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Doug Watkins

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

Doug Watkins · Douglas Watkins was born in Detroit in 1934 and became one of the most sought-after bassists in hard bop. He was one of the original members of the Jazz Messengers and afterwards played in Horace Silver's quintet. He also worked as a freelancer with, among others, Gene Ammons, Kenny Burrell, Donald Byrd, Art Farmer, Jackie McLean, Hank Mobley, Lee Morgan, Sonny Rollins and Phil Woods. According to Horace Silver's autobiography, Watkins and Silver left Art Blakey's band because they were tired of the police checks to which the group was exposed because of other members' drug problems.

Music and breakthrough

His best-known recording is the one on Sonny Rollins's 1956 album Saxophone Colossus, on which, at the age of twenty-two, he plays alongside Max Roach and Tommy Flanagan. In 1961 Charles Mingus hired him for the bass part when Mingus himself sat down at the piano for a while, which led to the albums Oh Yeah and Tonight at Noon.

Influence

As a bandleader he made only two albums: Watkins at Large for Transition and Soulnik for New Jazz. For the latter, recorded in 1960 with Yusef Lateef, he played cello, an instrument he had only begun playing a few days earlier. In 1962 he was killed in a car accident near Holbrook, Arizona, at the age of 27. His name therefore appears mainly on other people's records, as the steady, driving bass beneath the hard bop of the 1950s.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to Saxophone Colossus by Sonny Rollins and try to follow Doug Watkins's bass. Can you hear how he plays a steady line that Rollins and Max Roach can move over?

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

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Categories: Artists