Biography
Acoustic bassist and guitarist Joshua Bayer works as both performer and composer, frequently channeling a pronounced ‘60s sensibility into his music. While he has occasionally employed electric keyboards on record, those appearances avoid fusion, jazz-funk, smooth jazz, or pop-jazz idioms; instead, much of the material he produced during the 1990s and 2000s draws directly from the straight-ahead post-bop idiom of the 1960s. The same post-bop outlook surfaces consistently in his improvisations and his original pieces. On upright bass his touchstones extend from Jimmy Garrison through Ron Carter to Eddie Gomez, while his compositional references encompass Wayne Shorter, Miles Davis, Oliver Nelson, and the seminal John Coltrane, along with additional figures. Not every cited influence belongs exclusively to 1960s post-bop: the Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn repertoire has also left its mark on certain compositions, and Bayer remains mindful of the 1950s hard bop and 1940s bebop traditions that preceded post-bop. Within the Washington, DC region he has taken part in tribute concerts devoted to Charlie Parker and Bud Powell. Most of the 1960s post-bop musicians who shaped him began their careers in bebop, yet the post-bop aesthetic remains the dominant force in both his playing and his writing.
Bayer maintains his home base in Washington, DC—the city that earlier produced Duke Ellington, Shirley Horn, and saxman Ron Holloway—and stays active through teaching and performance. His brother, Samuel Bayer, works as a Boston-based singer/songwriter. Bayer himself serves on the faculty of the Washington Conservatory of Music. His debut album as a leader, Music for Dances, appeared on the Interlace label in the late 1990s. He followed that release with the 2003 sophomore effort Lines and Grooves, issued by the independent Jazzheads Records and consisting primarily of his own compositions.
Bayer maintains his home base in Washington, DC—the city that earlier produced Duke Ellington, Shirley Horn, and saxman Ron Holloway—and stays active through teaching and performance. His brother, Samuel Bayer, works as a Boston-based singer/songwriter. Bayer himself serves on the faculty of the Washington Conservatory of Music. His debut album as a leader, Music for Dances, appeared on the Interlace label in the late 1990s. He followed that release with the 2003 sophomore effort Lines and Grooves, issued by the independent Jazzheads Records and consisting primarily of his own compositions.
Albums
