Rick McLaughlin is a multi-faceted musician.  He is a bassist, educator, composer, arranger, author, producer, and music superfan.  These characteristics have taken him to stages on four continents, performances and recording sessions with legendary musicians, to clinics, classrooms and private lessons both in person and virtual, and to the microphone as a podcast guest.  Released in the fall, 2024, The Wonder of Stevie is a multi-part podcast focusing on the life, career, and music of Stevie Wonder.  Among guests such as Barack and Michelle Obama, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, two-time Pulitzer Prize winning host Wesley Morris, and Stevie Wonder himself, McLaughlin reflected on the ways in which Stevie Wonder uses musical elements to tell nuanced, moving, meaningful stories.  McLaughlin’s reflections stem from working with hundreds of students in a course that he designed and teaches on Stevie Wonder for Berklee College of Music, where McLaughlin is Associate Professor in the Harmony and Jazz Composition Department.

As a performer, McLaughlin has performed with the Grammy-nominated jazz group Either/Orchestra for more than 25 years.  He has been heard on stages and in recording studios from Boston, MA to Los Angeles, CA; from Barcelona, Spain to Rome, Italy; and from Phuket, Thailand to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Along the way, he has shared the stage with jazz luminaries such as Don Byron, Steve Lacy, John Medeski, Bob Moses, Danilo Perez, and John Zorn, rock musicians Willie “Loco” Alexander, Morphine, and Peter Wolf, and country music star Roger Miller. He has also been a collaborator with Ethiopia’s great singers Mahmoud Ahmed and Alemayhu Eshete, and the innovator behind Ethio-Jazz, Mulatu Astatke. 

His own debut as a leader, Study of Light, garnered critical acclaim, and featured a first-of-its-kind arrangement a movement from Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major. He has been heralded by MacArthur Fellow George Russell as “one of my favorite bassists.” Paul Olson, of Allaboutjazz.com, says that McLaughlin is “the most valuable player” on a recorded performance, and Michael Nastos of Cadence Magazine writes that McLaughlin’s playing is “electric and exciting”.  

In addition to McLaughlin’s faculty position at Berklee College of Music, he has taught at New England Conservatory of Music, and given clinics in many of the same cities in which he has performed.  McLaughlin has published articles for DrumPro Magazines, and his paper, Which Way Do the Trade Winds Blow? Two Case Studies Examining the Voyage of Jazz to Africa was published by Berklee College of Music’s online journal, FUSION.  Compositions of McLaughlin’s can be heard on Study of Light, and on Either/Orchestra’s Mood Music for Time Travelers.  Visit www.rickmclaughlin.com for more information.