the steve laspina quintet

When a bassist who's held down the low end for Stan Getz, Jim Hall, Chet Baker, and Mel Lewis walks into a room, the entire history of jazz walks in with him. Steve LaSpina doesn't just play upright bass—he channels four decades of New York City's most hallowed bandstands into every note, every walking line a direct connection between Little Jumbo's Monday night intimacy and the countless legendary sessions that came before. LaSpina grew up marinating in dance band DNA in Wichita Falls, Texas, studied with Ray Brown (because if you're going to learn bass, you might as well learn from God), and then spent the better part of four decades becoming the kind of first-call player that legends call when they need someone who actually listens. This is bass playing as musical archaeology—every choice informed by decades of conversation with masters, every line both honoring tradition and pushing it forward. For this quintet, LaSpina assembles some serious mountain firepower: Dr. Tim Fischer bringing USC-trained precision and genre-blurring audacity on guitar, Jacob Rodriguez channeling world-traveling saxophone wisdom from San Antonio street corners to Michael Bublé's Grammy stages, Alan Hall on drums (a four-decade veteran who's bent time behind Lee Konitz and Cirque Du Soleil), and Dr. Bill Bares on piano—Harvard's former NEH Distinguished Professor who turned a lip injury that ended his trumpet career into a keyboard calling that's reshaped jazz education across New England and now UNC Asheville.