ampeg, and I was searching for brightness.

At some point – I’m not sure of the year but it was after I’d played with Eberhard Weber – I bought another EB2, this one in sunburst finish, and gave it to Peter Coura, the luthier who made Eberhard’s classic hybrid instrument, who put his pickups and electronics into it.  I’ve still got my original red EB2, but I sold the second one for a song a few years ago.  Big mistake.

The switch to pick was difficult.  I simply couldn’t hold onto the damn thing, would get about halfway through a song and watch it fly from my hand across the bandstand.  I took to lining up half a dozen picks on top of the amplifier and grabbing them one by one, until I finally developed that muscle between the thumb and index finger.

Sorry I can’t be more helpful.  Write if any questions come up.  Wash your hands.

Best, Steve