Bass Extremes: S'Low Down

Thirty years ago, a simple pairing changed the trajectory of bass. Steve Bailey and Victor Wooten, bonded by their mutual fretboard wizardry, sharp wit, and teaching philosophies, formed Bass Extremes, and the instrument and its community were forever transformed. The concept was quite ambitious. Steve was a rapidly ascending anchor for Dizzy Gillespie, Paquito D'Rivera and The Rippingtons, who had found his voice on the 6-string fretless bass and was taking the instrument to uncharted heights, with a soon to be released solo debut. Victor had captivated global audiences and the music world with his dazzling dexterity and showmanship as a member of Bela Fleck & The Flecktones, but was four years away from his landmark debut, A Show of Hands. And while there had been two bassists in bands before, the idea that two bass players and a drummer is the band was unprecedented.

Little wonder then, that publisher CPP Belwin was lukewarm about a method book/CD package in which our heroes would write, record and transcribe eight tracks, with drummer Gregg Bissonette in support—a feat they miraculously accomplished in three days, due to budget constraints. The pair's vision paid off, as Bass Extremes became one of the best selling bass instructional products of all time, while introducing such low-end standards as "A Chick from Corea" and "Stan the Man." It also launched a cottage industry in which the two doubled as performers and educators at an ever-growing number of shows, industry events, clinics, university appearances and concerts worldwide—a bonus offshoot being the creation of their popular and perpetual "Bass Camps." Such sojourns connected them with more and more of their bass brethren, leading to an expanded concept for their Bass Extremes follow-up: The duo fully embraced their artist side and signed with Tone Center Records to release two ground-shaking albums—CookBook in 1998 and Just Add Water in 2001— which featured such guest bassists as Will Lee, Anthony Jackson, John Patitucci and Oteil Burbridge, and guest drummers Kenny Aronoff and Dennis Chambers.

In the two decades since, the BE brand has been kept alive through occasional tours and performances, with both gentlemen focused on their solo careers. These efforts have yielded milestone recordings by each, including Steve's So Low... Solo and Carolina, Victor's Palmystery and Words & Tones/Sword & Stone, plus Victor's novels The Music Lesson and The Spirit of Music, and Steve's position as the Chair of the Bass Department at the prestigious Berklee College of Music (with Victor as a Visiting Scholar in Performance Studies). Still, they were well aware of the approaching 30th Anniversary of Bass Extremes when they recently booked a week at Steve's Myrtle Beach, South Carolina studio, and flew in Greg Bissonette, wanting to reunite the original trio.

With a plan to once again expand the trio format—thanks to their numerous connections to top bassists and musicians—and by now equipped with their own home studios, brimming with gear and the knowledge of how to use it, the mission commenced. Steve and Victor favor what they call "tag team writing," in which Steve may start an idea and then go surfing while Victor adds his idea, and vice verse—with both functioning as composer, player, engineer and producer. This is no surprise given the remarkable level of trust and shared musical tastes and instincts that have long been apparent between these two highfliers. Greg Bissonette also played a key writing role, as many songs began with his drum interpretations, out of which Steve and Victor created melodies.

But perhaps the biggest key to the record's concept lies in the duo's choice for a title: S'Low Down. The first of the dual meanings is clear, this record is all about the bass. As for "slow down," that has deeper implications. "This is us 30 years later," explains Victor. "We wanted to show the difference from our first record, where we played all the parts at once, in real time. We're not as concerned with technique and chops anymore. We're happy to overdub and feature other players to make the music better. As you get older and wiser you learn how to say more with less. Now that we're teaching we say that to our students a lot, 'Slow down.'" Steve concurs, "For most musicians, myself included, you spend the first part of your career proving what you can play and trying to innovate and get it out there. What this album typifies for me is, been there, done that. Now it's about what's the least amount we can bring to the music and still make it work. At the same time, this is still Bass Extremes and there are some technically challenging parts on the record; some of it more subtle, like using harmonics and sustained notes in a way that enables me to accomplish in two notes what would have taken me ten notes back then."

