Top Five rock Bass players

effischer314 posts09-23-2016 8:02pmTony Levin
John Wetton
Mike Rutherford
Tina Weymouth

and without doubt, Chris Squire

Topic: Top Five Rock Bass Players

Operative word Rock. Now, what is Rock can be argued. But to say Jaco and Miroslav "are jazz bassists that surely substantially better schooled and skilled than Paul McCartney", while true, is off point, isn’t it? When it comes to technical virtuosity, Jazz musicians are universally more advanced than Rock musicians. But what makes a player "better" at Rock music is different than what makes a player great at Jazz music.

It’s hard to make non-musicians understand the significance of style in the approach to playing an instrument. Keith Moon was asked if he could play in The Buddy Rich Band. His reply was "No, and Buddy Rich couldn’t play in The Who".

Would Jaco or Miroslav playing bass in The Beatles rather than Paul have made The Beatles music "better"? Chances are very likely no. In fact, it would most assuredly have made it less good. I often hear "simple" music ruined by an "ambitious" musician "over-playing". That’s how Jazz musicians play Rock music. They don’t understand the role their instrument plays (unintended pun :-) in Rock music versus Jazz.