We’re not going to focus on bass solos here for the most part, per se, because isn’t that when most fans leave the tables go to the restroom or the bar?
Instead, here are some bass lines that just dance in your head and never leave.
- Jaco Pastorius: “Donna Lee” or “Havona”. The first one is actually a duet performance, and was kind of a gauntlet thrown from his debut album. The latter, with Weather Report, is a tour de force of what an electric bass can do with a band.
- Jimmy Blanton: “Jack The Bear”. Possibly the very first recording that featured a bass, Duke Ellilngton’s masterpiece has some nimble and swinging fingerwork by the 21 year old wunderkind.
- Charles Mingus: “Haitian Fight Song” and “Ysabel’s Table Dance”. Once you hear these relentless grooves, they never leave.
- Paul Chambers “Mr. PC”. John Coltrane’s hard bopper has Paul Chambers digging in deep. Contrarily, his intro that dances around drummer Jimmy Cobb on Miles Davis’ “So What” is deliciously inviting.
Scott LaFaro “Gloria’s Steps”. You try to follow LaFaro’s lines with pianist Bill Evans and drummer Paul Motian, and you just can’t help think “where is he going?” But it all makes cohesive sense
- Jimmy Garrison “Acknowledgement” . John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme opens with the subtle yet hypnotic line that endures through not only the entire song, but the entire
album. 
Paul Jackson: “Chameleon”. Herbie Hancock’s funk-fested Headhunters is introduced by Jackson’s rubber necked line that never lets go.- Stanley Clarke: “School Days”. Who hasn’t played the “air bass” after listening to this catchy line?
Marcus Miller: “Just The Two Of Us” and “Jean Pierre”. Did you know that Miller is on the classic Bill Withers tune? It’s a beaut, while his album with Miles Davis was the time when the bassist patented his slapping thumb- James Jamerson: “Bernadette” and “What’s Goin’ On?”. The bassist for The Funk Brothers, who were the backing for every Motown tune of the 60s and 70s, sears through the Four Tops hit and glides around Marvin Gaye’s seminal social comment.
- Doug Watkins “Senor Blues”. Horace Silver’s hard bopper is introduced by the exotic line that rumbles like a V8 engine, never running out of gas.
