John Goldsby
Jazz Double Bass Tutor
John Goldsby is a member of the WDR big band, a renowned bassist, educator, author, and featured columnist for BassMagazine.com and Bass Player Magazine for three decades. His hugely popular 'The Jazz Bass Book' has become required reading for any serious student of jazz bass.
John has been the double bassist with the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) Big Band in Cologne, Germany since 1994. In that time he has played with artists such as McCoy Tyner, Nicholas Payton, Clarke Terry, Gary Bartz, Eddie Henderson, Phil Woods, Paquito D’Rivera, Bernard Purdie, Ray Brown, Christian McBride, John Clayton, Peter Erskine, and Jeff Hamilton.
“John Goldsby’s bass playing was spectacular.”
“One of the few bassists steeped in the tradition of Jimmy Blanton and Oscar Pettiford.”
john and Discover Double Bass
John Goldsby has presented five superb courses at Discover Double Bass that cover all the essential learning for any jazz bassist looking to improve, whether that’s in bass lines, solos, ensemble playing, or technique. In 2019, we released John’s first courses, Jazz Bass Vol. 1 (Building Up) and 2 (Stretching Out), which offer a collection of lessons for intermediate to advanced players. In 2021, we published two more courses by John - one on soloing: Tell Your Story and the other on walking bass lines: Lay it Down. His latest course, Team Player, was released in 2023, and uses 8 different jazz ensembles to elevate bass playing were it matters most, on the bandstand. Whichever course you take with John and his band, his clear and detailed teaching methods combined with his swinging, effortless playing is sure to help you in your journey to great bass playing.
Scroll down to watch John in action through his free lessons and interviews, and explore his available courses.
“I like to teach small building blocks which anyone can master. Then we take these techniques and apply them to musical etudes and exercises.”
behind the scenes of the 2019 recording sessions:
Legendary drummer Peter Erskine on John Goldsby’s Courses:
Geoff Chalmers Interviews John Goldsby:
In this video, John is interviewed by Discover Double Bass's founder, Geoff Chalmers. John gives some helpful hints and tips on how he approaches practising and performing fast pieces. There’s also a solo rendition of 'Red Cross' by Charlie Parker at the end of the video, which you won't want to miss.
Free lessons by John Goldsby
John has a number of excellent free lessons on the website covering a variety of topics, some with free transcriptions of the exercises. See two examples below, or follow the link to browse the lessons.
John GOLDSBY’s Courses at Discover Double Bass
Click on the images to find out more about each of John’s courses.
