Bass

Left Hand

Walking bass is not used that much in jazz piano, especially in band settings with bass players. In stride and boogie woogie piano there are bass notes, but walking the bass on piano in a band would simply be in the way of the bassist. This does not mean that a pianist never plays bass notes, but on a Hammond organ bass it is essential. There are Hammond organ recordings with a bassist, but chances are much bigger that the organist plays bass himself. Jimmy Smith, for example, was among the first to move bass lines from the left foot over to the left hand, tapping along on the pedals with his left foot or lightly following his left hand with his left foot.¹ Jazz organists mostly play only pedals when it’s time to change drawbar settings or switch the Leslie speed.

Pianist and organist Mike LeDonne about the different ways of bass playing: “I’m using all of it. Sometimes I like to tap the exact notes that I’m playing. In fact when I taught myself to play the pedals, I was under the distinct impression that it’s what you did. Then I realized after seeing Lonnie Smith and Jimmy Smith playing, that they weren’t tapping the same notes. They were tapping within about four notes. They were playing no matter what note, because your tap is so short you don’t even hear it. It should sound like the pluck of a bass string.”²

As mentioned earlier in the technical description of the Hammond organ, drawbars are a unique feature of the Hammond organ. With drawbars you decide which tonewheels are activated at what volume. The drawbar settings of the Great, the lower manual of the organ which is usually played with the left hand, are approximately set to 848000000, with 8 meaning at full volume and 0 at no volume. This means that when playing that manual, with each note you play 2,5 notes. Add to this that the Leslie speaker only has 40 Watts of power. Therefore you don’t want to overplay the low and mid/low register.³ I have addressed this phenomenon in the Spectrogram section as well.

Similarly, Mike LeDonne advised to not connect the notes completely, but to leave a little space in between the notes, so the attack of each note becomes more clear. Another advice is not to use the volume pedal as a time keeper, because it will mess with the sound.⁴

Left Foot

There is a myth that still perpetuates today that Hammond B3 players usually play bass with their feet, comp with their left hand, and solo with their right hand.⁵ Playing bass with the left foot only is mostly done by Hammond organists in church. They play the lower pedals, comparable to white keys, with the heel and the higher pedals, comparable to black keys, with the toe. This is referred to as the heel/toe technique. In a jazz context, Jimmy Smith started playing the bass with his left hand, while tapping his left foot on the Bb pedal. At other times he would tap the pedals corresponding with the notes in his left hand. The most well-known jazz organists who play walking bass on the pedals are Shirley Scott, Joey DeFrancesco and Barbara Dennerlein.

About the pedals, Mike LeDonne says: “I do play long notes down there. I got that from Groove Holmes. I was listening to his records and he’d be holding a note, he’s playing lots of low notes in the bass, doubling the pitches in his left hand. And he gets this incredible sound and this vibe that you just can’t get with you hand. I have practiced playing a blues without using my left hand, just playing with the pedals doing the heel/toe thing and I learned it from watching other players. If you see Joey DeFrancesco, he really can play the pedals and he inspired me to get better on pedals. He can play the pedals without his left hand and it sounds pretty good. The reason I didn’t do it is because to me it would sound kind of weird.”⁶

Previous

Next