Rick Laird

Rick Laird (right) with the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

Richard "Rick" Laird (* 5. February 1941 in Dublin ) is a New Zealand Jazz - bassist Irish origin, especially as a member of the first cast of John McLaughlin's band Mahavishnu Orchestra became known.

Live and act

Laird comes from a musical family and has learned various musical instruments since childhood. Through the guitar he found the double bass , on which he finally began formal training and took on his first professional engagements. Since the jazz scene of New Zealand , to which he had emigrated with his father at the age of 15, offered little development opportunities, at the age of 19 he moved to the Australian metropolis of Sydney with some musician friends . There he accompanies Don Burrows .

Only a short time later, in 1962, he came to London , where, while studying at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, he quickly became part of the lively jazz, blues and rock scene in the British capital. In 1964 the saxophonist Ronnie Scott hired him as the bassist in the house rhythm section in his jazz club . In this role Laird gained important musical experience working with US star soloists such as Ben Webster , Stan Getz , Wes Montgomery ; Sonny Rollins hired him for his soundtrack for the film Alfie . He also worked with Joe Harriot and John Mayer , on whose album Indo Jazz Suite (1965) he played. Through contact with American musicians, he managed to get a scholarship at the most important school for jazz at the time, the Berklee College of Music in Boston , to which he moved in 1966.

Following the trend of the times, Laird switched from the double bass to the electric bass in 1968 , which was to be the instrument on which he became internationally known after a year and a half in Buddy Rich's band in the early 1970s . The guitarist John McLaughlin hired him for his new band, which a little later recorded their first record under the name Mahavishnu Orchestra and is still considered one of the style-forming ensembles of so-called fusion music .

Laird plays on the first three albums of the Mahavishnu Orchestra , which still present the intact original line-up and are generally considered to be the most important of this band. Laird's role is not limited to defining the role of the electric bass in a stylistic environment that has not yet been explored, but rather proves to be a master in the invention of Ostinatian bass figures using odd meters . Mainly due to McLaughlin's keen interest in Indian music , this style element is one of Laird's most important contributions to jazz of the 1970s.

After the breakup of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Laird reduced his activities as a live and studio musician considerably; He emigrated to Spain for a year and mainly dealt with photography . After a few short excursions into rock and pop music (with Hall & Oates, among others ) he works with Chick Corea , Stan Getz, Buddy DeFranco and Jan Hammer . In 1982 he gave up playing the bass and has lived as a freelance photographer ever since.

Discographic notes

• The Inner Mounting Flame - 1971
• Birds of Fire - 1973
• Between Nothingness and Eternity - 1973

all with the Mahavishnu Orchestra

• Mourner's Rhapsody - with Czesław Niemen , 1974
• Soft Focus - solo, in 1977

Textbooks

• Jazz riffs for bass
• Improvising Jazz Bass

Web links

• Reprint of an article from Guitar Player Magazine from July 1980
• Rick Laird at Allmusic (English)