Chris Rathbun has enjoyed decades of bass playing from orchestra and chamber music to blues, free improvisation, be-bop, Bluegrass, Dixie-Land, swing, Broadway shows, cabaret, Klezmer, Latin, and world music. He has performed with internationally recognized jazz treasures, ""Papa"" Jo Jones, ""Tiny"" Grimes (Art Tatum), Tom Lindsay (Coleman Hawkins), Joe Marani (Louis Armstrong), Herb Pomeroy (Duke Ellington), ""Sir Charles"" Thompson (Charlie Parker), Benny Waters (NEC 1922), Bob Wilber, Sabby Lewis, Bobby Greene, Makoto Ozone, Marie Marcus, Terri Lynne Carrington, Rebecca Parris, The Artie Shaw Orchestra, and stars of show business- Al Martino, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Anthony Newley, Bobby Rydell, John Raitt, Linda Hopkins, Marvin Hamlisch, Patti Page, Ray Charles, Roger Williams, Rosemary Clooney, The Four Aces, The Four Lads, The Mills Brothers, Yma Sumak...
Recent performances include the 2022 Contemporary Music Festival: Cloister of the Baronial Castle, in Cellamare (Bari, Italy) and Cloister Of The Sixteenth Century, Lecce, Italy as well as the 2018 JazzIt Fest (Bari, Italy).
SAA Conference presentation topics have included; “Facing 'Improviphobia' With Language Skills,” “Jazz for Classical Musicians,” and “Do You Like Chords?”
B.M., NEC, (Double Bass Performance and Third Stream Music)., M.S. (Education), M.S. (Library and Information Science) Simmons College. Berklee College of Music (Undergraduate studies) Double bass with William Curtis, Gaston Dufresne, Frank Gallagher, Lawrence Wolfe, Dave Holland, and Virginia Dixon (Suzuki Teacher Training) Improvisation with Ran Blake and Jaki Byard.
COMPOSITIONS: Azygous Void (1970), Summer Morning By The Mystic (1977), Geo-Political Statement (1979), It Came From Out Of The Woods (1980), The River Niger (1984), The Troglodyte (1984), Free Jazz (2012), The Future Of The Past (2013), Flowers Emerging [From A Forest Fire] (2014)
CD'S: Geo-Political Statement (Chris Rathbun, Stephan Peisch-violin), It Came From Out of the Woods (Chris Rathbun film ensemble), If I Could Dance Like Fred Astaire (Jim Porcella, Ron Zack), Never Never Land (Jon Jarvis), The Good Stuff (Bob Roskopf, Jon Wheatley) Peace (Steve Dale), Something Irresistible: Songs of Fran Landesman (Shepley Metcalf), Jazzamir (Zamir Chorale), The Music of Canary Burton (Jon Jarvis), The Last Taxi [4 CDs] (Patrick Battstone)"