Opening the ten-track trek is "Ready, Set, Slow," with funk maestro Bootsy Collins MC-ing the bass-a-delic scene. The piece began as an alternate take of "Shrimp & Gritz," from Steve's Carolina album, which features Victor using his "bass-and-beatbox" approach, along with Bootsy's vocals. The pair got Mr. Collins to impart some new vocal wisdom and worked their manipulation magic to create a two-bass throwdown that ends with Boosty summing up the record with a fitting nod to the immortal James Jamerson: "Just like Motown, you get the lowdown."

The instrument's history plays a starring role in the funk-meets-swing foray "Home Bass," which indeed is the first time masters Ron Carter and Marcus Miller have recorded together. Add in John Patitucci's 6-string blowing prowess and this is one for a thumpers' time capsule. The piece started with Bissonette's drum track going to Miller, with the instructions to write what he felt, with the ensuing swing section earmarked for Carter. Marcus provides a deep-pocketed slap-and-pop melody against his signature ear-grabbing harmony, while Sir Ron gives a clinic in walking bass and beyond. Steve (on his signature Warwick 6-string fretless, which is the lone bass he plays on the album) and Victor (on one of several Yin-Yang Fodera 4-strings he plays on the disc) add their voices and arranging and editing skills to knock this one out of the park.

Puns and puzzles are always rampant on a Bass Extremes album and perhaps no track defines that better than "Chrome Addict," a play on the song's heavy use of the chromatic scale (listen closely to hear some of the more subtle applications of the scale in every register and direction). It also boasts what Victor feels is perhaps the most dynamic melody Steve has written, for the A section. Needing chordal accompaniment the pair instantly turned to their first thought: Oteil Burbridge, a true bass chord Buddah and frequent BE guest. The song's other hook is the use of bass instruments of all stripes. It began with Howard Levy on bass harmonica and extended to Jeff Coffin on bass clarinet, who then recommended adding Bela Fleck's bass banjo. Together the ensemble creates a nu-Americana classic.

The spark that ignited the tight-turning big band burner, "Mess That Up"? That would be Greg Bissonette, who uttered the phrase while sight—singing his Steve-penned drum part in the studio and incorrectly reading a lick. The pair again drew some melodies from Bissonette's rhythms and fills, and they dug Greg's impromptu vocal ad-libs so much they had him record more and told him to let loose (put on your headphones to better hear his hilarious commentary throughout). The other unexpected ingredient here is Mike Stern improvising on 6-string bass! It happened at one of Victor's Bass & Nature camps, where Steve talked Mike into idea, found him a student's fretted 6-string, gave him the general tonality of A, and recorded him playing to the drum track. Using several of Stern's phrases as key structure points in the piece, Steve next turned to gifted trumpeter/arranger Matt White (who had worked with the Steve and Victor on previous recordings) and he overdubbed the big band brass and soloed over Victor's baddass walking bass.

"Ping Pong" is so dubbed for Steve and Victor's love of playing the paddle sport—grab your headphones to hear how the duo's parts are panned to mimic the game itself. Victor wrote the melody on Steve's Warwick Triumph Electric Upright in Steve's office at Berklee and promptly noted that he could hear bluegrass and classical savant Edgar Meyer playing it. One visit to Victor's home studio later and indeed we have Meyer playing the melody superbly, using both arco and pizzicato. The support side is no less brilliant, with Bissonette echoing a number of different grooves—including the Time's Prince-written "777—9311"—and the rare opportunity to hear Meyer walk behind Steve's searing solo.

There's much more than meets the ear on "Oh Tell Billy," named for guest bassmen Burbridge and rock virtuoso Billy Sheehan, starting with Steve's singsong melody that sits deceptively on a 10-bar phrase. Dig Bissonette's highly original half-time shuffle, as well. Countering the A-section is the first bridge (at 2:36), which is easily the deepest harmonic passage to enter the BE songbook, aided by Oteil's masterful voice-leading. The guys sent Sheehan the track and in addition to tastefully finding his place in some call and response moments, he offered up a nasty, shredding second bridge (at 3:18). In one final bit of fun, the outro finds the fellas quoting a handful of famous tunes (hint: yes, the Beatles are in there).

