The death of David Bowie on January 10, 2016, was a major loss for the music world and the creative arts overall. Like Miles Davis in jazz, Bowie's drive to constantly reinvent himself led to much innovation in the rock and pop realms (not to mention film, fashion, theater, and other media). Along the way, the U.K. native left a considerable low-end legacy in his music.

The roughly two-dozen bassists who recorded with Bowie range from session players like Herbie Flowers, Willie Weeks, and Tony Levin, to band members who made important road and studio contributions, such as Trevor Bolder, George Murray, Carmine Rojas, and Gail Ann Dorsey, to bass-playing producers Mark Plati and Bowie's longest-running foil, Tony Visconti.

Bowie's final album, the Visconti-produced Blackstar, added another forefront name to that list in Tim Lefebvre. The veteran of Wayne Krantz's trio and Tedeschi Trucks Band was also a member of saxophonist Donny McCaslin's acclaimed quartet, with drummer Mark Guiliana and keyboardist Jason Lindner.

While collaborating with the Maria Schneider Orchestra in 2014 for his song Sue (Or in a Season of Crime), Bowie met McCaslin, who was one of the track's soloists. Having checked out McCaslin's album Casting for Gravity, Bowie went to see the quartet at 55 Bar in New York's Greenwich Village, leading to the unit's pivotal role as the backing band on Blackstar.

“Working with David was great,” Lefebvre told Bass Player back in 2018. “He was very hands-on and warm and witty – he told me he liked the Tedeschi Trucks Band. Still, when I first heard his voice in my headphones, there was that moment of, ‘My God! I'm recording with David Bowie!’ He meant a lot to so many people, and it's a real honor to be a small part of his legacy.”

The track that perhaps best captures the quartet's magic and Lefebvre's deep-pocketed creativity is Lazarus, the first single from the album, and also the name of Bowie's Off-Broadway play.

Having previously received a demo of the song (for which Lefebvre made his own basic chart), the quartet ran the tune down to check the form, and then cut live to Bowie's scratch vocal. Lefebvre would later overdub his intro part and Bowie later added his final vocal and the guitar power chords.