It is special for a couple of reasons. When I was asked to pick my favourite record I sat at dinner – Mike Chadwick told me about it – and I sat at dinner for about an hour trying to think of it and I couldn’t come up with anything - like my singularly favourite record.

So I decided to pick like a record that was one of my favourite somethings.

So this is my favourite bass record, actually, as a bass player. I think every track, the bass playing and the key bass playing to me is like absolutely perfect, like everything that I ever have wanted to be as a bass player, you know is on this record, both key bass and electric bass.

The other reason why it is special to me because this dude is the mentor of my mentor, Bernard Wright.

So Bernard is the guy who kind of totally shaped the way that I think about music and play and Don Blackman was Bernard’s mentor, growing up together in Jamaica, Queens.

So I feel that there is kind of like, you know, maybe a little bit of that kind of lineage sentimentality, I guess, you know, about it but yeah absolutely, just an incredible record from back to front - you got it!

Michael League: Band on the Wall, Manchester, July 2013

Don Blackman: Don Blackman 1982

Michael League: Bandleader Snarky Puppy

ONE LP PORTRAITS: MUSICIANS: M - R: MICHAEL LEAGUE