Jimmy Earl

This album presents Earl's solo bass rendition of Maurice Ravel's "Pavane for a Dead Princess" (1899).

James Christopher Earl (born 1957) is an American jazz bass guitarist who is a member of the Jimmy Kimmel Live! band.

In 1957, James Christopher Earl was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to James and Sylvia Earl.

He is the second of their four children.

Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Saint Paul, Minnesota, and in 1965 to Hyattsville, Maryland, where he attended elementary school and Northwestern High School.

Earl began classical guitar lessons at age 10.

In 1972, he picked up an electric bass guitar for $15 at the Rose Bowl flea market in Pasadena, California, where his family was living temporarily.

In 1973, with his high school classmates Dan Hovey and Rex Wilson, he formed his first band, Cosmic Rainbow.

In 1975–76, he attended Berklee College of Music in Boston.

In 1981, he studied briefly at the New England Conservatory of Music where he sits on the board of visitors.

He also studied with Charlie Banacos.

In 1983, he joined Tiger Okoshi's Baku, which performed in the 1984 Newport Jazz Festival.

In 1985, he joined a band led by jazz drummer Bob Moses, with whom he appeared in Boston and Cambridge.

Earl began his recording career in Boston in 1986 when he supported David Gilden on Ancestral Voices.

This album featured the kora, a West African 21-string harp.

In 1986, Earl moved to New York City and on the recommendation of his friend Steve Hunt joined the Jazz Explosion.

In this group he worked with Gato Barbieri, Angela Bofill, Tom Browne, Stanley Clarke, George Duke, Freddie Hubbard, Phyllis Hyman, Ramsey Lewis, Lonnie Liston Smith, and Stanley Turrentine.

He met bass guitarist Stanley Clarke, who became his mentor and friend, and joined Clarke's tour of Brazil with Larry Graham.

Shortly after, he met Joe Sample at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York City, and Sample invited him to join The Crusaders.

During 1986 and 1987, he toured with them in the U.S., Europe, and Japan.

In 1988, Earl moved to Los Angeles and recorded on Clarke's album If This Bass Could Only Talk.

In 1990 he appeared on two albums by the Mark Varney Project.

The first, Truth in Shredding, featured jazz guitarist Allan Holdsworth and Frank Gambale.

On the second, Centrifugal Funk, he worked as arranger and producer.

It was followed in 1993 by East River Drive, on which Earl is credited as co-writer on "I'm Home Africa".

In 1993, Earl replaced John Patitucci in the Chick Corea Elektric Band, which went on tour.

On returning, he worked with his Elektric bandmate Eric Marienthal on the album One Touch and helped write the song "Backtalk".

During the same year, he appeared on the album Elektric Band II: Paint the World and co-wrote with Corea "Ished", "Spanish Sketch", and "Reprise".

While touring with Corea in 1993, Earl performed in Rome, Italy, with Pino Daniele, who invited them to record on his album Che Dio ti benedica.

This was the first of five albums he recorded with Daniele from 1993 to 1999.

The album was nominated for the 1994 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album.

Two years later he joined the band's collaboration with Steve Vai's on the tribute album The Songs of West Side Story, which was certified gold.

In 1995, while touring with Daniele to promote Non calpestare i fiori nel deserto, he played in Milan, Italy, with Pat Metheny.

In that year, he recorded Jimmy Earl, which featured David Batteau, Mitchel Forman, Franke Gambale, Deron Johnson, Gary Novak, Rique Pantoja, Randy Roos, Steve Tavaglione, and Dave Weckl.

It was followed in 1997 by his second album, Stratosphere, which features John Beasley, Daniele, Johnson, Forman, and Simon Phillips.

It is an exploration into combining performances by live musicians with electronic music.

In 2002, he participated in the Elektric Band's reunion tour of the U.S., which included two performances at the Blue Note.

In another reunion, Earl performed on Manhattan Transfer's album The Chick Corea Songbook (2009).

On March 20, 2012, Severn Records reissued updated versions of these albums, which have been reviewed in Bass Player magazine.

Subsequently, on January 21, 2014, Severn released another album by Earl, Renewing Disguises.