Bass Player Steps Out on His Own : Jazz: After seven years with Chick Corea, John Patitucci further builds his reputation by going solo.

If you consider the bass to be an unlikely instrument for a jazz band leader, John Patitucci could change your mind.

For the last seven years, the jazz bassist has had an enviable platform on which to display his talents. As a member of Chick Corea’s Elektric and the Grammy-winning Akoustic Band, he proved himself as one of the few bass players who showed equal mastery of the electric and upright acoustic basses.

Within three years after joining Corea’s bands, many critics anointed the then-28-year-old as the standard-bearer for young bass players.

His reputation quickly spread to the pop and rock world. He found himself in the recording studios playing bass for artists such as Bonnie Raitt, Was Not Was, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd and Andrew Strong of the Commitments.

Then Patitucci surprised the jazz world when word spread this year that he was leaving Corea’s band to begin a solo career.

“I wanted to play in my own band and stretch out a little bit,” said Patitucci at his Long Beach home. “It was almost like when you grow up and it’s time to leave home and start your own life.”

Serving as a sideman for different musicians at L.A. club dates is still a part of his life. Patitucci plays tonight through Sunday with pianist Alan Pasqua and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta at the Catalina Bar & Grill in Hollywood.

Patitucci also said he had grown road-weary. Touring with Corea’s two bands kept him in concert halls, airports and tour buses in the United States, Europe and and Japan nearly five months out of the year.

“I’m a Christian and very family-oriented,” he said. “I didn’t enjoy being apart from my wife. However, you have to figure out a balance. Because if God gave you music as a gift to touch people, it’s difficult to do that if you never go out and play. You can’t just sit in your house and play.”

The tool of Patitucci’s trade is a custom-made Yamaha six-string bass that can sound like an upright bass one minute and solo as passionately as a guitar the next. For traditional jazz, he plays an upright acoustic bass.

So far, he has proven that he can at least get jazz aficionados listening to his records. In 1988, he released his first album on GRP Records while working with the Elektric Band. The self-titled album rose to No. 1 on Billboard magazine’s jazz charts and earned him a Grammy nomination. His second album, “On the Corner,” also got a Grammy nomination.

Trying to break out with a group of his own will be a challenge, Patitucci admitted. This winter, he settled on keyboardist John Beasley, who toured with Miles Davis; Vinnie Colaiuta, a session drummer who toured with Sting last year, and saxophonist and EWI player Steve Tavaglione.

“I learned from Chick how to get in touch with musicians,” he said. “How to let them be themselves, to flourish and grow and have the setting to grow. He also treats his musicians with a lot of respect. I had a lot of freedom, and he was really good to me.”

Patitucci’s next album, to be released in August, “Heart of the Bass,” will be perhaps his most ambitious and risky project. The album will feature Patitucci playing a combination of chamber music and jazz.

“I want to branch out and show people that the bass can be an interesting instrument,” he said. “I did some solo pieces with Bach compositions on the six-string electric bass. I also did a duet with Chick with a string quartet with a piano and bass. That was really a lot of fun.”