Nathan East - Bass Players You Should Know

Having played on over 2000 albums, Nathan East is one of the most recorded bass players in the history of popular music. His career as a first-call studio musician spans some 40 years, and includes record dates with the likes of Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancock, Michael Jackson, Joe Satriani, George Harrison, Phil Collins, Justin Timberlake, Daft Punk and Madonna.

His contemporary jazz quartet, Fourplay, have released 14 studio albums to date and in 2014 he launched his own solo career. He sings, he doubles on upright and electric bass, he won an Ivor Novello for co-writing the Phil Collins hit ‘Easy Lover’, he’s performed for the Pope, and at the inauguration of Barack Obama.

As I record this video he is about to head out on the road once more with Eric Clapton. He holds a private pilots license and even performs magic in his spare time. Is there anything Nathan east can’t do!? Let’s get into it.

Born in Philadelphia on December 8^th 1955, Nathan East was raised in San Diego, where his family moved to accommodate his father’s job as an aircraft engineer. He grew up surrounded by aviation, but music was always in the house.

When he was 14 his mother bought him a $49 short scale bass from a pawnshop and in 1971 he upgraded to a Fender Jazz, which he bought for $210 from Manny’s Music in New York.

East’s first big break came as a member of a local top 40 group named Power, who were hired as the house band for a Stax revue. On the roster that day was Barry White, and upon hearing the group he hired the entire band for a national tour. The year was 1973 and East, who was still in his teens, became the youngest member of White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra.

Upon returning home, Nathan enrolled in the University of California at San Diego. During his third year he declared music as his major and began studying classical upright bass with Bertram Turetzky. Three weeks before graduation and a final recital, for which he would perform Jaco’s Portrait of Tracy, Nathan received a call from guitarist John McLaughlin asking him to be in New York by the weekend to begin a tour. East turned him down –having promised his grandmother he would graduate. He even started his masters’ degree before Bertram pulled him to one side and told him that it was time to move to LA and get to work, which he did in 1979.

A year later he received a phone call from renowned producer and arranger Gene Page who he had worked with for Barry White. Page had noticed his ability to read music as well as his solid bass work and booked him for his first big recording date – a jingle for Hertz, alongside guitarists Lee Ritenour, Ray Parker Jr and Wah Wah Watson, drummer James Gadson and pianist Sonny Burke.

All of a sudden one of the top producers in LA was booking Nathan for sessions, which included everything from Dionne Warwick to the Jacksons to Jonnie Mathis. He played on both Madonna’s and Whitney Houston’s first records. He also met Quincy Jones while playing at his 50^th birthday party, who in turn also started booking him. And if that wasn’t enough, he was being recommended for dates by the likes of Abe Laboriel, Patrice Rushden and Jeff Porcaro!

With Kenny Loggins he played on the Vox Humana album and the hit track Footloose. He got his first Gold Record for Endless Love by Lionel Richie. He also made two records with Al Jarreau, meeting producer Jay Graydon and getting to play with drummer Steve Gadd in the process.

Check out his solo with Al Jarreau from Al’s 1985 live in London. Played on his Yamaha BB3000 5-string.

Still, when it comes to massive hits they don’t get much bigger than this next song. Philip Bailey had recommended Nathan to Phil Collins in the early 80s. They went to Europe in 1984 to record on his album, Chinese Wall.

The recording went well, but on the last day Phil was still wanting an undeniable hit. The story goes that the three sat down and wrote Easy Lover in 20 minutes, putting down a rough take with a view of recording it again the next day, but after hearing it the following morning, they decided to stick with the original take, and the rest is history.

Meeting Phil took Nate’s career to another level. Through him he met the Stones, the Who, Macca, Sting, Mark Knopfler, Elton John.. and of course, Eric Clapton.

Phil produced Eric’s Behind the Sun album, which Nate played on with Greg Philinganes. He hung out with Eric again at Live Aid the following year, and was brought into the studio once more for Clapton’s August album. Nathan has been a mainstay in Eric’s band ever since, recording on several albums from 1991’s 24 Nights to the Grammy Award-winning, multi-platinum MTV Unplugged and the 1997 Grammy winning song of the year, Change the World.

Check out Nate’s stage chops from the 1999 Eric Clapton & Friends Benefit gig for the Crossroads Centre in Antigua.

Aside from his session work, East has continued to raise the bar as one of the original members of contemporary jazz group, Fourplay, along with Bob James on keyboards and drummer Harvey Mason.

Fourplay was originally intended as a fun side project, but their first album sold half a million copies and stayed at number one in the contemporary jazz charts for 6 months. Here they are live in Tokyo.. with Nathan in full on George Benson mode.

Nathan was set to test himself once again in 2013, starting out with the call to play on Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories album and the hit single Get Lucky, which won a Grammy for Record of the Year.

Nathan was at hand to perform at the award ceremony in 2014 alongside regulars from the original album session, Omar Hakin and Paul Jackson Jr, and one or two other special guests.

2014 also saw Nathan release his eponymous debut album, which he followed up in 2017 with his second solo offering, Reverence, featureing a slew of special guests including his son Noah on piano.

I should also mention Eric Clapton, Verdine White and Phil Collins who rocked up for a killer version of Earth, Wind and Fire’s Serpentine Fire.

One constant throughout Nathan’s career has been his relationship with Yamaha, which stems back to the early 80s and has seen the realisation of the BBNE2 signature model.

It has appeared in various iterations over the years, but whatever the instrument and no matter what bass he’s playing, there’s a reason Nathan East has performed with such a huge number of influential musicians during his career.

Be it Herbie Hancock

Eric Clapton

Or Toto

It’s because he understands the role of the bass, which is why his discography reads like a who’s who of all-time greats.

As always, see you in the shed!