Bass player Jerry Scheff grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, started playing tuba in grammar school and, by seventh grade, got into playing string bass. His musical bent was toward jazz and R&B. By age fifteen he was playing in clubs in his new hometown of Sacramento and back in San Francisco. As a high school senior Scheff joined the U.S. Navy and wound up in the Navy's school of music in Washington, D.C. taking a nine-month course studying theory and harmony and getting to play with some great musicians. After the course ended he stayed on to teach, moonlighting as a player in jazz clubs, then the Navy transferred him to San Diego. Some time after his service discharge Scheff moved to Los Angeles and played regularly at a club called The Sands in Watts, where a teen-aged Billy Preston often appeared doing James Brown covers. Oddly enough, bass player Scheff began his work in the L.A. recording session scene playing valve trombone.