Bob Cranshaw, jazz bassist who spent five decades with Sonny Rollins, dies at 83 - The Washington Post

"Bob Cranshaw, a versatile jazz bassist best known for his association with saxophonist Sonny Rollins, whom he accompanied on virtually every concert and album since 1962, died Nov. 2 at his home in Manhattan. He was 83.



The cause was cancer, said his wife, Bobbi Cranshaw.



Mr. Cranshaw never had an album as a leader, but he was on dozens of well-known jazz recordings, including trumpeter Lee Morgan’s “The Sidewinder” in 1964. He toured for several years with singer Ella Fitzgerald and appeared on more recordings on the famous Blue Note jazz label in the 1960s than any other bass player.



With his early classical training and an ability to play in any style, Mr. Cranshaw proved to be so adaptable and dependable that he may have been the only musician who performed, at various times, with Bing Crosby, Paul Simon, Coleman Hawkins, Thelonious Monk, Rod Stewart, Peggy Lee, the “Saturday Night Live” orchestra and the studio band of “Sesame Street.”



“I didn’t ask to be a star,” he said in a 2014 interview with jazz pianist Ethan Iverson on the Do the Math website. “I wanted to be a sideman. I wanted to be a super-sideman.”



Mr. Cranshaw first performed with Rollins in 1959 at the Playboy Jazz Festival in Chicago. It was a demanding job because, at the time, Rollins had a bare-bones lineup, backed by just bass and drums.





Bob Cranshaw, jazz bassist who spent five decades with Sonny Rollins, dies at 83 - The Washington Post