Jim was born to a non-musical family. As a teen he taught himself to play the electric bass in rock bands. Early on Jim developed an affinity to playing in a band and loved to play the functional role of the bass player.

At twenty he moved on to acoustic/string bass and jazz music, but the string bass is a difficult instrument to learn without the proper technical training and there were few jazz bass teachers to be found. So, Jim enrolled at San Francisco State University and was fortunate to study with the renowned classical bassist, Charles Siani. There he gained a great love for classical music and the double bass traditions.

After earning a degree in music performance in classical music Jim turned his focus back to jazz and improvisational music. He joined a touring jazz trio with vibist Larry Blackshere and toured Europe (1980- 1985). This trio allowed Jim to apply his classical bass techniques as well as play free improvisation all the time filling the role of foundation of the “groove”.

It was Jim’s attention to the groove that attracted the mandolinist/band-leader David Grisman who asked him to join his quintet in 1985. The David Grisman Quintet is an acoustic string band that plays in many different traditions including bluegrass, swing, and latin. As a full time member of the DGQ for twenty-four years, Jim has had the opportunity to play and record with many great musicians including: Stephane Grappelli, Sven Assmussen, Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Bela Fleck, Del McCoury and Jerry Garcia. It was Jim’s work with Jerry Garcia in the Garcia-Grisman Band that produced many popular albums and a documentary movie (Grateful Dawg). To date Jim has played bass on six Grammy-nominated recordings.

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