Rick Suchow

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Jimmy Haslip : Still Pushing the Envelope By Rick Suchow (This article originally appeared in the May 2010 issue of Bass Guitar Magazine.) What do Rod Stewart, Chaka Khan, Pat Metheny, Joe Cocker, Diana Ross and Al Jarreau all have in common? Well for one, all are giants in the world of pop or jazz, universally respected for their talent and success. And for two, all have used the services of bassist Jimmy Haslip, who in a nearly 40-year career has not only toured or recorded with each artist in this elite group but hundreds more equally as renowned. Yet even with this who’s who list of credits under his belt, Jimmy is perhaps best known for his work with one band, the veteran jazz group the Yellowjackets. Now approaching their 30th year together, founding Jackets members Haslip and keyboardist Russell Ferrante prepare to embark on their twenty-first recording in a phenomenal run that has seen the Grammy-winning group consistently remain one of the top draws in the contemporary jazz market. Growing up in the suburban green of Huntington, Long Island, just miles from the electric pulse and frenetic energy of the New York City music scene, Jimmy took it all in as a teenager with a voracious appetite for recorded music and an unquenchable thirst for creative expression. Discovering the bass guitar in high school, the left-handed Haslip bought a standard right-handed bass from a local music store, flipped it over, and the rest is history. Jimmy immersed himself in learning the instrument and started gigging immediately, continuing to explore every great bass album he could get his hands on and learning the parts off the records. It wasn’t long before his growing interest in jazz and fusion sparked him to new levels on the 4-string, leading to a life-changing period of ten days when he met and befriended the great Jaco Pastorius. Now nearly 35 years later, Haslip has become one of the most highly regarded bassists of his generation, an improviser of extraordinary depth and a groovemaster with impeccable feel. Having recently mastered his forthcoming third solo album entitled Nightfalls, a project that features Alan Holdsworth, Alan Pasqua and Chad Wackerman, Jimmy graciously lent his time for this interview in between stops on his current tour with the Yellowjackets. For starters, I asked him how he explains the Jackets’ longevity. "It has a lot to do with the chemistry of the people involved and my relationship with Russell Ferrante," says Haslip. "Russ and I have had a lot of good chemistry over the years writing and producing these records, and we have a similar vision musically. We’ve also had a really good team of business people behind us who’ve assisted in perpetuating us over the years, including management and booking agents, and we’ve had some very loyal people involved. So you combine all those elements, and it’s a full package of very motivated and forward thinking folks that have kept this whole thing alive, and it’s still going. We’re actually putting material together now for our twenty-first recording.

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