Weather Report bass legend Victor Bailey dies age 56

He was 56. Famously Bailey replaced Jaco Pastorius in Weather Report from 1982-1986, at just 22 years old. When the group disbanded he went on to have a prolific career as a top jazz sideman for the likes of Sonny Rollins, Pharoah Sanders, Lenny White and Kenny Garrett, as well as forging a solo career and playing countless high profile sessions with the likes of Sting, Madonna, LL Cool J and Lady Gaga on more than 1,000 albums. Remarkably he achieved all this in spite of being born with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, a form of muscular dystrophy, which he fought long and hard before losing the battle last week.

Post-Weather Report, Bailey continued to work with the band's fiery founding keyboardist Joe Zawinul playing with both his Weather Update and Syndicate bands as well as recording a blistering 2006 live album, Brown Street, with Zawinul, the WDR Big Band, former WR percussionist Alex Acuna, on a stunning set of favourite Weather Report songs arranged by Vince Mendoza. An alumni of Berklee College of Music, Bailey was among the college's faculty until his illness confined him to a wheelchair earlier this year. His father Morris Bailey, who also had the disease but kept active as a saxophone player until his late seventies, was a renowned Philadelphia R&B figure who wrote and arranged for likes of Teddy Pendergrass, Billy Paul and Harold Melvin.

One of his final messages on his Facebook page read: "In the past days I heard from Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller, Ralph Armstrong, Daryl Jones, Randy Jackson, Hadrien Feraud, and Chulo Gatewood. I am pinching myself to be sure this is only bass player heaven LOL."

His spirit and playing will be hugely missed.

– Mike Flynn