Who's Your Favorite Bass Player?

[Jimmy Smith]

Jimmy Smith, the forum rebel.

[Jim Soloway]

My favorite is Lars Danielsson. I base that simply on the fact that he's the one I choose to listen to the most and by a substantial margin.

[Cunamara]

Well, the original question was "who's your favorite bassist" and not "who's the best bassist." There is really no objective way to measure who is the "best" bassist, any more than there would be an objective way to measure whether Matisse or Renoir were better painters. But what bassist(s) I resonate with, no pun intended, that's a whole different discussion.

Edgar Meyers, with whom Christian McBride recently put out a duo album, is maybe not well-known in this forum but his skills and musical range are amazing- classical/orchestral, string trios and quartets, bluegrass, jazz, Americana, avant-garde, world music... There are few musicians with as wide a spectrum on any instrument. His last few recordings are with Christian McBride, as mentioned; Béla Fleck and Zakir Hussain; a couple of records including Yo-Yo Ma and Chris Thile, one of which is Bach trios; Jerry Douglas and Russ Berenberg (Skip, Hop and Wobble, which is a wonderful recording).