Scotland's foremost bass player, Ronnie Rae Snr who was born in Edinburgh in 1938 and began his professional musical career with the Alex Welsh Band in 1965. With this highly respected outfit, Ronnie toured, broadcast and made innumerable great albums with such luminary as Ruby Braff, Ben Webster, Bill Coleman, Eddie Miller, Eddie 'Lockjaw' Davis, Bud Freeman, Wild Bill Davison and Earl Hines.

He is the most experienced and sought after jazz bassist in Scotland having built up a vast repertoire over the years and thus is ideal in a 'jam session' situation as has been proved in the last seven years at the Glasgow International Jazz Festival where he has led the 'All Star trio' at the Festival's official Late Night Jam Session.

Since choosing the freelance route, Ronnie has toured and gigged with Ray Bryant, George Chisolm, Al Cohn, Georgie Fame, Art Farmer, Tal Farlow, Buddie De Franco, John Grffin, Barney Kessel, Lee Konitz, Humphrey Lyttelton, Red Norvo, Shorty Rogers, Buddy Tate, Scott Hamilton, Warren Vache, Teddy Wilson, Louis Stewart, Spike Robinson and many more.

Ronnie is constantly touring and has performed at many of the top jazz festivals around the world. These have included Sacramento, San Diego, Los Angeles, Palm Springs, Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, Switzerland, Jakarta (Indonesia), Bali and Bangkok, Cork, Germany, China, Russia and of course, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Ronnie was Bass player in Residence teaching at the Fife Summer Jazz School for 10 years with Richard Michael and Scott Stroman. For the past 6 years he has taught and played on the Scottish Arts Council, Lottery funded, Fionna Duncan Vocal Jazz Workshops throughout Scotland.

In 1999 Ronnie received a Scottish Arts Council Grant to enable him to take time out of his busy work schedule to write and arrange eleven of his own compositions. He subsequently formed a band called "Scotia Nostra" to perform these compositions on a concert tour of Scotland. Daughter Cathie has written lyrics to and recorded several of her father's songs. They are also performed by the Rae Sisters group.

Ronnie has just released his new CD, Cradle to the Groove, on Clark Tracey's Tentoten Records. The CD features Ronnie on bass, Demitri Shapko on sax, Warren Vache on cornet, Ronnie Rae jnr on piano and John Rae on drums.

To order your copy, at £12 (incl p&p), click here: www.tentotenrecords.com. Ronnie will be performing South of the border later in the year and at the London jazz festival on 12 November. See GIGS page for details of these and other performance dates.

 





Last Updated May 2004