roachboy

electric?
acoustic?
with arco?
what genre?

this kind of question is ridiculous.

bass players that i like:

there are many many many jazz players who in every sense wipe the floor with their pop counterparts.

a list seems arbitrary, even reframed in this way. trying again.

a list of people i can think of whose playing i admire:

reggie workman
malachi favors maghoustut (r.i.p.)
scott lafaro (r.i.p.)
charlie haden for his tone
dave holland
henry grimes (back in the day....haven't heard him since he started playing again)
richard davis
charles mingus (r.i.p.)
jean-jacques avenel (edit: i remembered his name---he played with steve lacy for the past 15 years or so)
fred hopkins
sirone...
the list goes on and on, and i stop here only because my memory is not what it once was.

for electric bassists, its a bit harder.
stanley clarke.
i like alot of funk players, which means that you have to hail larry graham as the guy who more or less invented the main techniques associated with the form now.
some of the players listed above i quite like.
but i do not think any of them "owns" anyone.
and in this sort of music, it is more often placement than chops that is determinant of how cool the bassplaying is--so i dont know even here how to respond....

and again, it is impossible to know what any of this means, given the number of classical players out there, the nature of classical music insofar as the bass is concerned, the relatively little emphasis placed on it as a solo instrument--the number of remarkable players who never get recorded or who decide to play types of music that restricts their latitude because they love the style.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite