Abraham Laboriel, Sr. is a Mexican

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 bassist

Bassist

A bass player, or bassist is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass, bass guitar, keyboard bass or a low brass instrument such as a tuba or sousaphone. Different musical genres tend to be associated with one or more of these instruments...

 of Garifuna descent who has played on over 4,000 recordings and soundtracks. Guitar Player Magazine described him as "the most widely used session bassist of our time". Laboriel is the father of drummer

Drummer

A drummer is a musician who is capable of playing drums, which includes but is not limited to a drum kit and accessory based hardware which includes an assortment of pedals and standing support mechanisms, marching percussion and/or any musical instrument that is struck within the context of a...

 Abe Laboriel Jr.

Abe Laboriel Jr.

Abe Laboriel Jr. is an American session drummer. He is the son of Mexican bassist Abraham Laboriel, Sr. and brother of producer, songwriter, and film composer Mateo Laboriel....

 and of producer, songwriter, and film composer Mateo Laboriel.

Laboriel was born in Mexico City

Mexico City

Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

. Originally a classically trained guitarist, he switched to bass guitar while studying at the Berklee School of Music. Henry Mancini

Henry Mancini

Henry Mancini was an American composer, conductor and arranger, best remembered for his film and television scores. He won a record number of Grammy Awards , plus a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously in 1995...

 encouraged Laboriel to move to Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

 and pursue a recording career. Since then, he has worked with artists as diverse as Donald Fagen

Donald Fagen

Donald Jay Fagen is an American musician and songwriter, best known as the co-founder, lead singer, and the principal songwriter of the rock band Steely Dan ....

, Lee Ritenour

Lee Ritenour

Lee Mack Ritenour is an American jazz guitarist who has recorded over 42 albums, appeared on over 3000 sessions, and has charted over 30 instrumental and vocal contemporary jazz hits since 1976. One of his most popular songs was the smash hit, “Is It You” in 1981. Ritenour is considered to be a...

, Christopher Cross

Christopher Cross

Christopher Cross is an American singer-songwriter from San Antonio, Texas. His debut album earned him five Grammys. He is perhaps best known for his Top Ten hit songs, "Sailing", "Ride Like the Wind", and "Arthur's Theme ", the last of which he performed for the film Arthur starring Dudley Moore...

, Larry Carlton

Larry Carlton

Larry Carlton is an American jazz, smooth jazz, jazz fusion, pop, and rock guitarist and singer. He has divided his recording time between solo recordings and session appearances with various well-known bands...

, Dave Grusin

Dave Grusin

David Grusin is an American composer, arranger and pianist. Grusin has composed many scores for feature films and television, and has won numerous awards for his soundtrack and record work, including an Academy award and 12 Grammys...

, Andy Pratt, Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder

Stevland Hardaway Morris , better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist...

, Hanson

Hanson (band)

Hanson are an American pop rock band formed in Tulsa, Oklahoma, by brothers Isaac , Taylor , and Zac Hanson . They are best known for the 1997 hit song "MMMBop" from their major label debut album Middle of Nowhere, which earned three Grammy nominations...

, Barbra Streisand

Barbra Streisand

Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...

, Al Jarreau

Al Jarreau

Alwin "Al" Lopez Jarreau is a seven-time Grammy Award winning jazz singer.- Background :Jarreau was born in Milwaukee, the fifth of six children. His web site refers to Reservoir, Inc., the name of the street where he lived. His father was a Seventh-Day Adventist Church minister and singer, and...

, Billy Cobham

Billy Cobham

William C. Cobham is a Panamanian American jazz drummer, composer and bandleader, who has called Switzerland home since the late 1970s....

, Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton

Dolly Rebecca Parton is an American singer-songwriter, author, multi-instrumentalist, actress and philanthropist, best known for her work in country music. Dolly Parton has appeared in movies like 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Steel Magnolias and Straight Talk...

, Elton John

Elton John

Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...

, Ray Charles

Ray Charles

Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...

, Madonna

Madonna (entertainer)

Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...

, Paul Simon

Paul Simon

Paul Frederic Simon is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.Simon is best known for his success, beginning in 1965, as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, with musical partner Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote most of the pair's songs, including three that reached number one on the US singles...

, Keith Green

Keith Green

Keith Gordon Green was an American gospel singer, songwriter, musician, and Contemporary Christian Music artist originally from Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, New York. Beyond his music, Green is best known for his strong devotion to Christian evangelism and challenging others to the same...

, Carlos Skinfill, Alvaro Lopez and Res-Q Band, Lisa Loeb

Lisa Loeb

Lisa Anne Loeb is an American singer-songwriter and actress. She launched her career in 1994 with the song, "Stay ". She was the first artist to have a number one single in the United States while not signed to a recording contract.Loeb's efforts now include music, film, television, voice-over...

