John Lee (bassist)

In 2009 John Lee co-founded the jazz recording label JLP (Jazz Legacy Productions), with partner Lisa Broderick.

Lee has performed at concert halls and jazz clubs in over 100 countries around the world. He has also toured in the bands of Sonny Rollins, James Moody, Aretha Franklin, Jimmy Heath, Pharoah Sanders, Jackie McLean, Gary Bartz, Gregory Hines, Hank Jones, Walter Davis Jr., Wolfgang Lackerschmid, Alphonse Mouzon, Claudio Roditi, Jon Faddis, Slide Hampton, Roy Hargrove, and Roberta Gambarini. Lee was also a founding member of “The Fantasy Band”’(1993-1996) with Chuck Loeb, Marion Meadows, and Dave Samuels. In 1996, at the bequest of Dizzy's wife Lorraine Gillespie and the Dizzy Gillespie Estate, Lee became the director and bassist of the Dizzy Gillespie Alumni All-Stars as well as the Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band, and the Dizzy Gillespie Afro-Cuban Experience. They have recorded five albums and toured extensively around the world.

As a bassist, Lee's career, starting in 1970, includes work with Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, McCoy Tyner, James Moody, Jimmy Heath, Joe Henderson, Larry Coryell, Paquito D'Rivera, Gregory Hines, Aretha Franklin, Claudio Roditi, Joachim Kühn and Philip Catherine.

John Gregory Lee is the son of an African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) minister, Rev. John W. Lee, and Harriet Holland Lee, who was a career social worker. He grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut, Amityville, New York, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. John began String Bass lessons in 1962 with Carolyn Lush. At Philadelphia's Overbrook High School, John met drummer Gerry Brown, with whom he also studied with at the Philadelphia Musical Academy (which is now the University of the Arts) from 1970 to 1972. In 1971 Lee also began performing with Carlos Garnett and Joe Henderson, and toured with Max Roach thru the spring of 1972 while still a student in Philadelphia. In August 1972 he and Brown relocated to Europe, with Den Haag, Holland as their base. Together they toured Europe and recorded in bands led by Chris Hinze, Charlie Mariano, Philip Catherine, Joachim Kühn, and Jasper Van't Hof. Lee moved to New York City in October 1974 and worked with Joe Henderson, Lonnie Liston Smith, and Norman Connors until joining The Eleventh House with Larry Coryell in December 1974. In 1975 John Lee and Gerry Brown signed a recording contract with Blue Note Records and formed a working band of their own. In 1977 they moved over to Columbia Records. Lee also began producing records in 1977. From 1982 to 1984, Lee worked with McCoy Tyner. In July 1984 Lee became Dizzy Gillespie’s bassist, touring and recording with Dizzy's Quintet, his Big Band, his Grammy winning “United Nation Orchestra”, and the “Back to the Future Band” that Dizzy co-lead with Miriam Makeba until January 1993 when Makeba died.

John Lee (born June 28, 1952, in Boston, Massachusetts, United States) is an American bassist, Grammy winning record producer and audio engineer.