David Sutkin

David Sutkin decided to play bass at 12 years old, inspired by the advice of his Jazz Saxophonist Father, who told him “if you always want to work, be a bass player with solid chops”.

David seems to have taken this philosophy in the corporate world as well, as he has spent the last 12 years as a Managing Sales Director for a global Fortune 1000 business with supervised teams spread over 12 countries.

In four decades of bass playing, David’s exploits are too numerous to list, but mentioning the pivotal moments is a must:

In the music scene, David is a crucial member of the Brooklyn-based band Apollo’s Ghost. Other members include Ben Curtis on guitar and Ray Mazza on drums. Three albums are out, a first eponymous album in 2018, 2019 “Second Summer” and 2022 “AG3”. A fourth album is in the making, with a few singles already out there.

As a member of the bass player community, David founded Bass Upfront in 2021, a facebook based bass player community boasting 20K members and counting. The group aims at connecting bass players, luthiers and music enthusiasts. The atmosphere of the community is one of great respect, thanks to the good will of all its members and the tireless work of its moderators (the so-called “BU-Admin”). If you are interested to become a member, you can click HERE (please note no corporate pages can join, only private people).

We also have to mention David being a bass collector “extraordinaire”. His two “Head Quarters”, in Brooklyn and in Pennsylvania boast a collection of over 325 basses at the moment along with hundreds of pedals and dozens of heads and cabinets. His favorite, and main gigging bass is a 2019 charcoal frost Fender CS “Postmodern P bass”. But make no mistake, even if his favourite bears a big name, David has also decided to explore the talents of many smaller boutique basses. He, and the BU Admin have done the most amazing publicity for all these smaller luthiers since the foundation of Bass Upfront. We all owe him a huge thanks.

I was fortunate to meet David at the 2022 NAMM show. I participated at one of the first Bass Upfront sponsored Saturday evening NAMM dinners at Morton’s Steakhouse for pro players and exceptional luthiers, both mainstream and boutique. David was never a Cortex Napoleon fan, not his kind of axe… but as soon a s the Ganesha came out, we were honoured that he bought the first one ever made… So now, he has officially joined the Cortex Bass family of artists. We are so proud.