The incredibly talented Bob James has been playing with Nathan East since the early days of Fourplay almost 25 years ago. Bob recently played on Nathan's upcoming solo album, Nathan East, and was asked to reflect on his long-time friend/bandmate. He recalls how they first were introduced while he was looking for a bass player for his latest group, Fourplay:

"I didn't know the LA scene that well so I asked both Harvey [Mason] and Lee [Ritenour] separately who'd they recommend to be our bass player. They both, independently, came up with the same name: Nathan East.

He's achieved tremendous success. Everyone surrounding him knows it. But that doesn't define him to me. Probably one of the big reasons he's so successful is that he doesn't think that way. He just thinks that at any given moment, whoever he's making music with, that he's just going to be giving it his best. It's really easy to talk about Nathan East, he's just a great guy. It would be hard to talk about him in a critical way, I can't even think about anything to be critical about - except that it took him 25 years to make his first solo album. Now he's doing it, and that makes me happy." - Bob James