Few musicians can honestly say that they changed the way their instruments are heard. And that goes double for double bassists, who more often provide unobtrusive support than solo star turns. Yet Miroslav Vitous, who left his native Prague for New York in 1966 (in time to miss the Russian invasion), almost instantly raised the bar for improvising bass players. He was part of Chick Corea’s breakthrough trio on the influential album Now He Sings, Now He Sobs (almost an ad line for Vitous’s bow-heavy playing, by the way) and then a founding member of Weather Report.

“It’s not that what I was doing was so unusual for jazz,” says the 60-year-old Czech émigré, reached at his home near Turin, Italy. “It’s just that all the other bass players were so bad. Really, it was a holdover from early jazz, when there were tuba players in all the groups. When they switched to acoustic bass, they just kept going oom-pah, oom-pah, as before.”

In his own albums for ECM, Columbia, and other labels, Vitous subsequently experimented with bass guitars, eventually settling on electronic enhancements of the double bass as his main vehicle for expression. The important thing, he felt, was the elevation of the formerly bottom-dwelling instrument to a fully participatory role. Indeed, his soaring sound was a major influence on bassists who followed, such as Eberhard Weber, Victor Wooten, and of course his replacement in Weather Report, Jaco Pastorius.

“The main thing was to break out of the slave role,” he asserts. “If you look at the old groups, the rhythm section was essentially enslaved by the whims of the leader. I wanted to change that.”

Back in Europe for almost two decades now, Vitous sometimes misses the American jazz scene. Other aspects of life on this side of the pond not so much.

“Well, I’m a bit conflicted. After all, I did spend almost half my life over there. But I don’t think I could live in the U.S. anymore: food, culture, and politics. Well, you know.”

On the other hand, when we catch up with him he is happily packing his bags for a Canadian tour with long-time friend Jean Vanasse, a terrific Montreal-based vibraphone player with whom he recorded the delicious duet album Nouvelle Cuisine back in 1987.

“Yes, we played together more than 20 years ago, so this is kind of a small reunion,” Vitous says.

Food and culture are on his side for the moment. And two out of three ain’t bad.

Miroslav Vitous joins Jean Vanasse at the Roundhouse Community Centre on Friday (June 27).