Bass Player: Reginald Veal

Veal is primarily known as the bass player for several of Wynton Marsalis’s bands in the 1980s and 1990s. He is featured on many of the Marsalis recordings from that era including the astonishing 7-cd boxed set ‘Live At The Village Vanguard’. Amongst the other Marsalis recordings he contributed to, Veal held the bass chair for the CD ‘Jump Start and Jazz: Two Ballets by Wynton Marsalis’. The Jump Start ballet carries the subtitle, ‘The Mastery Of Melancholy’ which includes the tune ‘Habanera’, a pseudo-Mexican flavoured piece with a Latin feel in the bass (what King Oliver called the ‘Latin tinge’). The bass part is not overly challenging compared to some Veal parts but this one takes you in a different direction for the normal Reginald ‘Swing Doom’ Veal walking bass parts.