Actually, Ray Brown did play electric bass on an album back in 1969. I should know it off the top of my head, but its not so young any more. . . . The album was by Quincy Jones called “Walking in Space” and recorded in June 1969 (at Van Gelder Studios in Engle Cliffs, NJ) on which Ray played electric bass (fretless I’m pretty sure) on most of the tunes: “Dead End”, “Walking In Space”, “I Never Told You”, and “Oh, Happy Day”. He played double bass on “Killer Joe” and the 4th tune, “Love And Piece” had Chuck Rainey at the helm.
I have a copy of that photo that was in an article about Ray Brown just after his death July 2, 2002, although I don’t recall which publication it came from, it does say that they were backstage at the Hollywood Bowl in Weather Report’s dressing room, June 1981, at the 3rd Playboy Jazz Festival. The link in the website block will take you directly to a partial copy of the scanned pic and article.
03 October 2010, 10:13 pm
What a great photo! I’m surprised that I’ve never seen this before.
21 November 2010, 3:33 am
Actually, Ray Brown did play electric bass on an album back in 1969. I should know it off the top of my head, but its not so young any more. . . . The album was by Quincy Jones called “Walking in Space” and recorded in June 1969 (at Van Gelder Studios in Engle Cliffs, NJ) on which Ray played electric bass (fretless I’m pretty sure) on most of the tunes: “Dead End”, “Walking In Space”, “I Never Told You”, and “Oh, Happy Day”. He played double bass on “Killer Joe” and the 4th tune, “Love And Piece” had Chuck Rainey at the helm.
I have a copy of that photo that was in an article about Ray Brown just after his death July 2, 2002, although I don’t recall which publication it came from, it does say that they were backstage at the Hollywood Bowl in Weather Report’s dressing room, June 1981, at the 3rd Playboy Jazz Festival. The link in the website block will take you directly to a partial copy of the scanned pic and article.
Lloyd Howard