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Analysis of Clave-based Bass Movement on “Con La Conciencia Tranquila”
The Latin Pulse with Michael Lazarus: Analysis of Clave-based Bass Movement on Paulito FG’s “Con La Conciencia Tranquila” Title Track (audio + transcriptions)
by Michael Lazarus
As I mentioned in the introductory article of this series, my objective
is to present to you, the BMM community, several approaches used in
contemporary Cuban dance music (timba) for creating clave-based bass
movement. Our first targets of analysis are the mayor trends in the
bass work of Joel Domínguez on Paulito F.G.’s classic timba album Con La Conciencia Tranquila. The album has been discontinued but it is available as a digital download on www.LatinPulseMusic.com.
CON LA CONCIENCIA TRANQUILA – BASS – Audio tracks 2 & 3
Tune your bass to an A 440Hz with Audio Track 1.
Listen to the bass & piano montuno with Audio Track 2.
Listen to the bass & piano montuno variation with Audio Track 3.
TIP: Tracks 2 & 3 have the
Several key concepts are revealed by placing rumba clave directly below
the main bass movement for the opening and title track of Con La Conciencia Tranquila.
While this is not the typical way of notating clave, it is displayed in
this manner to vertically align each beat. Notice that the chords are
NOT displayed. This is not the type of music where you play ‘tumbao’
through chord changes. Note selection is secondary to the rhythm and
its relation to clave.
exact same bass movement playing against two different piano parts. For
those who like to play with the audio immediately, start your practice
with Track 3, as Track 2 is extremely tricky because it’s easy to lose
the 1, being that the piano part is harmonically displaced. On the
actual album, the piano movement of Track 2 opens the song and the
piano on Track 3 appears later, during the bomba section of the tune.
These same piano tumbaos will be covered in our upcoming timba piano
series.
The bass concepts here literally set the tone for the rest of
the album. There are several key strategies used to emphasize selected
beats within the clave. Before explaining these, first notice the
general trend, the duality of the movement. The standard salsa bass
movement, commonly known as tumbao, can be classified as a
clave-neutral pattern, where the same rhythm is present for both sides
of the clave. The bass movement for Con La Conciencia Tranquila
is more ‘clavefied’, with the 2-side landing downbeats and the 3-side
throwing upbeats, following the fundamental tendency of the clave
rhythm.
Example of clave-nuetral tumbao
The first strategy to express this rhythmic duality in a bass movement
is to selectively place the 1. As the 1 is the main beat, its very
presence, paired with its absence in other measures, is a clear
giveaway of a clavefied musical passage. Notice how the 1 is played on
the 2-sides and absent on the 3-sides.
Selectively placing the “1”
The second, and in my view more
effective, strategy to express the rhythmic duality is to stress the
notes of the 2-side of clave; the backbeat (the second stroke of the
2-side) and the slap (the first stroke of the 2-side, which corresponds
to the slap on the conga). The key here is to leave space in the beat
following the note you stress. Notice how, in the following example,
there is a rest immediately after each highlighted note.
Bass movement with 2-side alignment
Playing on the bombo, the ‘and of 2’
or middle note of the 3-side, is part of the traditional bass tumbao
and remains an integral part of a clave-based movement. In this example
notice that bombo is present in the first measure. However that note is
a set-up note, functioning the same way pick-up notes do at the
beginning of a song, leading to a hard quarter note on the backbeat of
the first 2-side.
Playing on the “bombo”
The traditional clave-neutral tumbao
locks in with the most important open tone played by the conga, the
ponche, or beat 4. By NOT playing this note on the 2-side, and at the
same time, leading up to it with a series of upbeats on the 3-side, you
are not only clavefying but funkifying the bass movement in a way
reminiscent of 1960’s Motown. Notice how rumba clave offsets the last
note of the 3-side to the and-of-4.
Leading up to the ponche (with upbeats)
In the next issue’s segment I’ll analyze
some other tracks on the album to show reinforcement of these mayor
trends. Stay tuned mi gente.
credits:
– Audio tracks used by permission from Pyrale Music.
