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Cecil McBee

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

Cecil McBee is an American jazz bassist, born in 1935 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. At school he learned the clarinet, but at seventeen he switched to double bass and played in local nightclubs. He earned a music degree at Central State University in Ohio and for two years led the army band at Fort Knox. In 1959 he played with Dinah Washington and in 1962 he moved to Detroit, where in 1963 and 1964 he worked with Paul Winter's folk-rock ensemble.

Music and breakthrough

His jazz career took off in the mid-1960s in New York. He played and recorded with important musicians, among them Miles Davis, Andrew Hill, Sam Rivers, Jackie McLean, Wayne Shorter, Charles Lloyd, Yusef Lateef, Keith Jarrett, Freddie Hubbard, Woody Shaw and Alice Coltrane. Under his own name he recorded only a handful of records, including Mutima in 1974, Alternate Spaces in 1979 and Unspoken in 1997. As a sideman he contributed to many classic jazz albums. In 1988 he won a Grammy for Blues for Coltrane: A Tribute to John Coltrane, together with Pharoah Sanders, David Murray, McCoy Tyner and Roy Haynes. In 1991 he was inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame. He was artist in residence at Harvard and teaches at the New England Conservatory in Boston.

Influence

McBee is a bassist who above all carries other people's music, and in doing so gave the jazz of the 1960s and 1970s a broad, warm foundation.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to a track by Alice Coltrane from the years 1969 to 1972 on which McBee plays. Notice the bass beneath the long, flowing lines of harp and piano and hear how he carries the movement.

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

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Categories: Artists