When Dave Anderson was a young child the first record his mom ever bought him was a 45 of Simon and Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson." Anderson played the song so often he wore out the record.

Today, Anderson, 51, is still playing the song, only now he plays it as the bass player in Art Garfunkel's band, and he gets to recreate for others the magic he found in that music as a child.

"Seeing rows of people, of all ages, in tears as we played songs like `Bridge Over Troubled Water" is something I'll never forget," said the New Fairfield resident. "I've learned a lot working with Artie about pursuing and maintaining a very high standard of excellence. I remember him saying once that it was that painstaking bit of polishing when you got to the last 1 percent in pursuing greatness that separated the men from the boys."

Anderson is among those men. Thanks to his lifelong devotion to music, jazz players in the New York and Connecticut music scene are awed by his skill and some of music's biggest names have sought out the talents of this mild-mannered bass master. In addition to Garfunkel, he has worked with such artists and bands as Blood Sweat & Tears, Smokey Robinson and Joe Beck.

On his New Fairfield property, Anderson owns and operates a recording studio called Flying Squirrel Studio, which is named in honor of an actual flying squirrel that had been living in his studio space when he bought the place. When he's not touring, Anderson records a variety of regional acts at the studio. He also plays regularly with various jazz groups at Pizzeria Lauretano in Bethel, and at the Tuesday open mic night at 59 Bank Street in New Milford, which is hosted by his friend Chris Ellis.

Though born in New Jersey, Anderson grew up in the Nutmeg State in the little town of Washington. The seeds of his love of music were planted early.

"My parents were both musicians," he said. "My mom did singing gigs on weekends as a featured soloist with various choral and singing groups and would often drag me along. She worked for years with a local group called the Kent Singers that I joined her in, briefly, after I attended Berklee and was still living locally. My dad was moonlighting as a sax player on weekends in New Jersey before I was born, when he was teaching music there early in his career. "

Anderson's first instrument was the clarinet, not the bass. However, when he went to high school he got into rock 'n' roll and made the switch to the bass. He also started playing gigs.

"I joined my dad in a big band up in Torrington, comprised of older guys from the musicians' union up there, when I was in high school and was first starting to play jobs," he said.

Already hooked on the music lifestyle in high school, Anderson decided to further his education by attending Berklee College of Music in the 1980s. He was one of the lucky few, skilled and dedicated enough to forge a successful career in his chosen field.

Recently back from a tour of Russia with saxophonist Bill Evans and Evans' group, Soulgrass, Anderson, who is single, said touring can be grueling, but he enjoys it.

"I tour three to four months a year. It's enough that I can enjoy a nice change of scenery on a regular basis, but not so much that my kitties forget who I am when I get home," he said. "One thing we say about touring work is, we don't get paid to play, we get paid to travel. The travel is really the hard part, getting in and out of airports, the flying, long drives, hotel rooms and all that kind of stuff. But the payoff is when you're on stage and you get to play some great music. It is a great way to see the world."

Anderson believes there is nothing like the feeling you get when you step on stage and everything clicks.

"The rewards are in those special moments when all the work you put in pays off. You're in the company of other musicians and there's a real connection between the musicians and the audience," he said. "That's something special. That can happen whether you're playing for 25 people at a little nightclub or coffeehouse, or it can happen if you're playing for 10,000. The experience is the same either way."

Dave Anderson will perform with the Jones Factor, a 10-piece jazz-fusion big band led by trombonist John Fumasoli, at the Shapeshifter Lab in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Thursday, Jan. 16. Visit www.daveandersonbass.com.

Levon Ofgang is a freelance writer in Connecticut; levonofgang@gmail.com