Richard Bona Band

Since he first burst on to the international scene with Harry Belafonte and The Joe Zawinul Syndicate, music critics worldwide, and Syracuse Jazz Fest Director Frank Malfitano, have enthusiastically hailed Richard Bona as the greatest electric jazz bassist on the planet!

When he was 3 years old in his native Cameroon, Richard saw a man playing a balafon, a resonated frame, wooden keyed percussion idiophone, similar to a xylophone. He was fascinated. He would sit there, staring at the balafon player, listening to the music for hours.

Before long, he built his own balafon and started to practice it eight to 12 hours a day. At 5 years old, he began performing in public, singing in the village church with his mother and sisters. Because instruments were hard to find in West Africa, Richard soon started making his own wooden flutes and percussion instruments. When it came to building a guitar, however, he had trouble finding strings, so he borrowed a couple of bicycle brake cables to make some. Playing that jerrybuilt guitar, Richard entertained at baptisms, weddings and church functions, and began gigging professionally at 11 years old, replacing his homemade instrument with a professionally manufactured guitar so that he could play in dancehalls.

In 1980, Richard’s life changed dramatically when he discovered Jaco Pastorius’ 1976 self-titled LP which included the track “Portrait of Tracy.” Inspired by Pastorius, the legendary pioneer of the modern jazz bass style, Richard learned to read and write music, and eventually picked up the electric bass. “Before I heard Jaco, I’d never even considered playing bass,” Bona said. “But when I heard that music, I had to check the turntable to make sure that the pitch and tempo was right. I thought it might have been fast.” .

When he was 22, Richard moved to Paris, where he performed with leading French musicians like violinist Didier Lockwood, as well as collaborating with World Music giants Manu Dibango and the legendary Salif Keita. He studied music there for seven years, immersing himself in the work of Miles Davis, Chet Baker and Ben Webster, and he created a band named Point Cardinale.

When a former Pastorius collaborator, guitarist Mike Stern, advised him to check out New York City, Richard relocated in 1995. He recorded the album My People with Weather Report co-founder Joe Zawinul with whom he later toured the world before serving as Harry Belafonte’s musical director.

Over the years, Bona has played bass with countless Jazz legends, including Larry Coryell, Michael and Randy Brecker, Steve Gadd, Bob James, Mike Stern, Pat Metheny, George Benson, Bobby McFerrin, Branford Marsalis and Chaka Khan. Richard was signed by Columbia in 1998, and he recorded his first solo album under his own name, Scenes from My Life (1999). While Scenes from My Life is primarily autobiographical, Richard’s second record, Reverence, encapsulates his feelings for our planet and our growing world population. Richard Bona considers himself a story-teller who has “a responsibility to make this world beautiful.”