Christian McBride Transcriptions

My friend, and excellent jazz bassist Ollie Dudek recently posted some transcriptions he’s done of Wilbur Ware and Sam Jones, and inspired me to post some transcriptions I’ve done of one of everyone’s favorite bassist, Christian McBride.

These transcriptions are both taken from the Jamey Aebersold recording “Hot House”, which features Christian on bass, Jeff “Tain” Watts on drums and James Williams on piano, surely one of the hottest rhythm sections to ever cut a play-a-long. I mostly chose these recordings because they are great tunes, the bass is remarkably clear and easy to hear, and the basslines on these tracks are textbook examples of how to tastefully ornament a supporting line.

The first one, “On A Clear Day”, is a regular walking line, but Christian’s great triplet run and tasteful slurs really add a lot to the line, which sounds great just by itself. The main influences I hear on this line are Ray Brown, and a little Scott LaFaro on the triplet run.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/com.paulsanwald.share/Christian+McBride+On+a+Clear+Day+-+Full+Score.pdf

The second transcription, “As Time Goes By”, is a great example of a line in a “Two” feeling, which Ollie also did several transcriptions of. Again, Ray’s influence sounds very strong here. Interestingly, I play pizz in the “stacked fingers” style that Paul Chambers uses, and I find lines like this to be particularly challenging if using that style of pizz. So lately I’ve been practicing switching to two fingers for stuff like this, there’s something about those skips that are much easier with two fingers.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/com.paulsanwald.share/Christian+McBride+on+As+Time+Goes+By+-+Full+Score.pdf