Chuck Rainey

All Music Guide:

Another instrumentalist more widely associated with soul, pop, funk, and R&B, yet highly respected by jazz musicians, Chuck Rainey's been a star electric bassist since the '60s. While Jaco Pastorius and Stanley Clarke featured flashy, blistering playing and approached electric bass as if they were improvising on a guitar, Rainey's forte has been a heavy, steady pulse and vigorous support, fitting into a rhythm section and locking onto a groove with a vengeance. Rainey studied violin, piano, and trumpet in his youth, then moved from Youngstown to Cleveland at 21. He played electric guitar and bass in various R&B bands, then joined King Curtis' group in New York during 1964. Rainey's done hundreds of recording sessions since then, but has also done a fair number of jazz dates. He played with Jerome Richardson, Grady Tate, Mose Allison, Gato Barbieri, and Gene Ammons in the late '60s and early '70s, as well as with Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson at the 1971 Montreux Festival. Rainey toured and played that same year with Aretha Franklin. He moved to Los Angeles in 1972, and worked there with the Crusaders and Hampton Hawes, and recorded with Donald Byrd, Sonny Rollins, and John Handy in the mid-'70s. Rainey recorded in Japan with Hiroshi Fukumura in 1978. He's made two rare dates as a leader for Cobblestone in 1971 and for Hammer n' Nails in 1981. Neither is around today, but Rainey can be heard on many discs by Franklin, Curtis, Rollins, and others.

Wikipedia:

Chuck Rainey, (born Charles Walter Rainey III, June 17, 1940, Cleveland, Ohio, United States) is an American bass guitar session musician, known for playing with many well-known American musicians and acts, including Donald Byrd, Steely Dan, Quincy Jones, and Aretha Franklin.

Biography

Rainey's youthful pursuits included violin, piano and trumpet. Later, while attending Lane College in Tennessee, Rainey switched to baritone horn to join the school's travelling brass ensemble. While on active military duty, Rainey learned rhythm guitar and began playing professionally with local bands. His lack of improvisational skills on guitar led him to pick up the bass, and soon Rainey found himself working steadily as a studio bassist in New York, recording or touring with many of the greatest acts of that time.

By the 1970s he had played with Jerome Richardson, Grady Tate, Mose Allison, Gato Barbieri, and Gene Ammons, as well as with Eddie Vinson at the 1971 Montreux Festival.

As a member of The King Curtis All-Stars, he toured with the Beatles on their second run across the U.S. By the beginning of the 1970s, Rainey had firmly established his place as New York City's first call session bass guitarists.

In 1972, he released his first solo album The Chuck Rainey Coalition on Skye Records. The coalition consists of notable session musicians Richard Tee, Warren Smith, Specs Powell, Eric Gale, Bernard Purdie, Herb Lovelle, Cornell Dupree and Billy Butler.

Moving to Los Angeles in 1972, his work with Quincy Jones continued as a member of Jones' big band, and Rainey continued to work as a studio musician on others albums like, Betty Davis' famously shelved session from 1976. About this time, he bumped into friend and Steely Dan producer Gary Katz, which led to performing on tracks for Pretzel Logic by Steely Dan. His relationship with Steely Dan continued through Katy Lied; The Royal Scam; their most famous album, Aja, on which he performs on every track except "Deacon Blues" (Walter Becker played bass for that track); and Gaucho.

Rainey's style has always been to provide a rhythmic and melodic bottom that works with the drummer for the benefit of the song. His books on bass study refer to a "sensitivity to music" and a dedication to studying the fundamentals of music theory. While his "sideman" philosophy of bass has not brought him the level of recognition of star players such as Jaco Pastorius, Rainey is by far more recorded than his more famous contemporaries.