Bob Whitlock

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Bob Whitlock was an American jazz double bassist, born on 21 January 1931 in Roosevelt, Utah, and died on 20 June 2015 in Long Beach, California. He began playing bass as a teenager and from the early 1950s was active as a studio musician in Los Angeles. There he worked with Gerry Mulligan, Art Pepper, Chet Baker, Stan Getz, Buddy DeFranco, Joe Albany, Jack Sheldon and Warne Marsh. That was the world of West Coast Jazz, in which light, melodic small groups set the tone.

Music and breakthrough

In the second half of the 1950s he also led a small group of his own and attended classes at the University of California. In the early 1960s he worked in France, with Zoot Sims, Vi Redd, Curtis Amy and Victor Feldman. Later in that decade he played with Joe Pass and a great deal with George Shearing. In the 1970s he again worked with Joe Albany.

Influence

Whitlock is an example of a bassist who seldom sought the foreground but could be heard everywhere. His name appears on recordings by great names, because bandleaders could count on his playing. Anyone who wants to understand West Coast Jazz hears in such musicians the foundation on which the soloists stood.

Listening

In School of Rock

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