, Quincy Jones

Quincy Jones

Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr. is an American record producer and musician. A conductor, musical arranger, film composer, television producer, and trumpeter. His career spans five decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 27 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend...

, Leo Sayer

Leo Sayer

Leo Sayer is a British singer-songwriter, musician, and entertainer whose singing career has spanned four decades. Sayer became a naturalised Australian citizen in 2009. Sayer was a top singles and album act on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1970s...

, Russ Taff

Russ Taff

Russell Taff is an American gospel singer who is originally from Farmersville, California. Taff later then moved to Arkansas where he graduated from Cutter-Morning Star High School in Hot Springs, Arkansas....

, Engelbert Humperdinck

Engelbert Humperdinck (singer)

Engelbert Humperdinck is a British pop singer, best known for his hits including "Release Me " and "After the Lovin'" as well as "The Last Waltz" .-Early life:...

, Andy Summers

Andy Summers

Andy Summers is an English guitarist born in Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire, England. Best known as the guitarist for rock band The Police, he has also recorded twelve solo albums, collaborated with many other artists, toured extensively under his own name, published several books, and composed...

, Umberto Tozzi

Umberto Tozzi

Umberto Antonio Tozzi is an Italian pop/rock singer and composer, born in Turin. His most internationally famous song is "Gloria" -Biography:...

, Ron Kenoly

Ron Kenoly

Ron Kenoly is an American Christian worship leader, singer, and songwriter whose expressed mission is "to create an environment for the manifest presence of God". His musical style is one of jubilant praise and individual excellence on musical instruments...

, Don Moen, Johnny Hallyday

Johnny Hallyday

Johnny Hallyday is a French singer and actor. An icon in the French-speaking world since the beginning of his career, he was considered by some to have been the French Elvis Presley. He was married for 15 years to one of the most popular French female singers: Sylvie Vartan...

, Crystal Lewis

Crystal Lewis

Crystal Lewis is an American contemporary Christian/Gospel vocalist, songwriter and author.-Early years:Lewis grew up singing in her father's church...

, Lalo Schifrin

Lalo Schifrin

Lalo Schifrin is an Argentine composer, pianist and conductor. He is best known for his film and TV scores, such as the "Theme from Mission: Impossible". He has received four Grammy Awards and six Oscar nominations...

, Herbie Hancock

Herbie Hancock

Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...

, Chris Isaak

Chris Isaak

Christopher Joseph "Chris" Isaak is an American rock musician and occasional actor.-Early life:Isaak was born in Stockton, California, the son of Dorothy , a potato chip factory worker, and Joe Isaak, a forklift driver. Isaak's mother is Italian American, originating from Genoa...

, Paul Jackson Jr., and Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson

Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...

. When Laboriel recorded his three solo albums (Dear Friends, Guidum, and Justo & Abraham), he recruited a cast of musicians that included Alex Acuña

Alex Acuña

Alejandro Neciosup Acuña aka Alex Acuña is a Peruvian drummer and percussionist, in the Afro-Cuban jazz style.Born in Pativilca, Peru, Acuña played in local bands from the age of ten, and moved to Lima as a teenager. At the age of eighteen he joined the band of Perez Prado, and in 1967 he moved...

, Al Jarreau

Al Jarreau

Alwin "Al" Lopez Jarreau is a seven-time Grammy Award winning jazz singer.- Background :Jarreau was born in Milwaukee, the fifth of six children. His web site refers to Reservoir, Inc., the name of the street where he lived. His father was a Seventh-Day Adventist Church minister and singer, and...

, Jim Keltner

Jim Keltner

James Lee "Jim" Keltner is an American drummer known primarily for his session work. He has contributed to the work of many well-known artists...

, Phillip Bailey, Ron Kenoly

Ron Kenoly

Ron Kenoly is an American Christian worship leader, singer, and songwriter whose expressed mission is "to create an environment for the manifest presence of God". His musical style is one of jubilant praise and individual excellence on musical instruments...

, and others.

Laboriel was a founding member of the bands Friendship and Koinonia

Koinonia (band)

In the 1970s and 80’s, a fusion in jazz music occurred giving birth to a new, more electrified and diverse genre called jazz-funk. Some notable pioneers in this genre were: The Crusaders, Weather Report, Herbie Hancock, Alphonse Mouzon, Chick Corea, Lee Ritenour, Azymuth, Eumir Deodato, Jeff...

. He plays live regularly with Greg Mathieson, drummer Bill Maxwell, and Justo Almario. Abraham is now in the band Open Hands with Justo Almario, Greg Mathieson, and Bill Maxwell.

In 2005, Abraham was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music by the Berklee College of Music.