In 1991 I gave up on Rock and Roll and decided to devote my life to jazz.

But my first influences, when I started on electric bass in the eighties, were Jack Bruce (Cream), John Entwistle (The Who) and John Paul Jones (Led Zepplin). As a converted guitar player, I was interested in the more prominent bass playing of these classic rock legends. I was also into punk, listening to the Ramones, X, Sex Pistols, Black Flag, and the Clash, and eventually heard Mike Watt of the Minutemen, who I thought bridged a gap between the punk and classic rock sounds. The Ramones especially made me think “hey, I could do that”!

I played in bands around the Boston area, and when the ‘grunge’ thing came out of Seattle I though “that’s what we were doing five years ago” and the disillusionment set in. At this point, I was getting more interested in jazz, and quit looking for the ‘big break’ in pop music, and decided to study jazz, and play music more for fun, as I had originally.

I had met so many great musicians of all styles to jam with and learn from. I studied privately on fretless electric bass a little bit with Bruce Gertz, who was head of the Bass department at Berklee College of Music. I was listening almost exclusively to the classic jazz from the 40’s to the 60’s, from Charlie Parker to the early fusion of Miles Davis. When I heard Miles’ late Quintet (Ron Carter on bass and the incomparable Tony Williams on drums) the super fast tempos, especially of their live work like the album ‘Four and More’, really resonated with me. I realized later that this music made a connection to Punk Rock in its rhythmic placement and attitude.

Eventually, after being laid off from a job, took the severance pay and bought a 1950’s Kay Upright bass. I immediately fell in love with the more physical nature of the big instrument. My first influence on the acoustic bass was Paul Chambers, especially his work with Miles Davis.

In 1992 I met Jeffery ‘the Houseman’ Clemens who ran a weekly jazz jam session at a club in Brookline MA. I had just switched to the upright bass, so tried to make the session whenever I could. Eventually I got a few calls for gigs here and there. One day Jeff called me and said “Man, you gotta meet this kid, he calls himself G. Love, he plays a Dobro guitar, harp on the rack, and raps!” So I met Garrett where he was staying in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. We went over a few of his songs, I remember ‘Shootin’ Hoops’ was one of them, and the original version of ‘Baby’s Got Sauce.’ A week later we jammed again, and Jeff showed up this time with a pair of brushes and an empty box to play on, and we worked out a few arrangements of G’s songs. Then G announced we had a gig that weekend, and he would pay us $50.. OK, I’m there!

Even though we only rehearsed once, the gig was great, I could tell G had something special, a natural rapport with the audience. We improvised jams and felt our way through the songs and the crowd loved it. G and Jeff hustled more gigs and in the spring of ‘93 we played the Philadelphia Music Conference. After the show, Dave Johnson, who had invited us to the conference came up and said “Sounds great fellas.. be in the studio on Monday” and we started working on what would become our first record. It was completed in December of that year and released in early ‘94.

Playing music professionally has given me the opportunity to continue my jazz studies, and I have tried to honor the privilege by being fairly diligent in this pursuit. My first studies included transcribing parts by several of the ‘classic jazz’ bass players, associated with the Jazz Masters; Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey and Max Roach. Bassists like; Paul Chambers, Pierre Michelot, Wilbur Ware and Sam Jones. After moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in ‘96 I expanded my studies, and started working on Bach’s Cello Suites. I began investigating the work of Charles Mingus, Dave Holland, Charlie Hayden and the famous Cuban bassist Cachao. All of these studies continue, indeed each of these bassists could provide a lifetime of study.

After relocating to Portland Oregon, starting JamBox studios and leaving Special Sauce, I’ve reengaged with the bass by studying with bassist Glen Moore of the avant garde group Oregon.