Anthony Jackson: His Legendary Work with Chaka Khan
Looks like somehow this became my first post under the "Music" category. Although I initially started this website as a gear-centric one, I wanted it to be a platform for me to talk about all things music as well. I wondered whether writing articles such as this one would confuse the target audience of this website (if any), but as much as I am hopelessly curious about equipment, I am a musician first and foremost. Having the right equipment and knowing how to use them is equivalent to having a familiar set of tools that are right for the job - that is, in this case, for the music that is to be created. With that said, I thought there would be no better way to kick off the first of the "Music" category articles talking about the genius of bassist Anthony Jackson, focusing specifically on his work with Chaka Khan over the years.
Introduction
Anthony Jackson's work as a sideman spans many decades and across a staggering range of genres. I have my friend and bass guru Jase Sng to thank for introducing me to Jackson 10 or so years ago. Unfortunately I can't seem to remember what song or album it was that first exposed me to his playing, but it was likely a 1981 live concert I came across on YouTube of him playing with saxophonist Grover Washington Jr. Thanks to my father’s CD collection, I grew up listening to Grover Washington Jr.'s album "Winelight", and although the bass tracks were recorded by Marcus Miller, the live performance I found had Jackson on bass. When I first came across this performance, I was a total newbie in contemporary music, just beginning to properly learn and understand music outside the classical realm, and while I instinctively knew Jackson's playing was impressive, I did not have the musical knowledge to truly fathom the genius behind it.
At the end of last year something drew me to go back and study Anthony Jackson once again, with a little more musical knowledge than I had 10 years ago. Of course, this doesn't mean I stopped listening to Jackson altogether for the years in between - I encountered his work many times, with Michel Petrucciani, Michel Camilo, Wayne Krantz, Steely Dan and so on, but I was always focused primarily on the chordal instruments, as often, those were the parts I was required to learn and perform. The time I spent over the last year studying Jackson's bass playing has been very fruitful for me - it already feels like I've widened my musical knowledge a sizeable amount. I write this article hoping some of you find it to be a humble introduction to a huge pool of knowledge that is Anthony Jackson's work, and find the same inspiration that I did in exploring it.
Anthony Jackson & Chaka Khan
You may be wondering why I chose to focus specifically on his work with Chaka Khan from the wide span of work he did over the years. I found that the bass playing concepts (not only the performance and playing style, but also the composition of bass parts) present in his work with Khan had something to offer in just about every musical situation I was in, especially as a sideman. In my opinion, the work that Anthony Jackson (hereby abbreviated as AJ) did on Chaka's albums "Naughty" and "What Cha' Gonna Do For Me" is one of the (if not THE) finest example of creative bass playing in popular music to date. I will be doing a deep dive on excerpts from 3 songs from the aforementioned albums that were invaluable in my growth as a musician.
1. Any Old Sunday, from "What Cha Gonna Do For Me" (1981)
Chorus of Any Old Sunday (1:02 onwards in recording)
Quite possibly one of the most brilliant basslines ever written, the first two bars of this section repeatedly appear throughout both the verse and chorus of this tune. With just the Eb, AJ halves the subdivisions every 2 beats and ends off the first 2 bars with an anticipated beat. The first 3 notes are specifically held for an 8th note, then the following notes are held for 16th notes. On the first bar, he leaves space for the lyrics "any old" to come through, and on the second bar, he cuts off right as the lyric "Sunday" appears, then as the vocals hold a long note on "do", he uses that space to slot in a short fill that, compared to the first two bars, use sustained, legato notes, mirroring the longer, held notes of the vocals. On the second half of the chorus, the bassline once again displays its relevance to the song as the melody changes its phrasing of "Sunday" to fall exactly on beats 3 and 4 where the bass notes are. Whether planned or intuitive, AJ's articulation and note lengths not only define the way the groove in this song feels, but also contribute to highlighting the lyrics of this song - this is truly a bassline that was composed for the song. Try playing this bassline with the recording while lengthening or further shortening the notes - I assure you the song will not feel the same.
2. Night Moods, from "What Cha Gonna For For Me" (1981)
Here's another one of my favourites - Night Moods, from the same album as Any Old Sunday. From the onset, it's pretty clear that the bass drives this song, with its unapologetic, midrange heavy tone. Honestly, this song feels like a bass and vocal duet to me, where the bass occupies the low mids while the vocals occupy the high mids - kudos to the recording engineer on getting this right. With a tone like this and being so forward in the mix with sparse instrumentation, there really is nothing much you can hide behind.
There's so much to analyse in this song. First things first, let's take a look at how he's constructed a bassline for each section that perfectly complements the melody.
Intro-Section A of Night Moods
In section A, he follows the phrasing of the lyrics "night moods", highlighting the title of the song, while driving the song forward with rhythmic 16th note fills in the space that is left when the lyrics drop out. Notice how he is not occupying every single 16th note grid, but varying the places he enters and exits the phrase of the fills (especially on the 2nd and 4th bars of each 4 bar segment), of course with impeccable attention to detail with regards to note length.
