Unsung Bassists, Part Three

The series continues with a look at the fine veteran West Coast bassist Buddy Clark, and two very good, mostly unknown bassists: Don Prell and William Austin, whose careers were almost as brief and obscure as Gary Mapp’s, but not quite.

3. Buddy Clark – Buddy Clark was a very good bassist on the L.A. scene from the early ’50s on into the ’80s, who’s often overlooked. He’s become a favourite of mine in random, incremental installments through the …

Unsung Bassists, Part Two

Our look at unsung bassists continues with Tommy Williams, who mostly played with the Art Farmer-Benny Golson Jazztet and is not to be confused with the more recent jazz bassist Thomas Williams or Tommy Williams, the rock guy.

2. Tommy Williams – I’d been heavily involved with jazz – reading about it, listening to it, playing it – for about 25 years before I first came across the bass playing of Tommy Williams and I won’t soon forget it. …

Unsung Bassists, Part One

The recent post about the mostly forgotten bassist Billy Taylor got me to thinking of other under-recognized ones, of which there have been no shortage through the years. So here’s a look at a few other bass players who were never even close to being household names, despite playing very well. First though, a comic rant on the overuse of the word “underrated” in jazz.

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I was going to call this article “Underrated Bassists”, but it occurred to …

The Bucs Tops Here

Don’t look now, but after twenty straight losing seasons, the Pittsburgh Pirates entered August with the best record in baseball at 65-43, two percentage points ahead of the Red Sox. True, they’ve teased their fans the last two seasons by flirting with contention this late, only to collapse down the stretch like a straw suitcase. This year feels different though, for a few reasons to be examined later.

Their last winning season was 1992, the last of three 90-win …