Gary Willis (born 28 March 1957) is an American

bassist A bassist (also known as a bass player or bass guitarist) is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass (upright bass, contrabass, wood bass), bass guitar (electric bass, acoustic bass), synthbass, keyboard bass or a low b ...

and composer known foremost as the co-founder (with Scott Henderson) of the

jazz fusion Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, amplifiers, and ke ...

band

Tribal Tech Tribal Tech was a progressive fusion band, originally formed in 1984 by guitarist Scott Henderson and bass player Gary Willis. From 1993 forward the band included Scott Kinsey on keyboard and Kirk Covington on drums, and released ten albums tha ...

. Aside from his work in Tribal Tech, Willis has worked with numerous other jazz musicians including

Wayne Shorter Wayne Shorter (born August 25, 1933) is an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Shorter came to prominence in the late 1950s as a member of, and eventually primary composer for, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. In the 1960s, he joined Miles D ...

Dennis Chambers Dennis Milton Chambers (born May 9, 1959) is an American drummer. He was inducted into the '' Modern Drummer'' Hall of Fame in 2001. Early life Chambers was born on May 9, 1959. He began drumming at the age of four years, and was gigging in Ba ...

, and

Allan Holdsworth Allan Holdsworth (6 August 1946 – 15 April 2017) was a British jazz fusion and progressive rock guitarist and composer. Holdsworth was known for his esoteric and idiosyncratic usage of advanced music theory concepts, especially with resp ...

. "Slaughterhouse 3", released in 2006, continued his collaboration with drummer

Kirk Covington Kirk Covington is a drummer best known for his work with the jazz fusion group Tribal Tech. Covington was born in Midland, Texas, where he attended the University of North Texas College of Music, where he met bassist Gary Willis, with whom he ...

as well as saxophonist Llibert Fortuny to form a modern jazz/funk/groove power-trio. Willis's latest solo CD ''Larger Than Life'' was released on the Abstractlogix label in 2015. In addition to "Larger Than Life", Willis's solo career includes ''Retro'' from 2013, ''Actual Fiction'' from 2007, ''No Sweat'' from 1996 and ''Bent'' in 1998. Willis is also the author of four books for

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

, "Fingerboard Harmony for Bass", "The Gary Willis Collection", "Ultimate Ear Training for Guitar and Bass" and "101 Bass Tips" all published by Hal Leonard. Willis, a Texas native, studied composition and improvisation at The University of North Texas College of Music, where he switched from guitar to bass. He is currently an instructor at the

Catalonia College of Music The Catalonia College of Music ( ca, Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya, ESMUC; ) is a music school in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. The school is located at L'Auditori, a performing arts center inaugurated in 1999 which also houses three ...

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...

. Gary Willis uses his signature model

Ibanez is a Japanese guitar brand owned by Hoshino Gakki. Based in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan, Hoshino Gakki were one of the first Japanese musical instrument companies to gain a significant foothold in import guitar sales in the United States and Europe, ...

fretless 5-string

, Aguilar Amplifiers and D'Addario strings. He is currently an instructor a
Berklee's campus in Valencia
Spain.

CD reviews

Gary Willis , "Actual Fiction" and "Slaughterhouse 3" "Retro"

References

External links

Gary Willis website

Bass Guitar Magazine
Gary Willis Interview in Issue 29
Bassist and Composer Gary Willis, 8/01/2007

Gary Willis Berklee faculty page
Living people 1957 births American jazz bass guitarists American jazz composers American male jazz composers University of North Texas College of Music alumni American male bass guitarists 20th-century American bass guitarists 20th-century American male musicians Tribal Tech members {{US-bass-guitarist-stub