Sections B-C of Night Moods
As he moves on to section B, he goes into full support mode as the melody takes over most of the space, starting off the section with a held note and playing short motifs that mirror the motion of the melody that steps up and down the scale. Section C sees the melody holding notes throughout the entire duration of its section, and the bassline lays the bed with the pads with long, sustained notes that follow the rhythm of the bass drums.
Sections D-E of Night Moods
Section D is where it gets interesting - AJ decides to continue the same rhythmic pattern, but plays short, broken 5ths - most bassists would have chosen to play two roots in that rhythm but not AJ. In the first half of the section, he alternates between playing B-E and A-D over the underlying D/E chord, adding ambiguity and movement as he cycles through the two intervals. Because he plays an interval of a 5th, there is no clash in harmony and hence, no disruptions to the melody. The next half of the section he switches between a C#-F# and a B-E, and the ambiguity continues until the F#7b9 chord comes in clearly in the last bar. My favourite part of this section is the second half of the first bar, where unlike every other time he plays the broken 5ths, he anticipates the first note of the phrase by a 16th note, adding just that little variation in the otherwise very strictly played section. He then starts off section E with a simple bassline, and when the vocals come in with "loving you", he contrasts the two times it happens through first filling the space with a rhythmic 16th note based fill of shorter notes, then using a long, sustained root note the second time before adding a short flurry of notes into the next verse.
While I am ending the deep dive of this song here, I implore you to go and check out the rest of the song as well. One of the things I enjoy very much about listening to a track that AJ played on is how he makes small changes in what he plays between the different verses and choruses adding that extra colour to the song. In the case of Night Moods, it is immediately apparent when the second verse begins, where, instead of following the rhythm of the bass drum for the first half like he did for the first verse, he chooses to play long, sustained notes for the first half of each bar, even going as far to hold it for one and a half bars for the Fmaj7#11 chords. The sensitivity that AJ has for the song is truly something to behold, and I strongly believe that it is these little pieces of details that add the extra 2% of magic to a song.
Now is a good time to take a breather. If you don't think I'm insane yet, good on you. Have a cup of coffee or tea, grab a snack, and let's move on to the final song.
3. Move Me no Mountain, from "Naughty" (1980)
As a small side note, I would like to mention that this track, together with "Clouds" of the same album and "Love Has Fallen on Me" from 1979's "Chaka" album, is probably the first few times a low C was heard on a pop track, ever. This was the period where AJ was experimenting with downtuning his 4-string Fender bass by considerable amounts (major 3rds, 4ths) while further developing the Contrabass guitar concept (i.e. 6-string bass) after his first attempt in the mid 70s with builder Carl Thompson. Although not stated explicitly in any interviews, I would imagine that these sessions AJ had with Chaka added a considerable amount of fuel to his quest, as he has mentioned, in interviews, the kind of extreme measures he had to take to keep his Fender bass still functioning in those low tunings.
I took a long time choosing between this song and "Clouds", as both of them shared many of the elements I wanted to touch on, but I decided on this for two reasons - one, the bass tone is clearer on this track and two, due to the tempo and instrumentation, AJ stretches out a little bit more, which ties in very well with one of the topics I wanted to focus on this track, which is the way AJ constructs and places his fills.
Intro of Move Me No Mountain
The song begins with an instrumental introduction that lasts uncharacteristically long for this era at about 45 seconds. I want to highlight something in this section that AJ uses a lot, and that is not playing on the 1 (i.e. the downbeat all the time). Once the main drum groove comes in on bar 5, you can see that the downbeat is not played on bars 7, 9, and 11, and on top of that, AJ varies the way he phrases the lead up to these "missing" downbeats. It is generally expected that the bass, together with the bass drum, accentuate the downbeat (especially beat 1), more so when the drums are playing four on the floor, like in this song. If you have a listen to this track without paying too much attention to the bass, you might actually have overlooked the fact that he was doing this, because there is absolutely no loss of groove whatsoever. You'd think, with the bass skipping out on some downbeats, you would lose some sense of groove but in this case, it further enhances the bounciness of this song. What sorcery is this? I don't believe this is coincidence. The way that AJ plays a descending 16th note fill until the 4a of bar 6 before the bass drum hits the 1 on the next bar almost makes it feel like the music is "falling" into beat 1, actually strengthening the impact that the bass drum has when it comes in. Moreover, I believe AJ plays an ascending fill with longer notes on bar 8 to demarcate the end of a four bar phrase and introduces the new layer of string pads and a horn line that begin on bar 9. To round this entire sub section off, he plays a single 16th note on the first beat of bar 12 and leaves the rest of the bar empty, before coming in with the sitar parts with his massive, low C on bar 13. Everything that he has done up to this point has been to use fills and space to maximise the impact of the song - he didn't just play a part, but made sure the part he was playing was composed to complement all the other elements that are present concurrently.
