Takashi Mizuhashi (水橋孝, Mizuhashi Takashi in Japanese order), known to the Japanese jazz world as "Gon" and credited on many sleeves as Takashi "Gon" Mizuhashi, is a double bassist born on 2 March 1943 in Yubari, Hokkaido. His official biography says he is better known as "Gon Mizuhashi" than under his full name, and Gon is the nickname that follows him through the credits.

His first documented sessions come at the end of the 1960s. In January 1969 he played bass on Chris Connor's Softly and Swingin', recorded at Aoi Studio in Tokyo with the George Otsuka trio, the guitarist Shungo Sawada and the pianist Hideo Ichikawa. Japanese Wikipedia dates his entry into Otsuka's group to 1970, and the credits bear that out: Otsuka is the drummer on the sessions that followed, among them the quintet records Sea Breeze (Union, 1971) and Go On (Three Blind Mice, 1972) and the Isao Suzuki date Blow Up (1973). The same Wikipedia entry lists the trios of the pianists Masaru Imada, Yuji Ohno and Kunihiko Sugano as his early working homes, and the credits agree: he is the bassist on Imada's Now!! and Maki (both 1970), on the Yuji Ohno Trio's side of the live double album Trio By Trio + 1 (recorded at Yamaha Hall in Ginza on 20 May 1970), and on Sugano's piano date Blow Up. In the same years he played on the vocalist Kimiko Kasai's Just Friends, recorded live at Yamaha Hall on 16 September 1970, and on Kohsuke Mine's Mine, the first release on the Three Blind Mice label (recorded 4 and 5 August 1970).

Three Blind Mice, the audiophile label run by the producer Takeshi Fujii, became his base through the first half of the 1970s. He is the bassist on Shigeko Toya's Fine And Mellow (1973), on Toshio Oida's It Was A Very Good Year (recorded March 1976, with Kunimitsu Inaba as the second bassist) and on George Kawaguchi's The Big 4 (April 1976). His own records began there too. In March 1974 he led a quartet with the altoist Yoshio Otomo, the pianist Fumio Karashima and the drummer Hideo Sekine at the "5 Days In Jazz" concerts at Nihon Toshi Center Hall; the live set, with the tenor saxophonist Seiichi Nakamura and the trombonist Shigeharu Mukai joining on the long closing piece, came out as When A Man Loves A Woman. On 28 August 1974 the same quartet recorded Who Cares at Aoi Studio, and on 17 and 18 February 1975 he and Otomo, Sekine and the pianist Junichiro Ohkuchi backed the singer Yoshiko Goto on Day Dream. Japanese Wikipedia says he formed his own trio in 1974 and has worked as both leader and sideman with Japanese and visiting foreign players since.

Japanese Wikipedia counts about a dozen albums under his own name, and the best known of them is the one that took him to New York. On 22 February 1977 he recorded One Tuesday in New York at A&R Recording Studio with Herbie Hancock on piano and electric piano, Bruno Carr on drums and a second bassist, Teruo Nakamura; German Wikipedia calls it the first production of Denon's new jazz label. Hancock, according to Mizuhashi's official biography and Japanese Wikipedia, called him the most soulful Japanese man, and wrote "Blues for Gonsan" for him; the album opens with it, as "Blues For Gon-San". Back in Tokyo the next year he made two records for Denon with the pianist Mickey Tucker, the drummer Horacee Arnold, the trumpeter Cecil Bridgewater and the tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp, recorded on 2 and 12 June 1978 and issued as Early Summer in Tokyo and Gon's Delight. Shepp then took him into his own Tray of Silver (Tokyo, 11 April 1979, with Roy Brooks on drums), and his official biography adds that Shepp invited him on a European concert tour of about three months. Mizuhashi also went the other way across the Pacific: on 15 and 16 November 1978 he was the bassist on Mickey Tucker's Theme For A Woogie-Boogie at Sound Ideas Studios in New York, a trip that his official biography says Tucker paid for. In 1978 and 1979 he is on the pianist Dave Burrell's Tokyo sessions (Lush Life, Round Midnight, issued on Denon) and on Marion Brown's 79118 Live, recorded in Hirosaki on 8 November 1979.

From 1976 on, one name keeps coming back. The official biography calls him the right-hand man of the drummer George Kawaguchi, with whom he played for more than a quarter-century, from the Big 4 era to the Big 4 + 1, and the credits trace the partnership from The Big 4 through George Kawaguchi Plays Herbie Hancock (1987, with Terence Blanchard and Donald Harrison) to Big Apple (2000) and the 2008 tribute record by the New Big 4 + 1. The official biography adds that he has worked with Sadao Watanabe, Terumasa Hino and nearly every other first-rank Japanese musician. He also kept working as an accompanist: on the organist Ushio Sakai's Blues Meeting (1993), billed as featuring the guitarist Sunao Wada, and on records by the vocalists Eri Kayama (Lady For Lady, 1994, with Makoto Terashita arranging), Keiko Yamami, Ryoko Tomita, Chiharu and Misa Hayama, and by the pianists Takashi Miyazawa, Yumiko Matsutake and Atsushi Kawasaki.

His own later records are trio and duo programmes of standards. Waltz For Debby (Dedicated To Bill Evans) was recorded on 7 October 1994 with the pianist Toshiyuki Daitoku, the guitarist Akira Shiomoto and Hideo Sekine. One By One (MJ Records, 1997) is a trio with the pianist Hiroshi Tanaka and the drummer Taro Koyama, and Mr. Bojangles (Woody Creek, 1998) is a piano and bass duo with Tanaka recorded at Denen Hall Ellora in August 1997. 1 2 2 3 (Calwave U.S.A., 2007) was cut in September 2007 with the pianist Tsuyoshi Yamamoto and the singer Asuka Watanabe. His discography as a sideman is long: the German Wikipedia entry, citing Tom Lord's jazz discography, counts 51 recording sessions between 1969 and 2012.

Off the bandstand, Mizuhashi has been the chairman of the Japan Bass Players Club (ジャパン・ベース・プレイヤーズ・クラブ), a post his official site said he had held for sixteen years as of 2006. By the same page he plays an annual Christmas charity concert whose proceeds go to UNICEF Japan; the edition it announced was the ninth.

Mizuhashi is a mainstream and post-bop bassist, and the evidence for that is in his repertoire and in how other players describe him. His own albums are built from standards ("Alone Together", "Falling In Love With Love", "Stolen Moments", "Have You Met Miss Jones"), jazz repertoire by Miles Davis, Benny Golson, Oliver Nelson and Ron Carter, and bossa nova ("Manha de Carnaval", "Vera Cruz"). Waltz For Debby is dedicated to Bill Evans, and Who Cares and Day Dream were cut for Three Blind Mice, the label that also recorded Imada, Mine and Otsuka in those years. Discogs lists Who Cares under Post Bop and Modal.

His official biography credits him with accurate backing and a gift for the ad lib solo, and quotes Herbie Hancock's remark about his blues feeling. It also says that Ron Carter, after sharing a stage with him, took his hand in the wings and called him a bassist with a music of his own. The blues feeling shows on record in the opening track of One Tuesday in New York, in "Blues For Andrew" on Who Cares and in the Ron Carter tune "United Blues" on One By One.