Playing Bass Lines With Your Left Hand - Geoffrey Keezer | 2 Minute Jazz

Geoffrey Keezer provides some insight into how he emulates bass players with his left hand.

Check out Geoffrey's course, Advanced Jazz Piano Concepts, at https://www.openstudionetwork.com/project/ajp-overview/

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(jazz piano music)

- Hey, this Geoffrey Keezer for 2 Minute Jazz. I'm gonna talk about playing bass lines with your left hand really briefly. I feel like when I listen to music, my hands, my right hand might be listening to the right hand solos of Herbie or Bud Powell or Chick or Wynton Kelly or McKoy, but my left hand, at the same time, is listening to the bass line. 

My left hand is checking out Ray Brown and Paul Chambers and Bootsy Collins and Jaco Pastorius and guys like that. When I sit down to play solo piano, my left hand is actually thinking like a bass player. 

This kind of bass line I'm playing on The Nearness of You is kind of a hybrid of something Ray might play and a Jaco-ish kind of thing.

(jazz piano bass line)

So when I got to the diminished cord

(piano melody with right hand)

I did a thing that Ray Brown did

(funky bass line)

That lick based on the diminished scale, but these are all things that creative bass players play. So, in addition, when you're transcribing don't just transcribe the right hand piano solos but actually transcribe what bass players are doing, what the horn players are doing, what the singer's doing, what the drummers are doing. All these kind of ensemble ideas you can work into your solo piano playing and it's gonna give it an extra dimension and more depth. It's gonna build up your left hand and make it stronger at the same time.

(jazz music featuring piano)

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