Double Bass | b. 1940

Henry Franklin’s double bass is deep, warm and always in motion, with a fondness for the groove that carried him from Hugh Masekela’s “Grazing in the Grass” (1968) to the spiritual jazz of the Black Jazz label. Born in Los Angeles, he has recorded with Hampton Hawes, Freddie Hubbard, Archie Shepp, Bobby Hutcherson, Pharoah Sanders and many others, appearing on more than 160 albums. As a leader he made The Skipper (Black Jazz, 1972) and The Skipper At Home (Black Jazz, 1974), then returned fifty years later with Henry Franklin: JID014 (Jazz Is Dead, 2022), which won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Jazz Album (Instrumental) in 2023. He is also the author of the bass method book Bassically Yours.