This first went out to the Better Bass Lessons email list on August 9, 2026. Want the next one? Join the list here. It’s free.
In the summer of 1975, a bass player from Brooklyn met George Benson.
Forty years later, he was still in Benson’s band. All told, he’s spent more than four decades playing alongside him. That’s one of the great sideman runs in modern music.
His name is Stanley Banks.
Stanley Banks learned his trade in Brooklyn clubs
Stanley started playing bass in high school. But as his bio puts it, his real musical education came from playing the clubs along Fulton and Nostrand Avenues in Brooklyn.
His professional career started with Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson and took off with Esther Phillips, two heavyweights of blues and soul.
That’s sideman school. When you’re backing singers and horn players like that, the job is to make the groove sit so solid the front man can just float over it.
Stanley Banks on Breezin’ and “This Masquerade”
Then came 1976, and one of the biggest records in jazz history: George Benson’s Breezin’.
It went to No. 1 on Billboard’s pop, R&B and jazz album charts, and it’s been certified triple platinum. It’s one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time.
Stanley played bass on four of its six tracks, including “This Masquerade.” That one went top 10 on the pop chart and won the Grammy for Record of the Year.
Think about that. The bass on a Record of the Year was played by a guy who built his feel in Brooklyn clubs.
Space and note length: Stanley Banks on “So What”
You can hear how he thinks on a live video of Benson playing Miles Davis’s “So What,” that classic D minor vamp, with Stanley on electric bass.
It’s a really simple bass line, but it’s actually difficult to play. He uses a lot of space, opening up the line in a way we don’t when we walk. He leaves a whole bar open. Sometimes he lets the note ring, and sometimes he cuts it off.
That’s his kind of minimalism: space, impeccable note length, and knowing when to leave a full bar open to let the music breathe.
It’s tempting to play a lot of notes on electric, especially when you’re coming from upright. When I get on the electric, I think, wow, I can play all these eighth notes, I can do all this fast stuff. But sometimes leaving space, which a lot of electric bass players don’t do, is the best way to go.
And just because it isn’t walking doesn’t mean it isn’t jazz. It’s George Benson playing a Miles Davis tune with the same funk and the same swing as a classic jazz recording. It’s just not four on the floor. I go through Stanley’s line, next to two electric walking lines, in jazz walking bass on electric.
So put on a D minor vamp tonight and play it Stanley’s way. Leave a whole bar open. Decide which notes ring and which ones you cut off. As bass players we always say it: if it doesn’t feel good to you, it’s not going to feel good to someone else.
Go deeper
The 7-Day Walking Bass Breakthrough (Electric)
A seven-day method for electric bassists who want to walk through any jazz tune: ii-V-Is, stepwise progressions and static modal chords, with lines that move and swing.
