I need a jazz score

November 21, 2011 4:52 PM

I'm making a short (20 second) animation in the style of John Hubley's commercials and I'm looking for some music similar to this ad to score it. It needs to be just bass and drums (mostly bass) with no trumpet or vocals or anything. I know Dizzie Gillespie worked with Hubley so I've been listening to his last.fm station all day but I can't find anything that doesn't have too much trumpet. Public domain would be great (but not essential).
posted by Chenko to Media & Arts (3 answers total)

Since Diz was a trumpet player, I'm not too surprised that you're finding things that are trumpet-heavy. That said, though, bebop has lots of solos, so even if there's a song that's too trumpet-heavy, it might have twenty seconds you can use. His small group albums, like e.g. 'School Days' and 'The Champ,' might be worth looking into.

Charles Mingus (bass) did an trio album called 'Money Jungle' with Max Roach (piano) and Duke Ellington (piano) that seems like it might have a snippet you could use (though lots of it might be a little more out, more postbop than bop, than you might have in mind). More generally, small group sessions credited to/led by/featuring bassists (besides Mingus, Percy Heath might make a good search) or drummers (Roach, Roy Haynes, Art Blakey, Philly Joe Jones, etc.) might be productive avenues.

While there are actual drum/bass duo jazz albums, the ones I can think of are mostly free/improv stuff.
posted by box at 5:04 PM on November 21, 2011

I think there might be something by Ray Brown (who early on in his career played bass with Dizzy) fitting your criteria. He's put out several bass/drum/piano trio recordings including plenty of passages where the pianist steps back - e.g. the one beginning a minute or so in here.

There are also his bass duos and "Superbass" series, which don't feature drummers but usually have walking bass under another taking leads and may match the rhythmic vibe of the commercial - like this, but there are many examples out there.
posted by metaman livingblog at 2:22 PM on November 22, 2011

Response by poster: Thanks! I'm gonna use "One Bass Hit" by Percy Heath.
posted by Chenko at 6:48 AM on November 23, 2011