b. Newport News, Virginia, USA. Wooten was raised in Nashville the youngest of five brothers, and when he was only two years old was prompted into music by his brother, guitarist Elijah "Regi" Wooten. He eventually became proficient on the same instr…

Philadelphia-born bassist Stanley Clarke got his start playing with straight-up jazzers (Horace Silver, Joe Henderson), but became known as one of the prime movers in the jazz-rock fusion movement of the 1970s. His virtuosic technique on both the ele…

OK Go's popularity is testament not only to the Chicago band's crunchy-guitar, power-pop flammability--in evidence since their late-1990s beginnings--but also to the mixture of media canniness and of-the-moment grace that allowed them to ride a wave …

Like so many underground NYC rock bands, the Strokes first generated publicity in the U.K., though it didn't take long for their no-frills sound to catch on at home. Paying homage to their influences, the group purveys a mix of Velvet Underground/New…

A flexible and powerful electric bassist Jeff Berlin has been one of the major fusion bassist since the mid-70s His father sang opera and his mother played piano Berlin had nine years of violin lessons starting from when he was five and was considere…

b. Raymond Matthews Brown, 13 October 1926, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, d. 2 July 2002, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. One of the outstanding bass players in jazz history, Brown's top-league experience began when, in 1945, at the age of 19, he joined…

One of the most gifted, influential, and ubiquitous jazz bassists of the 20th century, Ron Carter made his name in the early 1960s in the bands of Miles Davis, Eric Dolphy, Cannonball Adderly, Thelonious Monk, and others. His unique combination of te…

With the exception of Charles Mingus, Charlie Haden is perhaps the most important post-bop jazz bassist. His work with Ornette Coleman's original groundbreaking quartet helped establish the blueprint for free jazz, a blueprint that Haden himself augm…

Charles Mingus poured the full weight of his experience into everything he played. He was a powerful virtuoso on bass, and as a composer he drew on the whole history of jazz to produce works of trenchant beauty. Above all, he was an artist whose unco…

b. Leroy Stewart, 21 September 1914, Englewood, New Jersey, USA, d. 10 December 1987, Binghamton, New York, USA. He studied bass at Boston Conservatory, having earlier played violin. Almost from the start of his career, Stewart was experimenting with…

b. 6 December 1948, Chelsea, Massachusetts, USA. Swartz's early musical background found him playing piano and he earned a degree in piano and composition at the Berklee College Of Music. He began playing bass in his late teens, first working in and …

b. 22 January 1940, Stuttgart, Germany. Weber's father taught him the cello from the age of six and he only turned to the bass in 1956. He liked the sound of Bill Haley's records, saw an old stand-up bass hanging on the wall in the school gym and tri…

b. 27 November 1937, Los Angeles, California, USA, d. 8 August 2002, Livingston, New Jersey, USA. He was born into a musical environment, and his younger brother, Butch Morris, also became a jazz musician. A school friend of future jazzmen Don Cherry…

b. 17 November 1966, New Haven, Connecticut, USA. Allison studied music and guitar from the age of nine, eventually graduating from New York University in 1989. Having been active as a bass player and composer in New York for some time, in the early …

b. John Arthur Lindberg III, 16 March 1959, Royal Oak, Michigan, USA. Taking up the bass while still very young, Lindberg studied at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbors but in his late teens moved to New York where his studies continued, with Da…

Born and raised in Philadelphia Gerald Veasley is an excellent bassist who has played his share of commercial music but definitely has the chops needed for more improvisatory settings Veasley was exposed to gospel and RB as a child and went on to pla…

Electric guitarist and bassist Jerome Harris is best known for his work as a sideman with Sonny Rollins and for his later work in groups led by drummer Bobby Previte and by trombonist Ray Anderson among others Harris was already a skilled musician wh…

b. 1 October 1946, Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England. Holland plays guitar, piano, bass guitar and also composes, but it is as a bassist and cellist that he has made an international reputation. He studied at London's Guildhall School of Music an…

In his brief, blazing career, Jaco Pastorius proved he could do almost everything--except handle the fame that his talent brought him. His stunning 1976 debut album put the electric bass in an entirely new light, and soon he became a superstar as a m…

b. 1958, Gothenburg, Sweden. Classically trained as a bass player, Hellborg also listened to contemporary rock and pop and as a teenager was turned towards jazz through hearing albums by John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra. He soon began moving mo…

b. 26 September 1952, Los Angeles, California, USA. Dresser started on bass at the age of 10, played in rock groups in his early teens then studied music at Indiana University for one year, leaving because "it was too straight for me, like a music fa…

b. USA. Trained at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Wasserman developed an idiosyncratic approach to both the upright bass and the electric bass that was musically adventurous and stimulating. In the late 70s he was a member of David Grisman'…

Influences: Built to Spill, The Kinks, The Police, Gomez, Ozma, Pedro The Lion, Ben Folds Five, Pink Floyd, Modest Mouse, Queen. Sounds Like: Rush, Dismemberment Plan, Queen.