In the last 30 years jazz bassist Nathan East has worked with music luminaries like Michael Jackson, Eric Clapton, Beyoncé, Whitney Houston and Stevie Wonder, to name a few. Last year, he hitched himself to the right wagon yet again, with Daft Punk on their mega hit, Get Lucky.
On March 25, he rolls the dice on himself with his first solo album, Nathan East. He enlisted his band Fourplay to give him the support as well as a couple of star friends. Wonder takes a turn on the harmonica while Sara Bareilles lends her vocals. Michael McDonald also makes an appearance. “(A solo album) has been a long time coming,” he says. “If I didn’t do it, I’d be asking myself why for the rest of my life.”
Michael Jackson, Daft Punk and Eric Clapton hit pretty widely on the musical spectrum, but at the base of it all, East stays true to his own style. “I basically go for a real solid, fat, warm bass tone,” he says. “That’s kind of what I’ve been doing on people’s records. As a solo artist, that’s what I do, too.”
For his album, he wrote a track called Daft Funk, an ode to the French maestros. “In the studio, I knew that (Random Access Memories) would be a special record,” he recalls. “They’re great guys; they know what they want and they’re sticklers about that. We went through a lot of ideas and approaches, but when everyone was dancing in the studio, we knew we had it right.”
