Versatile bassist connects and plays with wide variety of musicians

By Steve Graham

In the next week, and nearly every week, music fans can see a soul quartet and a bluesy classic rock group in a Boulder bar, a jazz trio on 16th Street, and the debut of a new Traffic cover band. These wide-ranging shows all have one element in common: bassist Mark Diamond.

The versatile and accomplished player has been a professional musician for more than 50 years, and discovered his passion for music as a toddler.

“I’ve known music was my thing since I was about three years old, banging on pots and pans in the kitchen,” Diamond said in an interview at Vine Street Pub in Denver, where I caught up with him before his weekly gig with rotating collaborators and genres.

Along the way, he picked up piano, clarinet, drums, bagpipes and other instruments. When he started playing the upright bass, he realized it was his calling.

“What I realized very quickly is that this instrument has the elements of all the things I had been doing,” Diamond said. “It has the chords of the piano, it has the melody of the clarinet, it has the percussive rhythm of the drums. By playing this instrument, I’m really playing all those instruments.”

Diamond is a New Jersey native who moved to Colorado with a band in 1980. He has since played on more than 100 albums, including works by Tim O’Brien, Mollie O’Brien, Sally Taylor, and James Van Buren. He also has collaborated with Earl Klugh, Richie Cole, Peter Rowan, Kenny Loggins, Fred Wesley and many more; and has opened for B.B. King, Kenny Rogers, Wilson Pickett, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells.

He continues to play almost nightly, including the Vine Street Vibes gigs Thursday nights, and regular shows at License No. 1 and the Hotel Boulderado in Boulder.

He also is still launching new projects. On Wednesday, June 25, the Muse Performance Space in Lafayette hosts the debut of the six-piece Stuck in Traffic, an homage to one of his all-time favorite groups. Traffic was a late-1960s and early-1970s British rock band that included Steve Winwood and Dave Mason.

“I’ve loved this music since I was 14 or 15 years old,” Diamond said. “For years, I’ve said ‘I want to play this music’ so I finally created a band. … We’re Stuck in Traffic musically. That’s all we’re going to be playing. It’s giving being stuck in traffic a positive connotation.”

He books most of his gigs, then finds like-minded collaborators, with little regard to genre.

Diamond also mentors younger musicians and encourages them to reach out to the countless venues across Colorado, even teaching classes in promotion and booking.

“There are world-class, amazing, great musicians in our area,” he said. “But some of them may not have ever learned the skill of booking a gig, so there are great musicians and artists who sit home.”

He said he is constantly emailing and calling venues, and even a pandemic couldn’t slow his passion for performing. His website includes a series of “Quarantunes” videos, which are recordings of remote collaborations in 2020.

“It was such a miserable time for all of us, in whatever way it affected you, but these are the things that I did during that time to stay mentally alive and connected,” Diamond said.

Now that live music is back, he encourages Coloradans to see local music.

“I find a too-high percentage of people that claim to be real music fans, but they don’t support the local performers,” Diamond said. “They only go out to see the big-name artists. Our community has world-class musicians whether you have heard of them or not. Go out and hear some music.”

There is no shortage of opportunities to hear Diamond’s music.

“I so appreciate the people that DO come out and support my gigs and the other music happening around here,” he said.

Visit his website for his long list of upcoming dates, as well as an extensive video and music library.