IT'S TIME FOR SOME BASS BALLIN'!

Antone "Chooky" Caldwell

Chooky, Chooky, Chooky! I thought if I said it three times I could be as smooth as Antone "Chooky" Caldwell's bass playing... hmm, it didn't work. Oh well, check out this young brother who is ballin' on the bass from the Washington, DC area whose techniques will put you in a place somewhere between Stanley Clarke and Victor Wooten. It would be unfair of me to paint Chooky into a musical box. His album, "Bassically Chook" has a very wide range of music styles, from a standard jazz foot tapper called "Fairwell Mr. Jones (R.I.P.)" to a west coast ride along song titled, "Westcoast Basstalk", to a harmonic interpretation of our Star Spangled Banner called "Chook's Spangled Bass"! My favorite song on the 16 song album is the smooth R&B crossover song called "Bassomatic". I guess you can see a theme in Chook's thinking; it's all about his bass! I was always told to choose one thing to be real good at, and if you are good at something, master it, Antone "Chooky" Caldwell seems to have found his thing with six-strings! 

"Bassically Chooky"

Now, don't get it twisted, Chooky isn't new to the music game. He has backed Andrae Crouch, Macy Gray, Heather Headley and Snoop Dogg. On the album "Bassically Chook" he worked with horn man Eddie Baccus Jr. and DC legend W. Ellington-Felton. Chooky gives his talents back to where they came from too, playing at one of suburban Washington's mega churches on Sunday's. Upcoming, on Tuesday April 5, 2011 you can catch Chooky and his band at Blues Alley in Washington, DC neighborhood of Georgetown. It should be fun and funky!