#tribal tech

Tribal Tech - Self Defense

This is the last Tribal Tech tune that I’m going to post for a while. There’s one other one that I’m thinking of posting, but this one (Self Defense) is IT.

I previously posted one of Jeff Berlin’s tunes entitled “Manos De Piedra” (I think) and mentioned that I had probably listened to Jeff’s solo on there at least a thousand times. Well, Gary Willis’ solo on this tune is another such solo that I used to listen to on repeat.

Harmonically what’s happening towards the end of the solo and afterwards is so dense and emotional it’s kind of unreal. Scott and Gary orchestrated things that way on the early albums and they tended to create little counter melodies running counterpoint to the main melody. And I think that technique adds to the emotional tension.

Gary’s sound and technique is phenomenal, but his lines over these changes speak so purely...

Tribal Tech - Seek and Find.

Dr. Hee was released by Scott Henderson and Tribal Tech around 1987 I believe, and this very album served as my first taste of real jazz as a young teenager. The whole band was phenomenal.

Gary Willis’ fretless bass playing here is a lesson on so many things: intonation, tone, note choice, time and feel, dynamics, etc, etc. It’s hard to overstate how important his playing was to the art of electric bass. And Scott’s fusiony guitar tone is on this one full force, with his signature lines abound.

This is probably one of my favorite tunes on that record from a compositional and arranging perspective. And listening to this again after so long feels like a schooling in improvisation.

The Necessary Blonde - Tribal Tech

Scott Henderson’s Tribal Tech was a HEAVY fusion group, writing intricately orchestrated arrangements with dense harmonies and angular chord changes. Scott is originally from the Palm Beach area actually and played locally here for some time before playing abroad.

The real reason for this post is not only for the great tune, but for the bass playing of Gary Willis. Aside from Jeff Berlin in the 90′s, Gary was a primary influence for me in my own playing, and spurred my decade-long exploration into fretless bass. Gary plays with phenomenal tone, prodigious technique, and great depth in terms of his improvisational insight. Inspirational.