Rhythm is the key to "Patchwork," a halftime-swing head by Steve that gets an unexpected boost from Bissonette's second line-flavored feel. And who better to lead the blowing over the descending changes than John Patitucci? Listen as the orchestration gradually gets thicker, with the three bassists doubling various parts and engaging in question and answer dialogue. Music heads take note: parts of the main melody and also the bridge (at 3:14) contain the rhythms of famous bebop heads but with different pitches. How many can you name?

Since Steve began his tenure at Berklee, it has become a tradition for him to put together an annual holiday mash-up track (with video) featuring faculty and students in the Bass Department. "Silent Night In Tunisia" is certainly one of the highpoints among what is now a dozen years of Yuletide creations, but it can also lay claim as a Bass Extremes song because it was recorded during the trio's original Myrtle Beach sessions for S'Low Down. Riding a reggae "riddim," the piece ingeniously tangles the minor key melody and changes of Dizzy's "A Night In Tunisia" with the major key Christmas classic, "Silent Night." Steve claims said twisted melody over Victor's greasy, thumb-and-palm-muted ostinato. Enter the faculty, with Patitucci stating (and blowing in-between) the bridge melody, buffeted by Whit Browne's walking upright. A funk bridge quoting "Jingle Bells" rides a filthy 8-bar groove solo by Vulfpeck anchor Joe Dart. Patitucci and Mike Pope then trade solos in a mighty meeting of 6-string heroes. Finally, a joyous group improvisation ensues until the ending unison riff.

In what is one of the greatest pairings since chocolate ran into peanut butter on that old Reese's commercial, Tool's Justin Chancellor guests on the aptly-named "Justin Time." Steve and Victor first met Justin at a Warwick camp and then had him on a number of their Berklee Bass Department Zoom webinars—the ones that helped so many of us thumpers get through the first pandemic shutdown. He also guested on a Berklee Bass Department holiday track. Here, the guys sent Bissonette's drum groove (a melding of Led Zeppelin's "Fool In the Rain" and Jeff Porcaro's pulse on Toto's Roseanna") to Chancellor, who returned a massive, gnarly groove that's a study in tone, attitude, and note durations. Steve wrote a melody to it, using a delicious new tone of his own, via distortion and delay plug-ins. It was married to a B section melody previously written and then Victor put on some ingenious finishing touches. This included moving melodies, stripping away some of the parts, and boosting the kick, snare and Justin's bass to replicate Tool-in-a-stadium sonics.

Closing on a fitting note, we return to just the trio for the title track, a heartfelt ballad bursting with expression and nuance. In typical tag-team fashion, Steve asked Greg to play a jazz waltz with brushes, with the caveat to "throw something in once and a while that's startling." He then wrote the music and left Victor to his own devices. Hearing the subtle, doubletime sizzle of Greg's kit and Steve's phat, fretless whole-notes, Victor grabbed his tenor bass, opened himself up to the moment, and allowed the devine main melody to pass through his hands. The three coming together for Greg's occasional other—dimensional polyrhythms is the flip side of this gold coin, and it speaks to the extreme chemistry they developed long ago.

And so, to paraphrase Jaco Pastorius, we are left looking at three views of this seedling some 30 years later. There's the significant musical, educational and social impact of this odd-fitting trio reluctantly brought together by a music book publisher. There's the impressive growth they've displayed as musicians, educators and human beings. And there's the thrilling prospect of how this new music will develop live, and what kind of future Bass Extremes projects will follow. Hold on... Tight!

Liner Notes copyright © 2024 Chris Jisi.

S'Low Down can be purchased here.

Contact Chris Jisi at All About Jazz.
Chris is the Senior Editor at Bass Magazine.

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