–
–
Transcriptions used by permission from Kevin Moore, editor-in-chief of http://www.TIMBA.com
– Article excerpts from TIMBA Style Bass Vol.1, an eBook I published on www.latinpulsemusic.com
– All content ©2009 Michael P. Lazarus
Bass Videos
Interview With Bassist Erick “Jesus” Coomes
Bassist Erick “Jesus” Coomes…
It is always great to meet a super busy bassist who simply exudes a love for music and his instrument. Erick “Jesus” Coomes fits this description exactly. Hailing from Southern California, “Jesus” co-founded and plays bass for Lettuce and has found his groove playing with numerous other musicians.
Join us as we hear of his musical journey, how he gets his sound, his ongoing projects, and his plans for the future.
Photo, Bob Forte
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Visit Online
www.lettucefunk.com
IG @jesuscsuperstar
FB@jesuscoomes
FB @lettucefunk
Bass Videos
Working-Class Zeros: Episode #2 – Financial Elements of Working Musicians
Working-Class Zeros: Episode #2 – Financial Elements of Working Musicians
“These stories from the front are with real-life, day-to-day musicians who deal with work life and gigging and how they make it work out. Each month, topics may include… the kind of gigs you get, the money, dealing with less-than-ideal rooms, as well as the gear you need to get the job done… and the list goes on from there.” – Steve the Bass Guy and Shawn Cav
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This Week’s Top 10 Basses on Instagram
Check out our top 10 favorite basses on Instagram this week…
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Bass CDs
New Album: Jake Leckie, Planter of Seeds
Bassist Jake Leckie and The Guide Trio Unveil New Album Planter of Seeds,
to be released on June 7, 2024
Planter of Seeds is bassist/composer Jake Leckie’s third release as a bandleader and explores what beauty can come tomorrow from the seeds we plant today.
What are we putting in the ground? What are we building? What is the village we want to bring our children up in? At the core of the ensemble is The Guide Trio, his working band with guitarist Nadav Peled and drummer Beth Goodfellow, who played on Leckie’s second album, The Guide, a rootsy funky acoustic analog folk-jazz recording released on Ropeadope records in 2022. For Planter of Seeds, the ensemble is augmented by Cathlene Pineda (piano), Randal Fisher (tenor saxophone), and Darius Christian (trombone), who infuse freedom and soul into the already tightly established ensemble.
Eight original compositions were pristinely recorded live off the floor of Studio 3 at East West Studios in Hollywood CA, and mastered by A.T. Michael MacDonald. The cover art is by internationally acclaimed visual artist Wayne White. Whereas his previous work has been compared to Charles Mingus, and Keith Jarrett’s American Quartet with Charlie Haden, Leckie’s new collection sits comfortably between the funky odd time signatures of the Dave Holland Quintet and the modern folk-jazz of the Brian Blade Fellowship Band with a respectful nod towards the late 1950s classic recordings of Ahmad Jamal and Miles Davis.
The title track, “Planter of Seeds,” is dedicated to a close family friend, who was originally from Trinidad, and whenever she visited family or friends at their homes, without anyone knowing, she would plant seeds she kept in her pocket in their gardens, so the next season beautiful flowers would pop up. It was a small altruistic anonymous act of kindness that brought just a little more beauty into the world. The rhythm is a tribute to Ahmad Jamal, who we also lost around the same time, and whose theme song Poinciana is about a tree from the Caribbean.
“Big Sur Jade” was written on a trip Leckie took with his wife to Big Sur, CA, and is a celebration of his family and community. This swinging 5/4 blues opens with an unaccompanied bass solo, and gives an opportunity for each of the musicians to share their improvisational voices. “Clear Skies” is a cathartic up-tempo release of collective creative energies in fiery improvisational freedom. “The Aquatic Uncle” features Randal Fisher’s saxophone and is named after an Italo Calvino short story which contemplates if one can embrace the new ways while being in tune with tradition. In ancient times, before a rudder, the Starboard side of the ship was where it was steered from with a steering oar. In this meditative quartet performance, the bass is like the steering oar of the ensemble: it can control the direction of the music, and when things begin to unravel or become unhinged, a simple pedal note keeps everything grounded.
