Collection: Henry Franklin

Henry “The Skipper” Franklin is a Los Angeles double bassist whose playing has anchored a long stretch of spiritual jazz, soul jazz and post-bop. He played on Hugh Masekela’s number one single “Grazing in the Grass” in 1968, and the sideman list that followed takes in Hampton Hawes, Freddie Hubbard, Archie Shepp, Bobby Hutcherson, Pharoah Sanders and Sonny Fortune, with more than 160 albums to his name. His own debut, The Skipper (Black Jazz Records, 1972), made him one of the Oakland label’s leaders, and The Skipper At Home (1974) followed on the same label. He also wrote the bass method book Bassically Yours (1975). More than fifty years after his debut, he released Henry Franklin: JID014 (Jazz Is Dead, 2022), the label’s fourteenth release, which won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Jazz Album (Instrumental) in 2023.