Serendipity is a funny thing. I was in a coffee shop last week and this song came on. I looked it up on Shazam immediately.
I’d never heard of Ronn Matlock, but the solitary album he released is full of gems (he mostly worked as a writer for other artists). Lots of great bass playing, mostly done by Greg Coles.
Check out the original if you don’t know it. For me, it’s the ideal Jazz bass tone for funk. So punchy. I tried to match it with a bit of EQ when I recorded this video, but I just don’t think my strings were old enough! (I usually love Elixirs, but here they let me down by being too lively!)
Note: there’s a really strange moment in the original recording where there seems to be an added 8th note beat, leading into the bass breakdown. In my playalong and the transcription, I removed this 8th note beat to make sure it flows. Otherwise, there’s a bar of 9/8 (or 5/8 + 2/4). This must be a bad edit, as it exists on all versions I could find online!