In most rock the bass holds down the low end and stays there. Progressive rock gave it more room: whole pieces built around it, instrumentals where it shares the lead, and players who changed what the instrument could be asked to do. The best prog rock bass solos of all time are gathered here with the facts behind each one – the track, the album, the year, how it was made – and, where they exist, the words of the musicians, producers and critics closest to it. Five landmark moments first, then the players worth following further.

“The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)” — Chris Squire, Yes

For Fragile (1971), Yes gave each of its five members a track of their own to shape, and Chris Squire’s was “The Fish”: a short instrumental built on layered bass parts, with Bill Bruford on drums, which follows straight on from “Long Distance Runaround” on the album. The only words are the Latin name of a small fish, sung as the subtitle; the title itself was Squire’s nickname in the band, earned, Louder reports, by his habit of taking very long baths. Louder describes the track as “funk-rock bass lines weaving around Bill Bruford’s almost motorik drumming”, and Vintage Guitar calls it Squire’s “revolutionary bass solo”. It stayed in the band’s live sets for many tours. The best Yes songs guide puts it in the context of the band’s classic run.

“YYZ” — Geddy Lee, Rush

“YYZ” is the instrumental on Rush’s Moving Pictures (1981), written by Geddy Lee and Neil Peart. Its title is the identification code of Toronto’s main airport, and the opening rhythm is that code in Morse, as the band heard it transmitted when flying home. It was nominated for the Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance in 1982 and lost to The Police’s “Behind My Camel”. Vintage Guitar, looking back at the album, writes that the track shows off each member as a soloist, and the band’s co-producer Terry Brown remembered “great bass lines from Geddy that were just jumping out of the tracks”. The live versions on Exit… Stage Left (1981) and the A Show of Hands video (1989) add a drum solo. More in the best Rush songs guide.

“Tommy the Cat” — Les Claypool, Primus

Primus sit on the outer edge of the genre, but no list of bass showcases can leave out Les Claypool. “Tommy the Cat” is on Sailing the Seas of Cheese (1991), with Tom Waits as a guest voice, and it is built around Claypool’s bass. It is here for what it shows about how far a rock band could go in putting the bass in front.

Tony Levin — King Crimson and Stick Men

Tony Levin is less a player of set-piece solos than a player who changed the tools. He brought the Chapman Stick, a ten- or twelve-string instrument played by tapping with both hands, into the band on King Crimson’s Discipline (1981), one of the records Stick players most often cite as an influence. With his technician Andy Moore he also created “funk fingers”, cut-down drumsticks strapped to the fingertips to strike the strings, first developed during Peter Gabriel’s So sessions. He has played on more than five hundred albums, and since 2010 has led Stick Men, a trio with two Stick players and a drummer. The best King Crimson songs guide covers the period.

John Myung — Dream Theater

John Myung co-founded Dream Theater at Berklee College of Music with John Petrucci and Mike Portnoy, and has been its bassist throughout its recorded career. He plays both bass and Chapman Stick, and both are credited to him on the band’s Live at Budokan (2004). He played violin from the age of five and switched to bass at fifteen, when a local band needed a bassist, and he and Petrucci are the only two constant members through every line-up change. The band’s own site calls him its “mysterious” member, quiet and rarely in the spotlight on stage. The best Dream Theater songs guide is the place to hear them.

More bass solos worth hearing

The line runs through jazz-rock too, the side of the family closest to prog. Jaco Pastorius built “Portrait of Tracy”, on his debut album Jaco Pastorius (1976), almost entirely out of harmonics, and Stanley Clarke’s “School Days”, from the album of the same name (1976), is a bass feature from the same year. Percy Jones played fretless bass through the records of Brand X, and John Wetton played bass in King Crimson between 1972 and 1974. Separate guides to the recorded solos of Chris Squire, Geddy Lee and John Myung are on the way.

Go deeper

Meet the players behind these moments in my countdown of the best prog bassists of all time, then explore the most memorable bass lines and the tightest rhythm sections in the genre. The prog musicians hub has the rest – from the greatest guitarists and keyboardists to the finest drummers – and you can settle a few rivalries in the prog rock band comparisons. If you want the full story of the bands behind these players, it is in my Beyond the Sound books, one volume per scene.

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