Richard Bona – Bass Another Mike Stern recording, this one is from the 2003 album, ‘These Times’, It is a slinky little sucker but there are not real histrionics on here and it is not overly challenging a read.

Jay Anderson – Bass Anderson received a bachelor’s degree from California State University, Long Beach in 1978, then worked with Woody Herman (1978-1979), Carmen McRae (1979-1981), and a quartet led by Ira Sullivan and Red Rodney (1981-1986). Anderson remained with Rodney through 1992, also working with Michael Brecker, during this time, and played with Toots Thielmans and Joe sample for much…

Gary Brown – Bass Born into a family of musicians Gary Brown’s inevitable musical career began at an early age. By his eleventh birthday Gary was already performing in jazz bands with his two brothers and his father, jazz trumpeter Wilbert Brown. Gary went on to form his own bands and develop a talent and…

Al Di Meola – Guitar I am working on my guitar reading and found that I am again frustrated at the lack of decent material to work with so I thought, here we go again! I have been listening to Al Di Meola for probably 45 years and, over the years, I have learned that…

Jimmy Haslip – Bass Another one of those legends who has worked with everybody, Jimmy Haslip was an early exponent of the five-string bass which he took into his main band for many years, ‘Yellowjackets’ (not THE Yellowjackets, just ‘Yellowjackets’). Haslip waited until 1993 before releasing an album under his own name and it is…

Richard Sinclair – Bass Born in Canterbury, England, both his father (Dick Sinclair) and grandfather (also named Dick Sinclair) were musical entertainers around Canterbury. Richard was introduced to the ukulele at age 3 and the guitar at 6, and was only 15 when he met Hugh and Brian Hopper when they came to see his dad’s dance band.…

Marc Johnson – Bass I have been a fan of Marc Johnson since I bought his ‘Bass Desires’ album the year it came out in1986. It is still one of my favourite records and has been subjected to repeat listening for nearly 40 years but the bass parts have always been difficult to pick out…

Charlie Haden – Bass Another ballad featuring Haden, this one from the 2001 Michael Brecker album, ‘Nearness Of You – The Ballad Book’. The tune features it’s composer, James Taylor, on vocals and the band is Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny and Jack DeJohnette but there are no unnecessary chops on display here – these guys…

Charlie Haden – Bass One of the most musical players in the Jazz canon, Haden was one of those guys who played with everyone. One of the people he hardly played with (I can only find two tracks) was Al DiMeola and, given the nature of most of DiMeola’s music, that is probably not surprising…

Danny Sapko – Behs Well, you can’t really ignore him, can you. Legend!