Miroslav Ladislav Vitouš was born on December 6, 1947 in Prague, Czechoslovakia. He began the violin at age six, switching to piano after about three years, and then to bass at age fourteen. As a young man in Europe, he was a competitive swimmer but one of his early music groups was the Junior Trio with his brother Alan on drums and Jan Hammer on keyboards.

He studied music at the Prague Conservatory and won a music contest in Vienna, Austria in 1966 that gave him a scholarship to the Berklee College…