a lot of people consider Jaco the most important bass player. my favorite bass players are local - brian allen and foster from extra fancy. but i also love fieldy from korn, who i consider one of the biggest names who brought bassplayers forward from being hidden in the mix to being a big part of the entire toon. and don't forget les claypool - the man is mad, and i respect that in a musician. and i like the entire idea of carol kaye - when virtually NO musicians were women, she became the first studio bassist.

but honestly a lot of my faves aren't bass players. i love hubert laws, and he's a flute player who did one of my all time favorite jazz albums which include doing some wonderful jazz versions of some classical music. one of my very first musical influences was leon russell from his early phases - like his album, leon russell, his work with the shelter people and the stuff he did with joe cocker and all the mad dogs and englishmen back in the late sixties and early seventies. i also revere frank zappa's music from his early-ish days.

often albums are more important to me than artists: strong early influences for me include hot rats, captain beefheart's trout mask replica and joni mitchell's ladies of the canyon.

enough about me - what were your formative artists or albums?