John Patitucci – Bass What a player, what a band and what an arrangement. The Dave Grusin ‘West Side Story’ album has never been far away from my cd player since I got hold of my first copy when it came out in 1997. The whole album is a masterpiece of big band arranging but…

Hans Glawischnig – Electric Bass Acoustic/ electric bassist and composer Hans Glawischnig grew up in Graz, Austria. His father, a pianist, leader of the free jazz group, The Neighbors, educator, and longtime chief conductor of the NDR big band in Hamburg, Germany, encouraged Hans to pursue a career in music. His American mother, having studied Art…

Will Lee – Bass The hardest working bassist in the business, at least he was at one time. Not so sure nowadays as I am a little bit out of the loop. These Bob Mintzer charts are great because there is a clarity about the bass parts that makes transcribing them relatively easy and the…

John Mole – Bass Whatever happened to…. A member of Jon Hiseman’s Colosseum II, he went on to work with fellow band members Gary Moore and Don Airey. He also played with the UK jazz-funk band Morrissey-Mullen during the late 1970s, and as a session musician, with artists such as Barbra Streisand  and John Dankworth. He was…

Steve Rodby – Bass Another Steve Rodby bass part – as always, he plays all the right notes in the the right order exactly as the piece requires. Minimal extraneous detail but there is some stuff in there that requires concentration. A nice chart to read as it is interesting enough to challenge you without…

Wynton Marsalis – Trumpet Any Jazz musician, particularly Jazz bass players, will stress the importance of listening to and transcribing solos by the great players but also those who do not play the bass. There are loads of examples on-line of bass players playing their take on saxophone solos, piano solos etc (Jeff Berlin’s ‘Marabi’…

Steve Swallow – Bass A personal hero of mine, Steve Swallow is one of those musicians who does everything wrong and ends up being so utterly original and profoundly musical. He plays a five string with a high C (wrong), he plays Jazz on an electric bass (wrong) and plays Jazz with a pick (wrong).…

Will Lee – Bass The busiest bass player in the world, certainly in the 1980s. The bass playing magazines were always full of legends regarding how many sessions this guy had done, how many gigs in a single day etc. He is not the most advanced player in terms of bass chops and there are…

Pat Metheny – Bass According to my go-to discographies, Metheny played all of the instruments on this recording. It is entirely possible as there is nothing ‘chopsy’ about the part i it is entirely root note based and on the beat so even a guitarist could play it. I am putting it up here precisely…

Steve Rodby – Bass Steve Rodby has been the Pat Metheny Group’s bass player from 1982 until Lyle Mays death put and end to the band. He has worked with Metheny since then though and is likely to continue to do so until one of the falls off the perch. Rodby has played with a…