Who's your Greatest Bass player ever

My Top 5:

Derek Forbes - Simple Minds
Peter Hook - Joy Division / New Order
Craig Adams - Sisters of Mercy / The Mission
Tony Petitt - Fields of the Nephilim
Andy Rourke - The Smiths
 
For rock, there are some good answers, but the correct answer was the first one — Geddy Lee.

For number two, I’d go with Les Claypool of Primus.

I love Entwhistle too.

I’m not familiar enough with funk, soul, blues or jazz to choose.

Tommy The Cat is an insane song, to play that on bass you need to be from another planet.
Les Claypool is not human.
 
.

Pastorius would get my vote. His playing on Joni Mitchell's live album Shadows and Light is mesmerising.

For anyone curious about the guy, his Wikipedia entry is worth a look. I had no idea how utterly dysfunctional the guy was when it came to his personal life.
IMO the greatest by a mile.
Jaco could do unbelievable things on his fender bass.
Funk, Jazz Rock fusion.
So many musicians vote him the best, a film has been made about him.
He ended up living in Central Park, drunk.
Eventually his life was ended by a club bouncer.
He wrote a lot of music, a true virtuoso.
 
Jaco. A total nutter. He walked up to Zawinul and said, "Hello, my name's Jaco Pastorius and I'm the best bassist in the world". That takes cojones. Especially to a guy like Zawinul, who didn't suffer fools gladly.
Thing is, it was as close to being true as these claims ever can be. (They're always basically false, in my humble opinion. And I'm talking about probably my favourite player on electric bass, at least as far as jazz goes.)
Funny thing, though. To my great surprise, Victor Bailey always insisted that he had very little in the way of improvisational ability. Bailey had no axe to grind, he was himself a phenomenal bassist, and he really rated Jaco's work. Simply, he said that all Jaco's parts were written out (including his solos) and that he'd rehearse them hundreds of times until he had them note perfect. It doesn't make Jaco a lesser bassist, but it does slightly change my view of him.
 
Roger Glover of Deep Purple. Hate these so called technical bass players who were actual failed guitarists. Bass players know the groove with the drummer not the spotlight

I understand what you're saying. That's why a lot of Weather Report fans prefer Alfonso Johnson to Jaco Pastorius. He never drew attention to himself. But by God could he lay down a groove...
 
not a few musicians pick out Alfonso Johnson as the best bassist Weather Report ever had. Again, for sheer groove listen to his superb work on Sweetnighter and Mysterious Traveller.

I stand corrected. By myself. Absolutely gobsmacked! Just checked it (while listening to the sublime “Adios” off that album), and Alphonso Johnson does NOT feature on Sweetnighter. Still a great bassist, one of the greatest for precision tooled groove. Also still a great album. For pure groove, everyone working together like a sex machine, check out “125th Street Congress”.
 

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