For any print magazine to hit 400 issues is practically a miracle in today’s digital era – but with your support, and the talent of the fine folks we talk to over the next few pages, we’ve pulled it off!
Joel McIver, Editor Thanks to Mike Brooks, Chris Jisi and Dave Swift.
Depending on your point of view, 400 issues of Bass Player magazine – which has variously been a bimonthly, monthly and four-weekly publication over the last 30 years – might mean 400 hours of reading over a coffee; it might signify several thousand interviews with bass players; or it might involve hundreds of hours of slaving over lessons and transcriptions, bass in hand. It might mean all of those things, or something else entirely. That’s the beauty of an information source like this one – you take from it what you will.
But there’s more to BP than that. For us, the magazine staff and writers, and those who came before us, it means years of dedication – an entire career’s worth of it in some cases. We sink our hearts and souls into this magazine, not because it’s a job, but because bass is our lifeblood. Bass isn’t the world’s most popular instrument, but it is the coolest, damn it. We’re part of a unique community that cannot be broken – and Bass Player magazine has documented the passions and pratfalls of that community for 30 years.
Of BP’s 400 issues since 1990, only the most recent 26 have been produced by me and my staff – so the congratulations offered to us from the world’s greatest bassists in the pages that follow should really go to our predecessors.
For the record, because everyone who has supervised this magazine deserves recognition, and because you won’t find this data anywhere else, the editors of Bass Player have been: Jim Roberts (March 1990 to December 1996); Karl Coryat (January 1997 to January 1998); Richard Johnston (February 1998 to July 2001); Bill Leigh (August 2001 to March 2009); Jonathan Herrera (April 2009 to December 2010), Brian Fox (January 2011 to June 2014); Chris Jisi (July 2014 to October 2018); and me (November 2018 to date).
It was Jim, Karl, Richard, Bill, Jonathan, Brian and Chris, as well as the incredibly talented writers, designers, reviewers and publishers who worked alongside them, who made this magazine what it is today. Hats off to those who built BP, and the community that anchors it.
Will Bass Player go on to publish another 400 issues? With your help, it might well be possible. If so, I’ll see you at the bar in 2050 – we’ll have earned it – but even if not, rest assured that the greatest musical ins
