Rick Laird

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Richard Quentin 'Rick' Laird is a jazz musician, born on February 5, 1941. He is a bass player best known for his place in The Mahavishnu Orchestra.

Laird was born in Dublin, Ireland. He was influenced from a young age to play music, and got enrolled in guitar and piano lessons. He finally found his place when he started playing jazz after moving to New Zealand at the age of 16 with his father. He played guitar in jam bands in New Zealand before buying an upright bass. After extensive touring with one of his bands in New Zealand he decided to move to Sydney, Australia. Here he played with many top jazz musicians including Don Burrows. He eventually moved to England in 1962.

He played upright bass as the house bassist at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London, playing with many greats including the legendary guitarist Wes Montgomery and Sonny Stitt. Laird then studied from 1963 to '64 at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He was recorded on Sonny Rollins' record Alfie. Laird also played in The Brian Auger Trinity (Jul 1963 - Feb 1964) and The Brian Auger Group (Feb - Oct 1964).

His next step was to go to Berklee College of Music in Boston, U.S.A., where he studied arranging, composition and string bass. He then teamed up with up with John McLaughlin and The Mahavishnu Orchestra to play electric bass until 1973, when the band broke up. After that, he moved to New York and played with Stan Getz (a tour in 1977) and Chick Corea (a tour the following year). Laird put out one album as a leader, Soft Focus. Today, he is a successful photographer as well as a private bass tutor and an author of a number of intermediate- to advanced-level bass books.