john mckenzie

john mckenzie was born into a musical family, and grew up in london listening to ella, bird, billie, milton nascimento, tom jobim, astrud gilberto, sinatra, peggy lee, basie, ellington, billy strayhorn and countless other stellar 'jazz greats'.....all these sounds made a big impression on john's musical instincts, and helped to form his bass playing skills.after a chance meeting with what became his first professional band gig, john decided at the last minute not to attend leeds college of music, instead joining, and touring with, global village trucking company... a hippy/commune outfit that included the band... plus wives/girlfriends, dogs, chickens goats, kids, friends staying over at the commune! (well, it was the seventies!); this resulted in approximately five hundred shows with gvtc. john learned an important lesson: there is no substitute for actually performing live shows to audiences, to really hone a player's skills. after gvtc, john joined the british rock group man and toured around the world for two years with the band, taking breaks to record two albums. next followed a two-year stint as bassist in the steve hillage band, a legendary esoteric rock group fronted by steve hillage, the guitarist who had played with gong and then carved out a reputation for himself in the campuses and in the hearts of classic rock fans worldwide. many tours and albums raised john's game, and the world of session work soon began to loom large in john's career. € € € € € € € € € € € € €  € € € € after a couple of years with the excellent morrisey mullen jazz-funk outfit, john's playing really began to get noticed. record producers and artists around the world started calling, and john became a busy session bassist. many records came out of this early sessioning, including records with the eurythmics, james ingram, bob dylan, charles aznavour, the pretenders, wham, renato zero, tim finn, the phenix horns, jim diamond, royal philharmonic orchestra and countless others.tour offers came in, and amongst many other artists, john had a fine old time touring with artists such as doctor john, seal, kajagoogoo, the christians, tina turner, alison moyet, bond, maksim, working week, matt bianco, wild and a whole host of other great artists.more recent gigs include recording with david bowie , live concert and tv work with tom scott, tv work with shakira live dates as MD for gwen dickey, touring with bond touring with maksim, touring with ive mendes, writing and recording with the meat eating plants € € € € € € € € € € € €  € € € € € € € € € € €as well as playing bass, john writes music for television and film.€ € € € € € €