Ron Carter. No, he did his first CD with Ron Carter, and then I think Clarence Seay was on a song. At some point Ray Drummond played on the second recording. And Phil Bowler. He had a number of bassists. There was the concern of the lack of an acoustic sound, but also that that bass - it was something. The bass sounded - it was an electric signal, so that they could make it sound present, very present, but it didnt fit the sound spectrum of the rest of the band. Its like you had the rest of the band, and then you just had this bass sound. Thats what we were trying to figure out. I said, look at all of these pictures. They just have a microphone on these guys. Back in the 80s, that was unheard of. "Youre going to put a mic on this guy? " "Yeah, why not? " When I did my first record with my dad, Syndrome, I think we used - maybe we used a little pickup. We may have actually used a mic. The bassist was playing more with a pickup. So he had that kind of sound. At any rate, to cut to the quick. When Branford Marsalis Marsalis played with Sting, he did an article in <span class="otherMatch" rel="popover" id="other_711_368367">Down Beat</span> magazine. He commented in the magazine that we were trying to develop a microphone or some way to get more of an acoustic sound from the bass. There was a guy from <span class="otherMatch" rel="popover" id="other_713_369404">Massachusetts</span> who responded to Branford Marsalis Marsalis article by saying that the <span class="otherMatch" rel="popover" id="other_713_369405">Bass <span class="otherMatch" rel="popover" id="other_713_369408"><span class="otherMatch" rel="popover" id="other_713_369409">Direct</span></span></span> is here to stay, and Branford needs to just deal with it. This guy took offense to it. So as a joke on the next recording - as a joke aimed directly at this one guy - who knows who he was? - we put, "This record is made without usage of the dreaded Bass Direct. " It was really just - it started out as a joke. Okay, well show this guy. Then it caught on. Folks took it a lot more seriously than I thought. Its just something that we say, every record, "Yeah, why not just keep this? " without using the dreaded Bass Direct. So it took on a life of its own. It really was just a joke, though. But we always were trying to figure out how to record. I think that Royal Garden Blues might be the first recording where we used very minimal - no Bass Direct on Charnett Moffett or on Ira Coleman on the ballads, and then limited Bass Direct - even though we didnt mention it then. But we did that record. Then the article came out. Then the guy made his comment. The next record was Renaissance. That was the first time we used that. But that set things in motion, where guys started to be more conscious, and bass players, they got that machismo. Then they start saying, "Man, I dont need direct bass. Hold on. " When we did Trio Jeepy, which was with Milt Hinton, which was again - it was my idea, that I would like to get the younger and the older musicians involved. I kept telling - when Branford Marsalis Marsalis was on the road with Sting, he would call me. "Man, this is like constant recess. Im dying out here. Its like, ugh. " So I sent him some Ben Webster recordings. I started hanging out with Milt Hinton. I said, "Check out this guy, Ben Webster, " which Im sure hed heard of Ben, but he didnt really know him. He was like, "Man! " Hed never really checked Ben Webster out. So he said thats all he did for three months, four months on the road, was listen to Ben Webster. I said, "You should do a record with this guy Milt Hinton. Dad knows him, and hes cool. He can play. Hes got a big ol sound. " So 1987, 88, he said, "Im going to do a record with Milt Hinton and Tain" [Jeff "Tain" Watts]. That was the record that changed everything, because Milt Hinton, his - that was the first time you really could hear what the bass could sound like. Man, that sound that he had - when that first note comes in, its like, oh this is bass for real. Its one thing to say, okay, were not using dreaded Bass Direct, but its another thing to say, not only are we not using dreaded Bass Direct, but listen to how this bass sounds. So I think that was the single record that made - that really changed everything, because the makers of the Bass Direct pickup - the bassists started to demand that the pickup sound better. Before, nobody would have cared. As long as you had an electric signal. So if you listen to the quality of the sound in the early to mid-80s, and then by 1990, 91, its across the board. Everybodys records are different. I think that what we were trying to do had a big impact on - just joking around, but it had an impact on the perception of the band and the way that the instruments were recorded.