Born: May 5, 1955, in Saint-Éloi, a small town in Quebec, Canada.

Alain Caron is considered one of the greatest jazz fusion bassists of all time.  His career began at the age of 11 when he participated in an amateur competition after which he joined various groups to play popular top 40 music and American and French standards. At the age of 14, he was introduced to an Oscar Peterson record and he discovered the music that would become his greatest passion: Jazz.

Alain began playing bass on a Fender Precision and was inspired to eventually remove the frets from his Precision bass after hearing the fretless sounds of Jaco Pastorius and Alphonso Johnson.  He also cites upright bassists Ray Brown and Scott LaFaro as a reason for playing fretless as it got closer to their upright bass sounds. 

Although he considers himself a self-taught musician, he took a few private lessons and correspondence courses before attending Berklee College of music in 1979. During his time in Boston, he was put in touch with jazz elite musicians and began playing in Boston’s jazz clubs with David Kikovsky, Tom Harrell, Sal Nestico, Frank Tiberi, Jerry Bergonzi and Bob Moses.

However, he decided to return to Montreal to devote himself almost exclusively to UZEB. The group recorded ten albums between 1981 and 1990. Over 400,000 copies would be sold worldwide, with countless concerts in more than 20 countries.

Post UZEB, Caron has had a prolific solo career with 8 solo albums to date.  Known by many for his beautiful, melodic fretless bass playing, Caron is also an incredible slap and finger funk player and his chops in all of these disciplines are second to none.   Throughout his career he has also toured worldwide with friends Mike Stern, Billy Cobham, Frank Gambale, Bireli Lagrene, Didier Lockwood, Tiger Okoshi, Alex Acuna, Don Alias, and Gino Vanelli.

To date, Alain Caron has published more than 20 records, either solo or with UZEB, in addition to collaborating on some 50 albums with jazz, world music and pop artists. Alain is the winner of numerous awards, including 11 Félix, a Gémeaux and 2 Oscar-Peterson Awards.  Alain Caron was voted best bassist eight consecutive years by Jazz Report magazine.

Caron’s reputation as a master electric six string bass virtuoso has bmade him an in demand clinicina and he has taught masterclasses in cities across the world including Montreal, Toronto, Boston, Los Angeles, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Bogota, London, Rome, Amsterdam, Geneva, & Frankfurt. 

Caron has already left his mark on the jazz world as one of the greatest bassists of all time and will continue to be an inspiration for players all over the world for many, many years to come.

Interesting Facts: 

•  After a collaboration of nearly 10 years as the spokesperson for the Italian bass amplification company Markbass, Alain participated in the announcement of the release of a second SIGNATURE amp at the  NAMM show in California. In addition to being the spokesperson, Caron contributes to the concept and design of this amplifier.
• In 2007, the ‘’Université du Québec’’ under the auspices of the ‘’Université du Québec’’ in Rimouski, gave him an honorary doctorate.
• In 2009, a college in Alain’s native Riviere-du-Loup announced that it would be building a 3.7 million dollar music pavilion and naming it “Ecole de musique Alain-Caron”.
• In July 2018, he was honoured to receive the Order of Canada, the highest civilian honour awarded in Canada