Tony Bunn | |
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Background information | |
Birth name | Robert Anthony Bunn |
Born | Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. | November 18, 1957
Genres | Jazz, funk, blues, rock |
Occupation | Musician |
Instrument(s) | Bass guitar, double bass |
Years active | 1976–present |
Robert Anthony Bunn (born November 18, 1957) is an American bassist, composer, producer, and writer.
Tony Bunn was born into a musical family and began studying music in grade school. By the age of seventeen he was proficient on woodwind and brass instruments; earning scholarships to Peabody Institute Preparatory Summer Program(s), as well as inclusion in local orchestras for gifted students. He began the study of the bass guitar in high school.
By the age of twenty-two he had toured Europe and played and recorded with several renowned groups, including Sun Ra, Harold Ivory Williams, Michal Urbaniak, Urszula Dudziak, Jean Carne, Chuck Brown, and the legendary Chuck Berry. In 1977, he conceived and developed the first modern 5-string bass guitar with luthier Paul Reed Smith (Most other sources attribute the first modern 5-string bass to an instrument built in 1976 by Alembic Inc for bassist Jimmy Johnson). Graduating from university in his late twenties, Bunn earned bachelor's degrees in mathematics and computer science. Working with computers and scientific programming, he went on to receive an award from NASA for flight dynamics work on the Terra satellite system. Later, aged in his fifties, Bunn returned to music full-time and began producing projects as a bandleader and solo artist. In 2009, he released the Small World recording (also featuring Dennis Chambers, Arshak Sirunyan, etc.), receiving international acclaim.
with Arshak Sirunyan
with Ray Gaskins
with John Lamkin
with Gabrielle Goodman:
with Michal Urbaniak:
with Urszula Dudziak:
with Sun Ra:
The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and scale length. The bass guitar most commonly has four strings, though five- and six-stringed models are also relatively popular, and bass guitars with even more strings or courses have been built. Since the mid-1950s, the bass guitar has largely come to replace the double bass in popular music due to its lighter weight, the inclusion of frets in most models, and, most importantly, its design for electric amplification. This is also because the double bass is acoustically compromised for its range in that it is scaled down from the optimal size that would be appropriate for those low notes.
The double bass, also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched chordophone in the modern symphony orchestra. Similar in structure to the cello, it has four or five strings.
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