Jazz Articles

Jeff Berlin: Aneurythms

by John Kelman
April 24, 2007

He's only released a handful of albums under his own name over the past thirty years, but bassist Jeff Berlin remains a singularly distinctive electric bassist. That he's chosen to spend as much time as an educator at the self-started Players School of Music in Florida as he has performing and recording just means that he's as big a believer in nurturing others as he is in self-promotion. Still, with chops to burn, an instantly recognizable tone and encyclopedic musical ...

Jeff Berlin: Lumpy Jazz

by Woodrow Wilkins
December 10, 2004

It's not every day you hear an electric bass played with the old-school verve of an upright acoustic instrument. Jeff Berlin offers a good reason--make that several good reasons--to change that way of thinking. Alongside Jaco Pastorius, Stanley Clarke and Alphonso Johnson, Berlin is known as a major innovator through his incisive playing through recordings and performances for the last twenty years. He has performed with such players as Billy Cobham, John McLaughlin, Jermaine Jackson, Issac Hayes, Bill ...

Jeff Berlin: Lumpy Jazz

by John Kelman
August 18, 2004

You have to really love the bass to enjoy Jeff Berlin's latest offering, Lumpy Jazz. Solos abound at every turn, his electric bass is up in the mix when keyboardist Richard Drexler is taking the spotlight, and even on “Toot's Suite," which features a guest spot by harmonica player Toots Thielmans, Berlin's sound dominates.

That said, Berlin is one of the true heroes of the electric bass, an intrepid player who emerged around the same time as Jaco ...

Jeff Berlin: In Harmony's Way

by Glenn Astarita
August 1, 2001

Few would debate electric bassist/clinician, Jeff Berlin’s significance among the post-Jaco soloists in jazz and fusion. With his third solo effort, amid numerous endeavors with players such as guitarist George Benson, drummer Tony Williams, “The Brecker Brothers”, flutist Herbie Mann and many others of note, the monster bassist summons an all-star cast for his latest jazz-based project.Berlin gets on track in a heated flurry on the opener titled, “This Is Your Brain On Jazz” as the ...