Bassist Gerald Veasley clearly remembers the first record he ever bought with his own money. “It was a Curtis Mayfield song called ‘We’re a Winner,’” says Veasley. “He had this beautiful voice that was somewhat fragile but yet there was power in it at the same time." The impact of that soulful voice and powerful message still resonates in Gerald's music today. "What I try to do is make music that touches people in a voice that is authentically my own."

Born in Philadelphia, Veasley started playing bass when he was 12. His father died in the late 1970s, while Gerald was in his third year at the University of Pennsylvania. He worked through the emotional loss by redoubling his musical efforts and adding classical guitar to his studies. He immersed himself in music, from Curtis Mayfield to Charles Mingus, Wes Montgomery, to Jimi Hendrix and from Miles Davis to Marvin Gaye. In music, he found solace.

“There were several factors which led me to choose music as a profession,” he says. “Mostly importantly, it always moved me emotionally and offered me a way to express things I couldn't find words for. When my father died, I had a hard time coming to grips with the loss, and the music proved very therapeutic. I thought, 'if music can have that kind of healing effect on me, maybe I can spend my life creating music that can do the same for others."

While the ‘70s proved to be a decade of transition in Veasley’s personal life, he also remembers the period as “a golden era” in the evolution of urban music. “That was a time when I was starting to really take music seriously, and there were all these great sounds around,” he recalls. “Music right about that time was starting to get very, very funky and people were taking a lot of chances. People came along like Sly & the Family Stone, Earth, Wind & Fire, and George Clinton/Parliament-Funkadelic. There were all these innovative groups who were making social and artistic statements without losing their soulfulness. Meanwhile, all these fusion groups like Weather Report were experimenting with combining these funky sounds with jazz."

In the 1980s, Veasley had developed into a versatile and reputable sideman and session player. He joined Grover Washington’s band in 1986 and played on six of the sax players recordings. Two years later, he moved on to the Zawinul Syndicate, led by fusion pioneer Joe Zawinul, co-founder of Weather Report. He would tour the world with his idol for the next seven years. "That was a real education, on and off the bandstand," states Veasley.

Among the many other credits on Veasley's résumé are studio sessions and/or tour gigs with artists representing a range of genres, including Special EFX, Pieces of a Dream, McCoy Tyner, Gerald Levert, Teddy Pendergrass, Nnenna Freelon, Philip Bailey, the Dixie Hummingbirds, John Blake, Phil Perry and Heads Up labelmate Joe McBride. He’s also played with a few folks who might surprise the average fan, such as fellow Philadelphians Odean Pope, Jimmy Bruno and Pat Martino. Whoever the collaborative partner, Veasley has always come away with valuable lessons.

"There's value in avant-garde music or free jazz in and of itself," Gerald points out, "but then there's also value in how the experience of playing music like that makes you think about
music. For example, there was a project I was involved in where the music director was none other than Ornette Coleman, and that was a very cool experience. He would stop the band and say, ‘The reason you played that was because you're playing fret ideas instead of music ideas. You're playing things that come under your fingertips instead of really trying to free yourself to play pure musical ideas, pure musical thought that is generated from within.' That kind of thinking is very liberating, and it's taught me to create music from the inside out."

The ‘90s were the launch pad for Veasley’s solo career. The first step on that journey came in 1992 with Look Ahead, his solo debut on the Heads Up International label that included guest appearances from Zawinul and Blake. He followed up that auspicious debut with recordings that have featured an "A" list of contemporary jazz artists. In 1994 he recorded Signs, which featured George Jinda and Chieli Minucci of Special EFX and now labelmate and Yellowjackets mainstay Russell Ferrante. Soul Control (1997) included guest appearances by Earth, Wind & Fire vocalist Philip Bailey, Dianne Reeves, Rick Braun, Geroge Howard and Dave Samuels. Eric Marienthal and Minucci appeared on Love Letters (1999), which was also Veasley’s last album to feature Grover Washington Jr. before his death at the end of that same year. Washington had appeared on all of Veasley’s solo albums, and Veasley paid tribute to his friend and mentor with 'Goodnight Moon,' a tune on his 2001 release, On the Fast Track. "Grover was a gentle human being who I think about every day. I feel like a steward of his legacy, a legacy of honest, heartfelt music. It's better to play one note that sounds like you, than a hundred that sound like someone else."

Veasley followed Fast Track with Velvet, a richly textured recording that evokes the sound and spirit of his formative years in the 1970s, combined with the edgy sensibilities of contemporary urban music. Led by Veasley’s distinctive instrumental prowess, the album offers a unique perspective on the burgeoning movement known as neo-soul.

In response to the longtime clamor among his fans for a live album, Veasley will release Gerald Veasley A The Jazz Base! Recorded at Veasley’s own club in Reading, Pennsylvania, in November 2004, At the Jazz Base! is a collection of songs culled from his previous recordings and updated with new arrangements and a fresh perspective. “It’s a sort of snapshot of where I am in my career as a musician, and where the band is,” says Veasley. “Sometimes we assume that everybody knows what we do just from the recordings, and we have to realize that the studio recordings – although they may be excellent – don’t show as much as we’d like. But here’s a recording that does that. At the Jazz Base is a complete picture of where we are right now.”