The two trio tunes on the album are proof that the establishment of his consistent working band The Guide Trio has been a fruitful collaboration. “Santa Teresa”, a bouncy samba-blues in ? time, embodies the winding streets and stairways of the bohemian neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro it is named for. The swampy drum feel on “String Song” pays homage to Levon Helm of The Band, a group where you can’t always tell who wrote the song or who the bandleader is, proving that the sum is greater than the individual parts. Early jazz reflected egalitarianism in collective improvisation, and this group dynamic is an expression of that kind of inclusivity and democracy.
“The Daughters of the Moon” rounds out the album, putting book ends on the naturalist themes. This composition is named after magical surrealist Italo Calvino’s short story about consumerism, in which a mythical modern society that values only buying shiny new things throws away the moon like it is a piece of garbage and the daughters of the moon save it and resurrect it. It’s an eco-feminist take on how women are going to save the world. Pineda’s piano outro is a hauntingly beautiful lunar voyage, blinding us with love. Leckie dedicates this song to his daughter: “My hope is that my daughter becomes a daughter of the moon, helping to make the world a more beautiful and verdant place to live.”
Bass CDs
Debut Album: Nate Sabat, Bass Fiddler
In a thrilling solo debut, bassist Nate Sabat combines instrumental virtuosity with a songwriter’s heart on Bass Fiddler…
The upright bass and the human voice. Two essential musical instruments, one with roots in 15th century Europe, the other as old as humanity itself.
On Bass Fiddler (Adhyâropa Records ÂR00057), the debut album from Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter and bass virtuoso Nate Sabat, the scope is narrowed down a bit. Drawing from the rich and thriving tradition of American folk music, Sabat delivers expertly crafted original songs and choice covers with the upright bass as his lone tool for accompaniment.
The concept was born a decade ago when Sabat began studying with the legendary old-time fiddler Bruce Molsky at Berklee College of Music. “One of Bruce’s specialties is singing and playing fiddle at the same time. The second I heard it I was hooked,” recalls Sabat. “I thought, how can I do this on the bass?” From there, he was off to the races, arranging original and traditional material with Molsky as his guide. “Fast forward to 2020, and I — like so many other musicians — was thinking of how to best spend my time. I sat down with the goal of writing some new songs and arranging some new covers, and an entire record came out.” When the time came to make the album, it was evident that Molsky would be the ideal producer. Sabat asked him if he’d be interested, and luckily he was. “What an inspiration to work with an artist like Nate,” says Molsky. “Right at the beginning, he came to this project with a strong, personal and unique vision. Plus he had the guts to try for a complete and compelling cycle of music with nothing but a bass and a voice. You’ll hear right away that it’s engaging, sometimes serious, sometimes fun, and beautifully thought out from top to bottom.”
While this record is, at its core, a folk music album, Sabat uses the term broadly. Some tracks lean more rock (‘In the Shade’), some more pop (‘White Marble’, ‘Rabid Thoughts’), some more jazz (‘Fade Away’), but the setting ties them all together. “There’s something inherently folksy about a musician singing songs with their instrument, no matter the influences behind the compositions themselves,” Sabat notes. To be sure, there are plenty of folk songs (‘Louise’ ‘Sometimes’, ‘Eli’) and fiddling (‘Year of the Ox’) to be had here — the folk music fan won’t go hungry. There’s a healthy dose of bluegrass too (‘Orphan Annie’, ‘Lonesome Night’), clean and simple, the way Mr. Bill Monroe intended.
All in all, this album shines a light on an instrument that often goes overlooked in the folk music world, enveloping the listener in its myriad sounds, textures, and colors. “There’s nothing I love more than playing the upright bass,” exclaims Sabat. “My hope is that listeners take the time to sit with this album front to back — I want them to take in the full scope of the work. I have a feeling they’ll hear something they haven’t heard before.”
Available online at natesabat.bandcamp.com/album/walking-away