One of the longest running and most commercially successful acts to come from London’s ‘acid jazz’ scene, Jamiroquai came to the attention of UK audiences in the early 1990s with two successful albums – Emergency On Planet Earth (1993) and Return Of The Space Cowboy (1994) – that blended a number of influences from funk, soul, jazz and pop into a winning formula.

The group found international fame following the release of 1997’s Travelling Without Moving, which spawned the hit singles ‘Cosmic Girl’ and ‘Virtual Insanity’, which won no less than 4 categories at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards, bringing Jamiroquai to the attention of North America and beyond.

‘Runaway’ is taken from Jamiroquai’s compilation album High Times: Singles 1992-2016 that was principally released to fulfill their contractual obligations with Sony and allow them to switch labels to Columbia. The album featured two new tracks, ‘Runaway’ and ‘Radio’, the former featuring a cracking bass line courtesy of Paul Turner.

Paul Turner’s ‘Runaway’ bassline

Jamiroquai have had a serious roster of bassists over the years: Stuart Zender, Nick Fyffe, Derrick McIntyre (who graced a handful of tracks on the Dynamite album), and, most recently, Paul Turner. Every era of the band has its share of great basslines, and ‘Runaway’ might be my pick of Paul’s contributions:

Jamiroquai – ‘Runaway’ bass transcription PDF

And yes, the whole thing is a massive nod to ‘Running Away’ by Roy Ayers: this post deals with the similarities between the two.