The Best of Bass

Thank you for participating in our Jazz Appreciation Month Listener Poll…today we celebrate the bass. Be sure to tune in to hear all of your favorite bassists, including a young up-and-comer, Luques Curtis.

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Luques Curtis and his brother Zaccai are a team in music and in life. Born two years apart, 1983 and 1981 respectively, the two grew up in Hartford , CT, and both were drawn to music. Luques was formally trained on piano and percussion but, when he was 12, started gravitating to bass. Today he plays double bass and bass, is a composer, educator and sought-after sideman. He is comfortable in many genres, including salsa and Latin jazz.

He and his brother have formed the Curtis Brothers Quarter and a band called Insight. They also started their own record label, Truth Revolution Records. Zaccai is a pianist and bandleader. The young brothers have so far released three CDs, the most recent being “Completion of Proof.”

Growing up in Connecticut, Luques attended the Greater Hartford Academy of the Performing Arts and the Artist Collective. He received a full scholarship to the Berklee College of Music in Boston and, after graduation, moved to the mecca of jazz, New York City. He’s been busy ever since and his upcoming tour calendar looks like a global travelogue. In the coming months he will be performing in England, Hungary, France, Germany and Morocco, as well as the New York jazz shrine, Dizzy’s Coca Cola Club.

Luques performed on Brian Lynch’s Grammy-winning CD, “Sympatico,” and also with Christian Scott on the Grammy-nominated “Rewind That.” Given that this talented musician, composer and record label CEO has not yet reached 35, there is little doubt that he and Grammy will become even better acquainted in the years ahead!