Some Juan's techniques

I'm going to try in this section you to discover some Juan's techniques, to give you some elements of his style.

Juan Nelson plays withc Ben for "Welcome to the cruel World" and is reponsable of the rythmic line with the drummer Dean Butterworth and the percussionist David Leach. This rythmic line isn't harmless because the three musicians have a certain talent. A modern groove between rock, rap, reggae, well swigging and not always easy to play.

Juan Nelson have got a serious technique. The variety of his tythmic lines, which he proposes with the drummer is the proof. He has got too a large musical culture because he has assimilated a lot of styles of play and he is at ease with each style. His technique, he shows us it only with parsimony.

Most probably influenced by the playwith bottleneck of Ben Harper, Juan Nelson build a lot of his bass parts with long slides , which appear very bluesy. He uses too sometimes the open tunings. A priori, he prefers this technique to the use of five-strings bass because the texture of the sound which we can discover on the records stay well the sound of a four-string bass most of the time. Juan Nelson is too very fond of appogiaturas in half-tones, he expands frequently his play with this way as in Like a King.

His play with fingers is very precise and very syncopated. Juan Nelson add oftten dead-notes which he puts generaly before the strong beat, or just before a syncope he has to show. Juan Nelson is too a good melodist and he doesn't hesitate to develop some beautiful descants of bass when the context allows him it (Roses from my Friend). He is the real type of the bass player which grooves with his fingers. Of course , the plectrum is completluy prohibited.

Influences : Like most playres of his age, he has been rocked with soul music and rythm and blues, and probably he begins the bass by taking back the standartsof the genre. We can easily find him some common points with Dunk Dunn and Tommy Shannon.

Matos : Juan Nelson haven't an enough important notoriety to have precise informations on his kit. However, the listening of his bass sound lets know that he uses a vintage bass, like the Fender Jazz Bass for example. The heat and the roundness of his sound lets think to the use of a light amplifier like the Ampeg SVT.