Today’s featured video is from the Zawinul Syndicate’s North Sea Jazz Festival performance in 1997. Richard Bona is tearing it up, along with drummer Paco Sery and the rest of the Syndicate…

If you like this, you may also like the Syndicate’s World Tour release, a live 2-disc set from the same year. The recording features the same line-up: Paco Sery on drums and alternating tracks featuring Bona and long-time Zawinul favorite Victor Bailey on bass.

Bassist, composer and band leader Dave Holland is releasing his latest CD, Pass It On on September 23.

The release features Holland’s sextet, who formed in 2006, consisting of Robin Eubanks (trombone), Antonio Hart (alto saxophone), Alex “Sasha” Sipiagin (trumpet), Mulgrew Miller (piano) and Eric Harland (drums).

The CD features several new arrangements of past Holland originals over the past twenty years.

Holland has just completed touring with Herbie Hancock for the River of Possibilities tour and is planning a tour of his own this fall, including: 9/18-20 Regattabar, Boston; 9/21 Yale University, New Haven; 9/24-28 Yoshi’s, San Francisco & Oakland; and 10/8-11 Birdland, New York.

Source: PRWeb

Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh and his band, Phil Lesh and Friends, are on tour, co-headlining with the Allman Bros. Band.

Phil Lesh and Friends perform updated versions of songs from the Dead’s vast library.

Complete tour details are available on the band’s web site.

Jeff Coffin’s latest album, Mutopia, features Felix Pastorius (son of the late Jaco Pastorius), along with Roy “Futureman” Wooten and Kofi Burbridge. Guest appearances include Chris Walters, Bela Fleck, Victor Wooten, Doug Belote, Alana Rocklin, Pat Bergeson, R. Scott Bryan, Roy Agree, Rod McGaha, Barry Green and Black Cat Sylvester.

Sample tracks:

Other recent releases…

Carlos Cuevas has released his second CD, Uninhibited Realm featuring John Patitucci on acoustic and electric bass.

Patitucci has been busy. Keyboardist Nick Manson has just released Mercator with John Patitucci, Ian Froman and Andy Suzuki.

Rhonda Smith, Prince’s bass player, has released her second album RS2, with guest appearances from Prince, Sheila E., Fred Hammond and others.

Jack Bruce is performing at Hippiefest this weekend, in Clearwater, FL.

Return to Forever and bassist Stanley Clarke continue to get rave reviews, as their tour winds down.

Dave Holland is helping families in New Haven, CT, performing a benefit concert on September 21.

The Levine Report has a nice feature on Gerald Veasley, who is enjoying one of his best selling albums to date, Your Move.

Metallica has announced their next album, Death Magnetic, due out on September 12th. This is the first album since 2003, and get this… the first album featuring current bassist Robert Trujillo. Wow, we just assumed he’d be on one by now.

More from the Metallica web site.

Another multi-bass album is coming. This time from Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller & Victor Wooten, joining together as S.M.V.

The new album, Thunder, is out on August 12th.

Sample tracks here:

Michael Manring has announced “Project M”, a new release by a quartet of bassists including Manring, Grant Stinnett, Rob Gourlay and Jim Stinnett. The release includes a bonus DVD full of interviews and rehearsal footage.

Here’s the debut performance of Project M at the New Hampshire Bass Festival earlier this year:

If you haven’t already discovered Thomas Risell, aka MarloweDK, you need to stop what you’re doing right now.

Here’s one of our favorites - a cover of the Jaco Pastorius bassline and solo from Ian Hunter’s “All American Alien Boy”:

And a remake of Nathan Watts’s killer bass playing on Stevie Wonder’s “Sir Duke”:

Lots more on Youtube and Play Bass Now.

Jazz bassist Charlie Haden will be (temporarily) switching to bluegrass, at the Roots of American Music Festival on August 24 at the Lincoln Center in New York.

Jack Bruce is once again fueling speculation that Cream may reunite, and possibly even tour.

All About Jazz wasn’t crazy about Victor Wooten’s band’s performance at North Sea Jazz Festival, but liked his solo performance. Pat Metheny’s trio, with Christian McBride on bass, was deemed “superb”.