You hit a tune with bar after bar of the same chord, and you don’t want to do the same thing over and over again. You don’t want to sound boring. A lot of people ask me how to play multiple bars of the same chord, and it’s a real challenge for bass players. To me, Ron Carter’s bass line on Passion Dance is the quintessential bass line for it.
Quick answer
On Passion Dance, Ron Carter plays the change, which is just F, about 40% of the time. The rest of the time he’s creating movement with chromatic licks and notes that don’t belong, like three Es over F7sus in the first two bars. If you’re creating movement, you don’t have to play the changes the whole time.
Passion Dance is McCoy Tyner’s tune, from his album The Real McCoy, with Joe Henderson on tenor, Elvin Jones on drums and Ron on bass. It’s one chord, F7sus, for what feels like forever. So how do you break it up and still play within the changes? Here’s the answer: you don’t have to play within the changes the whole time.
How often does Ron Carter play the chord on Passion Dance?
In this bass line, Ron is playing the change, which is just F, about 40% of the time. The rest of the time, he’s creating movement. If you’re creating movement, you don’t have to play the changes the whole time. To me, that’s the number one rule of advanced bass playing.
That doesn’t mean you skip the basics. If you’re just getting a handle on the changes, that’s really important, and you’ve got to be able to do that first. You’ve got to walk before you can run. But advanced bass playing is all about creating movement.
If you can create movement in your bass line, then you don’t have to stay glued to each chord change.
Cole Davis
Think about it this way. If you have F7sus for, like, infinity, everyone knows it’s an F7sus. We already know that. We don’t need to show anyone that it’s F7sus. You don’t want to play the wrong note the entire time, but the F7sus is already there.
The worst note over F7sus, three times in two bars
Look at the first two bars. There are eight notes, and three of them are E. E is probably the worst note you can play over an F7sus. So Ron is playing the worst possible note three times in the first two bars. Think about that.
He’s doing it to create movement. In the lesson I play another version next to his, and there’s no movement in it. It doesn’t go anywhere. Ron’s has so much movement. He leaves us hanging on that E on beat four, and it goes right into the root. Then he does it again: a B on beat four of the third bar, and an E on beat four of the fourth bar. He’s playing all of these notes that don’t belong, and the only reason is to create movement. You can also call it chromaticism. This is a chromatic bass line.
Measure 13 takes it further. I honestly don’t know what key that’s in. If someone played those four bars for me, I don’t think I’d be able to tell you. And this is Ron Carter, one of the greatest, if not the greatest, jazz bass player of all time. Four bars where you don’t know what key he’s in. That’s how important it is to keep the bass line moving. When you’re playing multiple bars of the same chord, keeping the line moving matters more than playing the changes.
He does a lot of interesting stuff later, too. He plays a huge beat four on bar 24, almost like it’s a bar of seven. In bar 26 he plays E, G, E-flat, E. If someone played that for me, in a million years I wouldn’t say F7sus. I have no idea what chord he’s playing there. What I do know is that he’s creating movement, and that’s what everyone in the band is responding to.
Joe Henderson, McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones are among the most advanced musicians ever to play any instrument, and not one of them was confused by that. Not one of them was like, hey Ron, what are you doing, man? They responded, and it actually made what they were playing better. Not because it outlined the changes, but because it created movement.
What chromatic licks can you play over one chord?
All of that might sound dense and complicated, but all Ron is doing is playing chromatic licks. In the lesson I show you a few you can use. One is just walking up, and you can do any variation of that. As long as you’re walking up, it has movement. Then, right after that, he walks down. When I was working on this line, the question I asked myself was: if I have eight bars of F7, how do I go about that? Here are Ron’s moves to try over eight bars of F7:
- Walk up chromatically. Any variation works, as long as you’re walking up.
- Then walk down. Follow the walk-up with a walk-down, the way Ron does.
- Hang on beat four. Put a note that doesn’t belong on beat four and let it go right into the root, the way Ron hangs on that E.
- Keep coming back to the chord. You don’t want to play the wrong note the entire time. Ron still plays the change about 40% of the time.
For a smaller move when you’re just sitting on a chord, there’s Ron’s 1-9-5-9 lick on my Ron Carter bass lines page. And Paul Chambers solves a long stretch of D minor a different way, by creating chords that aren’t on the chart, in the So What bass line.
What’s in the transcription
The full transcription is Ron’s line on Passion Dance as a PDF score, so you can see the three Es, measure 13 and bar 26 for yourself. It comes with a nine-minute video lesson where I walk through these moves, including the chromatic licks you can use right away.
Even more important than the changes is being able to create movement. Play eight bars of F7 tonight and see how long you can keep the line moving.
Go deeper
Ron Carter: Passion Dance
How to play bar after bar of the same chord without sounding boring, from Ron Carter’s line on Passion Dance.
FAQ
What chord is Passion Dance?
It’s F7sus. Passion Dance is one chord, and it goes on for, like, infinity. Everyone knows it’s an F7sus, so you don’t need to keep showing anyone. So the F7sus is already there, and Ron isn’t even playing the changes most of the time.
Who plays bass on Passion Dance?
Ron Carter, on McCoy Tyner’s album The Real McCoy, with Joe Henderson and Elvin Jones. To me, Ron is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, jazz bass player of all time, and this is the quintessential bass line for playing multiple bars of the same chord.
Do you have to play the changes in a walking bass line?
At first, yes. Getting a handle on the changes is really important, and you’ve got to be able to do that first. You’ve got to walk before you can run. But advanced bass playing is all about creating movement, and if you can create movement in your bass line, you don’t have to stay glued to each chord change.
Doesn’t playing notes outside the chord confuse the band?
Not on this record. In bar 26 Ron plays E, G, E-flat, E over an F7sus, and Joe Henderson, McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones are among the most advanced musicians ever to play any instrument. Not one of them was confused by that. It actually made what they were playing better, because it was creating movement. You still don’t want to play the wrong note the entire time.
