Miroslav Vitous
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Miroslav Vitous (born 6 December 1947) is a Czech jazz bassist.
Vitous was born in Prague and studied at Prague Conservatory and Berklee College of Music.
Vitous is a virtuoso, and plays jazz bass, from a technical standpoint, arguably as well as anyone in the history of the music. (Some competitors include Ray Brown, Scott LaFaro, Dave Holland and Christian McBride.)
A representative example of Vitous's double bass playing is Now He Sings, Now He Sobs (1968), with Chick Corea on piano and Roy Haynes on drums. Listeners to that album will notice his strong rhythmic sense, his innovative walking lines, and his intensity and abandon as an improviser.
His first album as a leader, Infinite Search, re-released with minor changes as Mountain In The Clouds featured the cream of the budding jazz fusion movement: John McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock, Jack DeJohnette, and (slightly) elder statesman Joe Henderson.
A founding member of the group Weather Report, he has worked with Jan Hammer, Freddie Hubbard, Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul, and Jan Garbarek.
Vitous's departure from Weather Report was not entirely amicable, which he has since discussed openly with various journalists. Apparently his relationship with Zawinul was/is not good. The bassist who took Vitous's place in Weather Report was Alphonso Johnson, who was later replaced by another brilliant bassist named Jaco Pastorius.
As a young man and while still in Europe, Vitous had some significant success in competitive swimming.