Cole Davis is a bassist, composer, educator, and the creator behind Better Bass Lessons, where he brings a playful, practical approach to jazz bass education. In this episode, Cole and Jason Heath trade lessons across the classical/jazz divide, building on their previous New Simandl collaboration and digging into Cole’s ideas around walking lines, open strings, and groove.
Finding the Groove: Less Is More
Cole: All right, so bassline — B-flat blues. Lay it down.
Jason: All right.
Cole: You’re gonna have so much to say about my bow hold and everything, so what I have to say pales in comparison. But what you actually wanna do is play less with the right hand, and just sort of let the notes ring.
Because there’s a thing that bass players do, and this goes hand-in-hand with the Newson-Andall and the open strings thing. You actually wanna just let the notes breathe by not keeping time with the right hand. There’s this thing we always do as bass players—we tend to keep time with the right hand like this. Taking away from the whole thing, you know? Because the drummer’s already doing that.
Jason: I love it. I hear — I see what you’re saying about just not handing the listener every single quarter note. You’ve got this sustain from one note to the next, and then you’ve got this direction and kind of flow. It’s not like hitting the decibel meter the same way. And you’re not playing a ton of fills necessarily until you decide to — that’s beautiful, man.
Cole: Yeah. It’s funny, like, the triplet thing has never really been my game. I love Phil Norris — obviously my friend and classmate from Juilliard. He does all the fills. I never really do that. I’m more just long notes. But I will say that if you play the open strings and let the notes ring, it has a much greater effect. And the open strings really enable that.
Jason: It’s funny — even though I go through the Newson-Andall, my default is just like, boom, here in the half position. Even though I know that B-flat is there, I still have that tendency.
Cole: Yeah, I’ve seen you do that.
Don’t Start on the Root
Cole: Let me give you those quarters. Also, let’s try this — don’t start on the root. This is what I do with everyone. If it’s like finger bass on the root, you can play the third. I don’t really know my classical music, but I imagine you can play the third and still outline the chord.
Jason: All right, I’m gonna try that — not start on the root. Okay.
I can see why you don’t like those one-one shifts. Like right here — that just interrupts everything.
Cole: Right. Because think about it — if you’re playing a walking bass line, the second you do a one-one shift, it just gets in the way, and you hear it. Even with this bass on steel strings — I usually play gut — even with gut strings, I try to make it sing.
Jason: Your note choices are so tasty too. How do I improve that? I love it — I’m gonna be working on that flow, that connection. How do I develop it besides sheer repetition? Any tips?
The 1, 3, 5, 7: Bass Tetris for Jazz
Cole: Yeah. So it’s basically just changing the order of notes. It’s really no different from Bach — you’re just changing the order of notes to create voicings, and you can do that with the I, III, V, VII.
I made a packet for your followers that lays it all out. You just change the order of notes. That same flow you heard — that was all just one, three, five, seven. Maybe I played one passing tone at some point, but literally one, three, five, seven — any order works when you’re creating movement.
Jason: Wow. I love it.
Cole: That’s it. That’s why it works. Do you actually play jazz bass? You sound like you actually play jazz bass, which is really impressive.
Jason: I played back in college. All the bass players left Northwestern when the bass teacher left, so I suddenly became the big band bassist and the combo bassist. But it’s been since the ’90s, you know.
One thing I’ve been doing recently to keep that blade a little sharp is putting on iReal Pro, putting on Giant Steps, and incrementally stepping up the tempo by like 10 beats per minute— and I do it on electric bass too. That seems to be just enough brain stimulation.
But yeah, it’s been years. I’m an admirer. I hear those tasty notes and those choices, and you’re just playing one, three, five — it’s like I’m trying to speak French, but I can’t speak French. I know a few words, but I’m not fluent.
Cole: Yeah, totally. But Baroque music is a lot of improvisation, right? There’s a link there — it’s close enough.
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