We all love a good walking bass line - it draws us in and creates the foundation for something that cries "The Blues!" Today we’ll hear PianoNic in a very stylish performance of Bill Boyd’s The Bass Man Walketh, an intermediate level piece that is all about the walking bass line. Composer Bill Boyd (1933-2001) was able to find the essence of jazz and the blues and compose pieces for the beginning pianist that bring that essence to young players fingertips. Boyd played professionally as both a solo performer and band member in hotels, supper clubs and private clubs in New York and Long Island, NY for many years. He also taught junior high school in Huntington, Long Island, for over twenty years. When he retired to Florida in the late 1980s, he devoted his time to arranging and composing. Boyd's ability to impart the essence of "true" jazz and blues style to very young piano students is a hallmark of his writing.

The Bass Man Walketh can be found in Bill Boyd’s Jazz Sketches (Hal Leonard).
Key: C major  ~  Time Signature: 4/4  ~  walking bass line; syncopation; swing 8th notes
You can purchase Boyd’s Jazz Sketches online at J.W. Pepper, Sheetmusicplus, or at your local music store. It is also in the Hal Leonard Student Piano Library, Piano Solos, Book 5. For more information on Bill Boyd, visit his Composer Page at the Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music.