Ron McClure
b. 22. November 1941, New Haven, Connecticut, USA. McClure started playing the accordion when he was five years old, and played the piano at high school. He studied the bass at the Julius Hartt Conservatory in Hartford, and when he left in 1963 went on to study composition with Hall Overton and Don Sebesky. By the time he joined Charles Lloyd in 1967, he had played with Buddy Rich, Herbie Mann and Wynton Kelly backing Wes Montgomery. Lloyd's enormously successful group took MClure on worldwide tours before he returned to San Francisco, where he was a founder member of the fusion group Fourth Way. Later on, he played with the group Blood, Sweat And Tears before settling to studio work in New York. McClure played with musicians as diverse as vocalists Tony Bennett, Dionne Warwick and the Pointer Sisters, and instrumentalists Thelonious Monk, Gary Burton and Joe Henderson. In 1985, he joined the group of Al DiMeola and then worked with Michel Petrucciani and George Russell. His firm bass lines are characterized by rhythmic fills on open strings against the fretboard. He has taught at the Berklee College Of Music(1971) and Long Island University (1983-85).