When Yes bassist Chris Squire died aged 67 in 2015, it took the bass community aback. Sure, Squire had made his name with recordings from close to half a century before his passing, but there was a sense with everything that he did that he was nowhere near finished – and that he had ideas for bass lined up for years to come.
That’s the essence of the word ‘progressive’, right there, if you ask us. Progressive rock in the sense of the genre of music that Yes made doesn’t get that name just because the music is fiendishly complex: we call it by that tag because it doesn’t stop evolving. It’s restless, hungry for evolution, and unsatisfied with mediocrity. You can hear this in every bass part that Squire recorded. This is why he’s our cover star this month: because he gave us the gift of his creativity, delivering the parts with a tone that has baffled his fans for decades. We reveal those tones this month: see if you can achieve them yourself, and use them as Chris might have done.
