The incredible legend: Abraham Laboriel Born in the summer of 1947 in Mexico City, Laboriel has breathed music from day one. His father taught his first guitar lesson when he was six years old, the first thing he learned was a D chord, his father taught him to play with his ring finger because Laboriel had lost the tip of his index finger in an accident. Although he temporarily abandoned the guitar, frustrated by the injury, it ended up contributing to his unusual style.
At age ten, Abraham played guitar by ear, internalizing the wide variety of American music from Lambert, Hendricks and Ross making vocal arrangements by Count Basie and Duke Ellington, to Buck Owens & the Buckaroos, who hails from the US.
Though primarily a guitarist, Abraham felt the lure of bass from the start, and his attempt to capture the essence of bass, guitar and drums contributed to his rhythmic, melodic and harmonic approach. When he took his first class, he got to know the bass function, and absolutely fell in love with James Jamerson, he played Motown and R&B in bands and, although he was a guitarist, taught the bass player his parts.
At his parents’ insistence, Abraham spent two painful years studying aeronautics and not playing music. Finally, he made a deal: if the music didn’t work out after a year, he would go back to engineering. He abandoned plans to study at Mexico’s National School of Music when he learned that a composition course would take 11 years to complete. But when a professor at his Boston Conservatory audition suggested he might like Berklee’s non-classical curriculum better, Abraham gave it a try.
Laboriel auditioned and was accepted to Berklee in 1968. His specialization was composition and initially he played the guitar. A year before he graduated, however, Abraham started playing bass. He bought his first 4 strings from a colleague for $400, a Goya, it was a very unusual bass; it had a small neck and a high natural E. For my little hands, it was perfect. I was completely at home and led to the recording with vibraphonist and future Berklee dean Gary Burton, and after graduation, Abraham hit the road with JohnnyMathis and Henry Mancini, who were instrumental in helping him transition to Los Angeles.
Henry Mancini said the best way to break into the music scene would be to go to LA, and that only his peers could help him, and doing [Mancini’s LA Symphonic Soul] would give him the opportunity to meet some of the local people. After doing a few gigs, he met Joe Sample, Lee Ritenour, Harvey Mason, Dennis Budimir, Artie Kane on B3 and Emil Richards on percussion, all of whom said there was a lot of work in Los Angeles.
Laboriel had to wait a year for his wife to finish an internship in Cleveland, so when he returned to LA a year later, they all had bass players they loved. Lee had Anthony Jackson; Harvey had Louis Johnson; Joe had Pops Popwell; and everyone had Chuck Rainey. Everyone said, “A year ago there was space, but now we’re all happy with our bass players.” So he had to wait another two years before the doors opened in LA.
Abraham Laboriel Sr. graduated from Berklee in 1972 with a degree in composition. He is one of the most legendary bass players of his era, having thousands of album credits to his name playing for names like Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Dolly Parton and Madonna.
Guitar Player magazine once characterized him as “the most used session bass player of our time”.
In addition to his session work, Laboriel is known as a founding member of the bands Friendship and Koinonia and has recorded solo albums Dear Friends, Guidum and Justo & Abraham.
Laboriel has recorded with a variety of artists, including Quincy Jones, Lionel Richie, Ray Charles, Michael Jackson, Dolly Parton, Clint Black, Henry Mancini, Bert Bachrach, Herb Alpert, Barbra Streisand and Placido Domingo. Much sought after in the Latin music world, recording and performing with Ruben Blades, Julio Iglesias, Paco de Lucia, Roberto Carlos, Luis Miguel, Ricardo Arjona, Ana Gabriel, Juan Gabriel, José José, Café Quijano, Armando Manzanero, Dori Caymmi, Djavan , Gilberto Gil, João Gilberto, Ivan Lins, Patricia Sosa and Marco Antonio Solis. He has played bass on dozens of film soundtracks from “Tootsie” and “Terms of Endearment” to “Forrest Gump”, “The Incredibles”, “Ratatouille”, “MI4” and “Frozen”.
14 Comments