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Lonnie Plaxico was born on September 4, 1960 in Chicago, Illinois and started playing the bass at age twelve. He turned professional at 14 playing both double bass and bass guitar. His first recording was with his family’s band, and by the time he was twenty he had moved to New York City, where he had stints playing with  Chet Baker, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Stitt, Junior Cook, and Hank Jones..

In 1978 he won the Louis Armstrong Jazz Award but first came to public attention through his work with the  Wynton Marsalis  group in 1982. Lonnie’s first regular attachment was with Art Blakey‘s Jazz Messengers from 1983–1986, with whom he recorded twelve albums. At the end of his work relationship with Blakey he joined Jack DeJohnette’s Special Edition, and stayed with them until 1993. During his tenure with Blakey, in the mid-1980s he joined the M-Base collective and played on the debut-releases of Steve Coleman, Cassandra Wilson, and Greg Osby

Plaxico held the musical director and featured bassist position for Cassandra Wilson for fifteen years and has performed and recorded with a wide range of artists, including Dizzy Gillespie, David Murray, Alice Coltrane, Stanley Turrentine, Andrew Hill, Joe Sample, Abbey Lincoln, Bill Cosby, Lonnie Liston Smith, Ravi Coltrane, Scott Tixier, Barbara Dennerlein, Helen Sung and Nina Vidal, among others.

Double bassist Lonnie Plaxico has thirteen albums to his credit as a leader and continues to perform and record.

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