The jazz bass performance characteristics of Jimmy Garrison on the 1962 recording "Coltrane"

Jimmy Garrison was a composer and jazz bassist known best for his contributions to John Coltrane’s seminal quartet with Elvin Jones and McCoy Tyner. The collective innovation of this group overshadowed Garrison’s significant expansion of jazz bass playing. Current discussions of jazz bass styles focus on soloing and bass line construction without accurately representing the historical narrative of jazz bass playing’s evolution and development. This dearth of specificity concerning the linear advancement and progression has diminished our understanding of Garrison’s pivotal role in modern jazz bass playing. By concentrating on a selected work, this essay seeks to explicate Jimmy Garrison’s innovative and personal style while placing him in a central role in the development of jazz bass performance practice. This will be accomplished by examining musical choices Garrison made with the John Coltrane Quartet. This essay should also serve to foster future discussions and works about Jimmy Garrison’s influence on jazz bass performance practice and add to jazz history a detailed and valid account of an important innovator of jazz bass performance practice.Ope