Ashley John Long is a double bassist and composer active in a diverse range of musical idioms including Jazz and Improvisation, Session Music, Early and Contemporary Chamber Music, and as a Soloist.



Since graduating from the RWCMD in 2008 he has maintained a busy and varied freelance career which has taken in many strands. 

He has performed and recorded with some of the UK's leading Jazz musicians and performed internationally as a soloist giving premiers of numerous new works for solo bass. A virtuoso improviser, Ash has developed a unique approach to the instrument creating innovative new performance techniques including methods of preparing the bass whilst performing and recording with some of the music's leading players and released a solo disc Psi on FMR in 2017.



As a composer, Ash has carved a niche as a creator of innovative scores that balance fine detail with freedom and flexibility whilst retaining a strong melodic sense. Recent commissions have been acclaimed for their original and inventive writing including; Flux (2006) and Hevelspending (2010) for the Lunar Saxophone Quartet, Songs of the Night (2007) for Joel Garthwaite, and XAS (2008) for himself and Louis-Michel Marion and Dance Miniatures (2013) for the Syzygy Saxophone Quartet and Shelter (2015) and Peacekeeping (2017), chamber operas for Asking4it productions. He has also conducted composition workshops for Art Active in Jazz composition and led school based composition projects resulting in the orchestral pieces The Island (2017) and Prometheus (2018).



He was awarded a PhD scholarship by Cardiff University in 2015 where he is undertaking research into contemporary performance practice and composition.



Ashley is a D'Addario Performing Artist and uses Zyex and Helicore bass strings.