Podcast 972: A Conversation with Dane Alderson of Yellowjackets

Straight No Chaser - A Jazz Show

Since Yellowjackets’ eponymous 1981 debut album, the group has hewed its own creative path, influencing colleagues with enviable compositional craftsmanship and an ever-shifting blend of influences. In many ways Yellowjackets embody both continuity and renewal, with founding­ pianist/keyboardist Russell Ferrante providing the four-decade thread first joined by Will Kennedy­, who took over the drum chair from 1987-99 and returned to the fold in 2010. Bob Mintzer, a Jacket since 1990, contributes on tenor and soprano saxophones and EWI.

The bass chair in Yellowjackets has been held by some mighty players over the years, beginning with the legendary Jimmy Haslip, and then Felix Pastorious. By the band’s standards Australian-born electric bass virtuoso Dane Alderson is still the new kid, though he’s already anchored the quartet at bass for almost ten years. A product of the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts in Western Australian, his playing shows his great love of rock (“I was a total metalhead” he says in our conversation), R&B and funk.

The band’s last release was the Grammy nominated Parallel Motion. Every Jacket is well represented on the album with Alderson contributing two stand-out tracks. His slyly grooving “Early” grew out of a sketch that had been languishing on his laptop for more than a decade. “Onyx Manor” has a funk-infused drum and bass start, expanding to give everyone in the band a chance to shine.

Podcast 972 is my conversation with Dane Alderson, belatedly posted from our past conversation. We discuss how he came to join the Yellowjackets, his decision to play a 6 string bass, and his many influences as a player and a fan. Muscial selections include the Alderson-penned “Onyx Manor.”