This article is written by Toru Hoshino, a jazz bassist and instructor based in Japan who teaches online lessons to students worldwide. In this article, he recommends a great jazz standards album recorded on electric bass.
“There are plenty of great jazz albums out there, but they’re almost all upright bass — is there a great electric bass record?” I get asked this a lot, so here’s one album featuring jazz standards played on electric bass.
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Double Trios
The album I’m recommending is “Double Trios,” a leader album by jazz pianist McCoy Tyner.
The bassist is one every bass player loves: Marcus Miller.
Not every track on the album features his electric bass playing, but tracks 5 through 8 — “Down Home,” “Sudan,” “Lover Man,” and “Rhythm-A-Ning” — do. My favorite of the bunch is his playing on “Lover Man.”
He plays through a genuinely difficult ballad bass line and solo with total fluency — the solo in particular, packed with intricate phrasing, is stunning.
The electric bass never feels out of place here, and yet it still carries that distinctly “electric” nuance that’s different from an upright bass. That balance is just perfect — a real testament to a master at work. This is the kind of album that made me think exactly that.
It’s searchable on most streaming services, so give it a listen.
Hearing what makes a phrase like that work is one thing — actually building that kind of fluency into your own playing is exactly where a teacher’s feedback comes in.
Want Personalized Feedback on Your Playing?
This is exactly the kind of thing that’s hard to fix alone — and where having a teacher makes all the difference.
At Line on Bass, I offer an online lesson service where you send me a video of your playing, and I give you specific, detailed feedback — every single day if you want.
Students from around the world are using this to fix exactly these kinds of issues and steadily improve their jazz bass skills.