Rufus Reid Archives

The New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) has announced the Milt Hinton Institute for Studio Bass, a performance camp for student bassists focusing solely on our instrument.

The International Society of Bassists is bringing back their Virtual Bass Festival for 2022. The two-day event will be held June 10th and 11th, featuring live presentations, an exhibit hall, “ISB After Hours” nightly hangs, and more.

The International Society of Bassists will be holding their biennial bass convention virtually this year from June 8th through the 12th. The bass-filled event will have over 150 concerts, lectures, and masterclasses for attendees.

Rufus Reid’s instructional book “The Evolving Bassist” has been the benchmark for jazz bass education for decades. After releasing a Millennium Edition in 2000, the book is now available in a digital format for the first time.

Rufus Reid has a new duo album coming with pianist Sullivan Fortner on the vinyl-only label Newvelle Records. Luckily, the company also captured video of some of the recording session.

2017 marked the centennial of the influential jazz pianist Thelonious Monk’s birth. Frank Kimbrough has celebrated the occasion by releasing an incredible six-disc album called Monk’s Dreams that features performances of all 70 of the late legend’s compositions. “The recordings form a fantastically diverse collection,” the liner notes read. “On the six-CD set, Monk’s compositions are played in various configurations,...

Saxophonist Ted Nash has released Live At Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, which marks his first live album in 25 years. Wielding the sax, clarinet, flute, and piccolo, the jazz composer gets to show off his improv chops in a smaller ensemble (opposed to his big band charts) with his close musical friends. Legendary bassist Rufus Reid anchors the album. “It was...

Rufus Reid has a vibe on bass that will fill an entire room. Check out this video of his Out Front trio performing the jazz standard “Come Rain or Come Shine” live at Dizzy’s and you’ll see what I mean. Reid’s distinct tone and cooler-than-cool phrasing sets the tone as he plays the melody and supports pianist Steve Allee before...

Music and sculpture combine in renowned jazz bassist Rufus Reid’s five-movement composition, , based on five sculptures by artist Elizabeth Catlett. Each movement of the piece, written for a large jazz ensemble (including Reid on bass), corresponds to a sculpture by Catlett, the late African-American artist (she died in April 2012 at age 96) whose grandparents on both sides were...

The International Society of Bassists’ biennial convention is set for June 2nd through June 8th, 2013 at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and this year promises to be another great get-together. The week-long bass hang features over 200 events for bassists of all walks, including clinics, classical and jazz competitions, bass making competitions, performances and more....

Jazz bassist Rufus Reid has teamed up once again with pianist Steve Allee and drummer Duduka Da Fonseca for Hues of a Different Blue, a 14-track album that also features the talents of saxophonists JD Allen and Bobby Watson, trumpeter Freddie Hendrix, and Brazilian guitarist Toninho Horta. The songs are a nice combination of Reid’s originals with standards mixed in,...

Over the summer, Rufus Reid attended a workshop at Columbia University called the Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute, which he later recalled the highlight of his year that far. After proving time and again his mastery of writing for the small ensemble, Reid decided it was time to build his large ensemble composition chops. The workshop was so successful for him...