Will Lee

An American bassist born in 1952, Will Lee grew up in Miami before moving to New York in the early 1970s, where he quickly established himself in the studio and on stages tied to jazz-rock, fusion, pop, and rhythm and blues. Trained first as a drummer and then as a bassist, he developed a supple and highly legible playing style, rooted in groove but nourished by jazz, rock, and soul. After a stint with the group Dreams, Will Lee became one of New York’s busiest session musicians, contributing to a substantial number of recordings by artists from very different aesthetics, from Steely Dan to Carly Simon, from Chaka Khan to the Brecker Brothers. His name is also associated with David Letterman’s orchestra, which he joined in 1982 alongside Paul Shaffer in The World’s Most Dangerous Band, later within the CBS Orchestra, a presence that firmly embedded him in American television culture. In parallel, Will Lee has pursued a more focused personal discography with OH! in 1993, Bird House in 2006, and Love, Gratitude and Other Distractions in 2013, where his writing extends a taste for melodic fusion, soul-jazz harmonies, and a very direct sense of the bass line. He also co-founded in 1998 the project The Fab Faux, devoted to the Beatles repertoire.