Verse of Move Me No Mountain
The remaining 7 bars of the intro before the vocals come in for the verse feels slightly different from the first part, with AJ playing more precisely measured 8th notes together with the bass drum on the downbeats, setting up for the verse, where AJ fits in more with the grid of the tune, nailing the downbeats to lay a supporting bed for the vocal melody. As he gets to the second half the verse that is over the Gbma7/Ab chord however, he begins to open up the groove a little, and I'd like to spend some time on these 4 bars. AJ is adept at slotting in what I like to call "micro fills" into the basslines that he plays, weaving in and out of the main grid with ease, all while still keeping a great groove going. Undoubtedly, this is heavily influenced by James Jamerson, but where I feel AJ differs from Jamerson is in the way that the basslines sound and feel more composed, with an extra layer of refinement. The most common place for a bass fill in a pop music setting is the end of a 4 or 8 bar phrase, usually on the last bar of a section. If you take a look at where these "micro fills" have been placed within just these 4 bars, it is pretty clear where the genius is. The first bar has a very short fill only on beat 3; the second bar has a slightly longer fill on beats 3 and 4 (with an anticipated 16th note); and the third bar has a fill that begins on beat 2. AJ has basically built up a series of fills that get a beat longer every subsequent bar, that builds up tension towards the full band hits at the 4th bar that then lead to the chorus of the song. This, to me, is absolutely mindblowing. The amount of rhythmic and harmonic understanding required to construct these basslines, all while being completely aware of the melody and the other instrumental parts surrounding it, is truly what makes these records worth listening again and again. Just these 4 bars is a masterful demonstration of how a non-conventional, middle-of-the-phrase fill can be composed and executed, which also contributes to the song sounding more sophisticated and much less "boxy" where all the instrumental fills sort of end up happening at the same time (at the last bar of each section).
Another topic I want to touch on this song is on the effective use of an extended range bass, specifically in the lower register (the extended upper register on a 6 string bass is not within the scope of this article). I don't think it's a stretch to say the vast majority of bassists start off with a 4-string bass. Unfortunately, what often happens when these bassists transition into a 5-string bass they end up playing the bass like a 4 string bass with an extra string just to hit the notes lower than the open E. Just as how the A played on the E string differs in tone from the open A string, discovering the tonal options available in that lower string can provide you with new tools that can be incorporated into your playing. Between 3:03 and 3:42 of the song, the basslines that AJ play demonstrate the variation in tonal spectrum that can be achieved through embracing the extended lower register as a whole, and effectively using it to add an extra dimension to the music.
Excerpt of Move Me No Mountain (3:03 to 3:42 in recording)
In this excerpt, you can tell that AJ stays mainly within the lower register for the majority of the bassline (except when he goes back to the chorus bassline from bars 5 to 8). As you can hear, the extended lower register of the bass has an extremely specific sound, and the way he begins or ends the micro fills in bar 3 and 12 (especially this one - isn't this one of the greatest bass fills you've ever heard?) nearly 2 octaves away from the root almost makes it sound like there are two different basses. AJ immediately snaps back into the lower register after these fills, further accentuating the contrast between them and adding an extra point of movement in the song. I believe it is these kinds of fills that are effective, where there is commitment and intention - basically, a point. What makes this excerpt even better is that he does that massive fill on bar 12 in the middle of that phrase, not on the last bar as many would have chosen to instinctively.
Conclusion
I can boil down all the elements discussed above into three main points:
Attention to detail in controlling note length & articulation
Effective use of space and micro fills to keep the song interesting
Awareness of the melody and all other parts of the song in constructing the bassline
Anthony Jackson is all about making every single note count. He rarely, if at all, plays muted ghost notes that is quite prevalent in the style of music he excels in, which is a testament to how good his time is and how much thought he puts into note choice. It's quite a complex way of approaching bass playing, but like anything, with practice, it can become increasingly natural to think in this manner. Having this awareness of the music and control over the instrument can allow you to navigate different musical situations effectively and offer a huge palette of options, especially in a studio setting where artists and producers may request for variations on a single part.
What really zeroing in on these points has done for me is twofold - firstly, it has made me think more about every musical choice I make in playing, whether it be in a live or recording setting. Every voicing, rhythmic choice, and articulation impacts the music differently, and it is the musician's job to be aware of all these moving parts, and decide which of them will serve the music best. Secondly, it has greatly expanded my awareness of the expressive possibilities present in each piece of music. Through being conscious of the effects that each musical element brings about in the song, I am able to perceive and draw out more expression by making the necessary choices.
As always, context is everything in music, and to be aware of all these aspects means to think more like an arranger, instead of being focused on playing just your part in your own bubble. Even through the course of a single song, the musical direction changes numerous times in varying degrees, and that means a musical concept that was introduced in one part of the song may no longer be the best fit in a different part. To be able to perceive these changes and react effortlessly is the mark of a great session musician, and I believe that this is what makes Anthony Jackson one of the greatest session musicians to have graced this earth.
Thanks for reading, and feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
For reference:
Stevie Glasgow Transcriptions - Includes a huge selection of AJ transcriptions from his work with Chaka Khan
