Giants of Bass - James Jamerson

This video is a performance of 'Motor City Grooves', the James Jamerson-style piece that I wrote for my 2017 book Giants of Bass. This piece was written to represent James's work at Motown during the 60s and 70s and features all of the key elements of his playing such as the use of chord tones, syncopation, open strings, chromatic passing notes and ghost notes.

I performed this track on a Fender Precision bass, strung with flat wound strings and with foam under the strings. The tone control was rolled off halfway and the bass was recorded through the Waves Puigchild compressor.

If you're interested in learning this piece, there is a full, section-by-section video tutorial on the website:

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[doctorchud]

Fantastic as usual. The tone and groove are absolutely spot on.

[surfertron]

Cracking track, Stuart. Can't wait to get into it.

[JTPrime]

Noice, I play bass and love James Jamerson. He was amazing. Other than that, cool:).

[rickb]

Great job! Have you thought about adding Jimmy Johnson to your Giants of Bass?

[RadioNex]

What's with the foam? Is it there or not? Catchy tune, though. Like it!

[OliverHall]

Superb - if I didn't know better I'd swear notes were coming out of the bass when your fingers aren't (or hardly!) moving - so fluid :) Cheeky little key change around 1:40 too :-p