The Bass Blog - By Paulo Bassman - #1

Hello my friends, today I am going to start my blog about the instrument I love and the players I consider most influential for me as a bass player and in the music industry.

A good bass line is one of the most important parts of any song and because of that, I thought it made sense as a bass player to give a name to the man and the woman behind those bass lines and tell you a little bit about their story and their basses.

I ask my good friends @pedromrmourato, @edprivat, @mariusfebruary, @prc, @dwinblood, @wav-dr and all the musicians in the Steemit family to give me suggestions on bass players and bass guitars they would like me to talk about.

I will talk about bassists of all music styles, from Rock to Pop, from Metal to Reaggea, from Jazz to Soul it does not matter the style or gender, I am going to try to cover all the good bass players and their work.

Also, let me tell you that the order I am going to follow is not related to quality or personal preference, I am going to pick a random bass player or bass from a list I made and as your suggestions arrive I will add them to my list if they are not there already ;)

This is a Bass Blog so please ask me only to talk about bass guitars and bass players , if you guys give me a good feedback about the blog and really want i can think about making a post about a specific musician , guitar player , drummer, etc... , but not on this Blog ;)

Bass On!!

Today I am going to talk about a bass player with an amazing talent and one of the grooviest mans alive – Marcus Miller

MARCUS MILLER - The Slapman

William Henry Marcus Miller Jr. was born in Brooklyn, New York City in 1959 and was raised in a musical family that included his father, William Miller a church organist and the jazz pianist Wynton Kelly.

He is classically trained as a clarinetist and also plays keyboards, saxophone and guitar. He began to work regularly in New York City, eventually playing bass and writing music for jazz flutist Bobbi Humphrey and keyboardist Lonnie Liston Smith.

Miller soon became a session musician, appearing on over 500 albums by such artists as Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, Herbie Hancock, Mariah Carey, The Crusaders, Wayne Shorter, McCoy Tyner, Frank Sinatra, George Benson, Dr. John, Aretha Franklin, Elton John, Joe Walsh, Jean-Michel Jarre, Grover Washington Jr., Donald Fagen, Bill Withers, Bernard Wright, Kazumi Watanabe, Chaka Khan, LL Cool J and Flavio Sala among many others.

After being discovered by Michał Urbaniak in 1975, Miller spent approximately 15 years performing as a session musician, observing how band leaders operated. During that time, he also did a lot of arranging and producing. He was a member of the Saturday Night Live band in 1988–1989.
He wrote the intro of one of my favorite songs , Aretha Franklin & Levi Stubbs "I Wanna Make It Up To You".

He has played bass on hundreds of recordings including those of Luther Vandross, Grover Washington Jr., Roberta Flack, Carly Simon, McCoy Tyner, Weldon Irvine, Bryan Ferry and Billy Idol.

He won the "Most Valuable Player" award three years in a row and was subsequently awarded "player emeritus" status and retired from eligibility.

As a composer, Miller co-wrote several songs on the Miles Davis album Tutu, including its title track. He also composed "Chicago Song" for David Sanborn and co-wrote "'Til My Baby Comes Home", "It's Over Now", "For You to Love", and "Power of Love" for Luther Vandross.
Miller also wrote "Da Butt", which was featured in Spike Lee's School Daze. Miller currently has his own band. In 1997 he played bass guitar and bass clarinet in a band called Legends, featuring Eric Clapton (guitars and vocals), Joe Sample (piano), David Sanborn (alto sax) and Steve Gadd (drums). It was an 11-date tour of major jazz festivals in Europe.

Most Miller aficionados know that as a composer, Miller has an endless list of film and television credits to his name. Miller rose from writing the go-go mega hit ‘Da Butt’ for Spike Lee’s 1988 film School Daze to becoming the go-to composer for over 20 top urban movies. His film scores include the cult-classic House Party( feat. Kid ‘N Play - 1990); the Eddie Murphy/Halle Berry classic film Boomerang (1992); Above The Rim (feat. Tupac Shakur and Marlon Wayans -1994); Two Can Play That Game (feat. Vivica Fox, Gabrielle Union, Morris Chestnut and Anthony Anderson - 2001); This Christmas (feat. Idris Elba and Chris Brown - 2007); the Chris Rock cult classic Good Hair (2009); and About Last Night (feat. Kevin Hart and Regina Bell - 2014). Marcus also supplied the music for the successful weekly TV series Everybody Hates Chris, currently in syndication.

In 2008 Miller formed the SMV with Stanley Clarke and Victor Wooten a bass trio with 3 of the best bass players in the world. Their album ''Thunder'' is a tribute to music and the bass as a Solo instrument.

I leave a link for you guys to listen to their amazing work. This song is called ''The moongoose walk'' and its amazing.

In the Eighties, Miller began to write his own music and make his own records, putting a band together and touring regularly.

Is first album - ''Suddenly'' released by WB dates from 1983 and it's an amazing record full of great songs.

He released 12 solo albums and the last of them Afrodezzia released in 2015 its one of the best albums of all time regarding to instrumental music and bass groove.

List of Marcus Miller Solo Albuns:
1983 - Suddenly
1984 - Marcus Miller
1993 - The Sun Don't Lie
1995 - Tales
1998 - Live & More
2000 - Best Of '82-'96
2001 - M2
2002 - the Ozell Tapes
2005 - Silver Rain
2007 - Free
2008 - Marcus - In Stores in the U.S. March 4TH!
2015 - Afrodeezia

The new album, Laid Black, features special guest performances by Trombone Shorty, Kirk Whalum, Patches Stewart, Take 6, Jonathan Butler and guest vocalist Selah Sue. Laid Black is certain to thrill and exhilarate Miller fans and will help continue to propel Miller to the world superstar status of fusion, funk, soul and jazz master!

i leave a link to a ''best of'' Marcus Miller playlist made by Absolutely Blank, i recommend all the music lovers to listen to it carefully.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFD06778607F37D10

As a bass player his slap technique is absolutely divine, and is sound is recognizable at miles, he used as is main bass one of the most used basses of all time the Fender Jazz Bass.

Miller is noted for playing a 1977 Fender Jazz Bass that was modified by Roger Sadowsky with the addition of a Bartolini preamp so he could control his sound in the studio. Fender started to produce a Marcus Miller signature Fender Jazz Bass in four-string (made in Japan) and five-string (made in U.S) versions.
Later, Fender moved the production of the four-string to their Mexico factory.
And discontinued both four- and five-string models in 2015.
DR Strings also produced a series of Marcus Miller signature stainless steel strings known as "Fat Beams", which come in a variety of sizes.

Here is a picture of is main tool during all this years.

I will talk about its Fender Jazz Bass in dept in one of my next posts so stay tuned.

In a recent past Marcus Miller got together with a Chinese bass manufacture Sire to produce a more affordable price bass for the ones who don't have a budget to buy a 2000$ Fender and still want that Marcus tone and personally I think they did a great job.

Sire V7- 4 Strings

In a short resume Marcus Miller is a one of the top bass players alive and as kept in the top of the game for more than 30 years.

I hope you guys think this is useful information and thank you to the @steemit family for all the support since I joined this amazing and growing platform. please let me know your opinion and suggestions

On my next ''The Bass Blog'' i will bring another ''monster'' bass player - Mr. Victor Wooten

One love to you all and Bass On!!

by Paulo Bassman

Information Sources:

Marcus Miller Website
Wikipedia
Google
The history of modern bass
Youtube