My interest in music was sparked when my parents marched me into choir practise one day at the tender age of seven. I fell in love with the beauty of harmony and melody from that first moment. A year later I discovered guitars and pop and with the help of a few ‘tune a day’ books I picked up playing both six string and bass guitars. So the choral and pop ‘careers’ progressed in parallel until I was 15. The voice broke, I started singing bass and began to play more and more bass guitar in local blues and prog rock bands.
At 18 I gave it all up in pursuit of a business career – my only connection with music in those fallow years was a burgeoning hi-fi hobby which led me to jazz which I quickly obsessed on. I was a jazz vinyl junkie and it wasn’t until 12 years ago that a quirk of fete led me to acquire a lovely Ibanez bass guitar. A month later I was persuaded to jam with a friend and you’ve guessed it, I was hooked again. So bass guitar upgraded, a few blues bands later and I’m realising that if I’m going to play any of that jazz music that purrs out of the mono-block amps, I’ll need to get a double bass – easy to transfer right? Utterly wrong. It’s taken me ten years to begin to start playing with comfort but those years of pain have introduced me to some fantastic musicians most of whom have been kind and offered lots of advice. So now armed with a nice collection of classical grades, thousands of jazz gigs, a shed load of practise and ever decreasingly sore fingers, I’m now proud to be part of some very, very fine ensembles and to be performing with some of the UK’s top names.
Paul Jefferies - Bassist 