Jymie Merritt

Jymie Merritt (born in 1926 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is a classically trained American bass player who has worked in jazz, rhythm and blues, and blues. He has worked with Bull Moose Jackson, B. B. King, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, John Coltrane, Chet Baker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Max Roach, among others. He invented the Ampeg bass (a hybrid acoustic-electric instrument) and founded Forerunner, a community organization in Philadelphia.