Chords for BASS PLAYER: Carol Kaye Interview

_ _ _ _ _ [A] _ Jaco was great, and I loved Jaco when I met him too.
_ Jaco got that mid-range sound then.
But because of Jaco, the [F] bass took on the identity as being a [Bm] solo instrument.
Now that's what Jaco did for the bass.
I mean Stanley Clark was no slouch either on electric bass, you know. _
But John got that great jazz sound on the electric bass.
But you know, a lot of people don't know it, but one of the first players of the electric
bass was _ _ Montgomery.
He went on the road with Lionel Hampton's band playing electric bass back in the 50s.
He's the first one that used electric bass [Eb] I think with a big band.
Sounded good too.
You know, so if you get the right jazz sound, and of course when you're playing walking
lines on bass, here again, [D]
you've got to practice your chordal notes.
_ _ [E] _ _
[F] [B] You've got to know where those [Bb] chordal notes are so you can go, _ [G] _
[Eb] for instance_ _ _ _ _ _
[D] _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ [G] _
_ _ [Bbm] _ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _
[F] _ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ _ [G] _
[A] _ _ [C] See, you've got to know those chordal notes so you can build hills and valleys in your
walking, see, and get the right sound.
[Eb] And you don't go_
_ I [D] had a guy come over from the UK that learned some of these tunes, and he was_
[Ab] _ _ _ _ [C]
So I said, no, no, no, long.
_ [G] _ _ _ _
[Db] _ _ [E] So you've got a jazz lick here, [Bb] E flat 7, [Gb] E flat 7, [Eb] move it up three frets, _ [E] _
[Eb] it's the same chord.
Can you break that down and explain that?
Okay, you're moving it [Fm] like a diminished [Bb] chord.
_ _ _ [Ebm] So you_ _
[Db] _ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ [Ab] _
So major, _ minor, see?
_ So there's a way of moving chords around three frets and you're saying the same chord, the
two and the five are just the five chord, [Gm] see?
So that's just jazz stuff that all the jazz players know how to teach and how to do.
Not so much today because it's non-chordal [A] today, it's note scale, see?
Note scales don't get it because they will ruin your ear and your fingers get used to
playing [E] scales and you can't find those notes.
So it's important to practice your [F] chordal notes.
_ _ _ [Eb] You're not hearing [Bb] this, [Dm] _ _ you're not hearing this, these [C] notes.
You need to hear the intervals of [Bb] the chordal notes that you can use, including the substitute chord [E] notes.
_ [Gm]
Chords are formed by every other note of the scale.
_ Nobody back in the 50s [A] played note scales.
Note scales are traveling notes, _ _ _ _ [Eb] _ but mostly in jazz you're going to use chromatics.
_ _ See?
[D] I'm [C] chromatic-ing, [B] chromatically.
Is that a word?
It's now.
[F] Yeah.
[F] See?
[G] That's all F.
This is F.
_ _ [C] _
[F] I'm playing off of these chordal notes.
Same pattern. _ _
_ [Em] _ _ _ [F] _ See?
Now I'm [E] playing off of these chordal notes.
I'm creating a pattern off the chordal notes.
You don't get that from note scales.
It used to be that we played bebop every night.
If you weren't working every night, you'd go out and jam somewhere, you know, in the 50s.
And occasionally I'd be playing with a group and somebody would ask to sit in and say,
oh no, [Ebm] don't let him sit in, he [G] plays scales. _
Because we all knew that you can't find those jazz patterns, jazz [F] patterns.
[A] That's not [Cm] a scale pattern, [E] see?
[Db] You have Dmitri's runs.
_ _ _ [C] The [Bb] days of wine and roses.
[Gb] _ _ _ [D] So so forth.
[C] Those _ _ [Eb] _ are not scales.
[F] _ [Gb] That's from these notes.
_ [Ebm] _ _ [A] _
[Bbm] _ _ _ [A] You're doing your parallel fourths [Bm] to them, stuff like that.
But you can't find those notes from note scales.
And those are the patterns that all the jazz players have used.
And they still use that.
You don't learn that so much in school because unfortunately you have a lot of former rock
players that _ never played jazz in the 50s and didn't know all this stuff.
_ At one school that I was teaching there for a while, I had to be careful because the head
of the school was a very important fellow and a nice fellow.
He meant well.
He just didn't know that _ 75% of the chords of all the standards ran cycle for a while.
And I was sitting there biting my tongue for about an hour.
And he was trying to explain how chords move.
And I finally stood up and said, look, if you learn your cycle, you'll automatically
know most of the chords of the standards.
And then he reiterated, oh yes, of course, if you know your cycle, then, you know.
So it's so simple to a person who played that.
And it's a shame that they're teaching all these note scales as a way of learning jazz.
And [D] that's not the way to do it.
[E] _ _ _ _ _ [N] _