A 13-Year-Old Bass Prodigy and Her Dad Made This
She started bass at eight after mistaking it for a guitar. At thirteen, she and her father's band dropped their debut album — this is a track from it.
Backstory
“Ellen Alaverdyan picked up a bass at eight — after seeing Tal Wilkenfeld on TV and mistaking the instrument for a guitar. Her father Hovak, a working guitarist, taught her the basics; she took it from there with a ferocity that pulled in millions of followers and mentorship from Victor Wooten, a family friend who’s been around her whole life.
“13 Town” is off Take Off, the debut album from Jaminai — her band with Hovak on guitar, Murzo on keys, and the legendary Gregg Bissonette on drums. The title is a double wink: she was thirteen when they cut it, and the tune tips its hat to Jaco Pastorius’s “Teen Town,” a rite-of-passage piece for serious bassists.
Watch her hands — but also watch her face. Halfway through she takes a solo, trading lines with her dad, completely inside the music. This isn’t a kid doing a trick. It’s a talented musician who happens to be thirteen. And if you think thirteen is young, wait until you see the six-year-old who takes on “Hotel California” — singing and playing five different instruments.
