Album Notes

Jazz Bassist Jay Leonhart teams up with a whole bunch of jazz greats and record mostly duets with them , including a rare recording with the ledgendary Count Basie vocalist, Joe Williams.

Jay Leonhart
JayLeonhart.com
TheBassLesson.com


As a result of thousands of recordings and appearances around the globe, bassist Jay Leonhart has become one of the world's best known jazz bassists. His recordings and performances with many of the greatest pop and jazz singers of the twentieth century- from Mel Torme, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee, to James Taylor and Steely Dan--have made his name familiar to music fans all over the world.

Jay's CD's of his own songs are hailed for their originality and humor, poetry and insight, as well as presenting great jazz played by outstanding jazz musicians.

Jay Leonhart was born in Baltimore in 1940 and began his music studies at the Peabody School of Music at the age of six. He played many different instruments on his way to settling on the bass violin, which he started playing at age 13. In the 1950's, as Bill Haley began getting famous, Jay started playing bass the bass in what was Baltimore's hottest dixieland band, The Pier Five Jazz Band, and learned all those wonderful dixieland and traditional songs that keep popping up today. By age 15, Jay was working weekends (and sometimes week nights) in all the music clubs and bars around Baltimore, listening to the juke boxes and learning all the old pop and jazz songs by ear.

After further studies at Peabody and The Berklee School of Music, Jay headed for New York in 1961 where he hoped to earn a living as a bass player and to be thought of as a "good" player. He has achieved both.

After marrying a beautiful young singer named Donna Zier in 1970, Jay's career took on a more serious purpose, and he began to work regularly in the New York recording studios, eventually being named three times as The Most Valuable Bass Player by The National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences. Jay and Donna had two children. Michael and Carolyn, who are now grown and are both very successful musicians. Still, Jay kept playing jazz and writing his songs. Oh those songs!

Eventually his individualistic talents and eccentricities as a songwriter started to be noticed by the world, and now besides over 300 compositions of his own, Jay has provided official lyrics for such jazz standards as Charlie Parker's "Confirmation", Eddie Harris' "Freedom jazz Dance", and Tommy Flanagan's "Bluebird". Jay's entire catalogue of songs is currently being prepared for publication. So these are interesting times for a dixieland bassist from Baltimore.

Jay has been privileged to play and record with many of the great jazz musicians of all time, from Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Max Roach, Poppa Joe Jones, and Sonny Rollins to many of today's current jazz artists.

Jay's one man show, The Bass Lesson is now being presented in theaters and jazz venues around the world, as well being prepared for showing on the arts TV networks. The show is a one man musical about life as a jazz bass player. See TheBassLesson.com.

Jay is currently recording his most interesting project yet. It is a multi CD set of about one hundred of his songs-recorded live with just bass and voice. No overdubs. Just bass and voice.

Visit JayLeonhart.com for progress reports.