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Will Lee

B

bassist15

Mar 6, 2006
988
26
35
Indiana
#1
Ive always heard about Will Lee but never really listened to him on cd. What are some albums you would recommend? Also he plays Sadowsky basses and uses HArtke amps right? I think we should have a big running thread on great session bassist( or and other musicians) and have a few of their greatest record appearences and all that good stuff. If i knew more about session guys i would but id liek to learn more .
 
#2
willlee2.jpg


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#5
Actually, you may have heard him more than you think. There is a reason he's the number one session bassest in NYC!

If you can find Hirum Bullocks' "Live At Manny's Car Wash" disc, buy it.
It's live, not so great production (meaning: not a "Fixed" live CD) and Will just KILLS on it.
His tone is killer on this one as well.

One of my all time favorite bass players.

Go to www.willlee.com for a complete listing.
 
#6
Will Lee is a great bass player.

Must be tremendously busy. I know he's the session king of NYC. Doesn't he have a Beatle tribute band, too? Any seen, on rare occasion, when he plays his Hofner on the Letterman show? Beautiful bass.
 
#8
bikertrash82 said:
and not one second of him at Youtube.

That's just wrong.
Click to expand...

You'd think that, wouldn't ya!

Here we go:



'Do It Again', Steely Dan, Will Lee on Bass and yes, Brian May does take a solo in the middle...not Fagen's best performance, but the rest of the band are obviously great.
 
#10
Funkzfly said:
You'd think that, wouldn't ya!

Here we go:



'Do It Again', Steely Dan, Will Lee on Bass and yes, Brian May does take a solo in the middle...not Fagen's best performance, but the rest of the band are obviously great.
Click to expand...



YEAH BABY!!!!

Your right, Fagen sounds strained on that one.
 
#11
I liked Will Lee's playing on the early Spyro Gyra albums-
Morning Dance
Catching The Sun
Carnival
Freetime...nice stuff on the title track.

Another good one is The Blue Lady by guitarist Doug Munro...w/ Lee & William Calhoun of Living Colour. The vibe is similar to the Steve Khan/Eyewitness band material.
 
#12
Alex E said:
Doesn't he have a Beatle tribute band, too? Any seen, on rare occasion, when he plays his Hofner on the Letterman show? Beautiful bass.
Click to expand...

His Beatles' band is called The Fab Faux.
IIRC, he can be seen playing the Hofner on Gov't Mule's The Deepest End DVD
 
#13
There's a pretty cool CD called BirdHouse, which Will recorded with his father, Bill Lee, a longtime jazz educator. It's a bebop album, featuring Billy Hart on drums, the Brecker brothers, and Lew Soloff. The weak link is the senior Lee, who sounds like he could play good bop piano in his earlier days. Still, it's cool to hear Will play straight jazz on electric bass.

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#15
JimK said:
I liked Will Lee's playing on the early Spyro Gyra albums-
Morning Dance
Catching The Sun
Carnival
Freetime...nice stuff on the title track.

Another good one is The Blue Lady by guitarist Doug Munro...w/ Lee & William Calhoun of Living Colour. The vibe is similar to the Steve Khan/Eyewitness band material.
Click to expand...

really ? i had to learn some of the above mentioned tunes when i was in high school ... no wonder they were a bitch to learn !
 
#16
I love Will. I grew up on NBC era Letterman and even though I played guitar back then, I think Will was partially responsible for me switching over.

He has a way of sitting in the pocket that obviously grooves, but there is something unique about it. Can't verbalize it.

Here's some more YouTube;
 
#17
I have a CD the Breckers did a few years ago in Europe before Michael got sick ' Some Skunk Funk', it's like a recap of a lot of their catalog with Will and Peter Erskin on drums. Pretty smokin' stuff! Will Lee has been at the top of his game for over thirty years........a amazing thing in the music biz. One of the best on our instrument IMHO!!!!!
 
#19
will plays sadowskys and old fender precisions live and in the studio, all of them are jazz basses and have the old style rear pickup chrome cover over the rear pickup. like marcus miller, will has simply has always left these covers on. he actually uses it to his advantage in mnany ways..one is his pulling out a plastic comb durign liv egigs and hitting it on the cover to produce a cowbell sound. (listen to bean burritto on hiram bullocks "live at manny's car wash" to hear will do this at the beginning of the tune)

will has several precisions, but the one he uses when not playing his sadowskys is a old fretless..a red one he's had just about forever.

three cds to chekc out in particular are:
-flying monkeys orchestra "back in the pool"
-flying monkeys orchestra "mango theory"
-BFD
-any of hiram bullocks solo cd's
-the three 24th street band cds
will plays freltess and fretted on these cds
 
#20
I used to see Will Lee a lot in NYC in the 70's, he almost always had the red P-bass. I love the sound of those old recordings he did with the P-bass.......one of my favorite slap sounds these days is a old funk album with Will spanking a P-bass.....ah the good old days.;)
 

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