Editing Rick Laird (section)

===Later career===
Laird retired as a performing musician in 1982.<ref name=BP99/> He became a successful photographer and bass teacher. He authored two intermediate- to advanced-level bass books. In 1999, Laird had started to compose on his daughter's iMac computer. He said: "I have no agenda. It's just for my own enjoyment. Besides, I've come to realise our main gig on this planet is not what we do for a living – it's to find out who we are, and to learn how to love ourselves and love others."<ref name=BP99/> Laird was one of a handful of musicians to play an [[S. D. Curlee]], which was his principal fretted bass.<ref name=GP80/>

In March 2009, Laird discovered a collection of photographs that he had taken of musical artists, including [[Miles Davis]], [[Chick Corea]], [[Wayne Shorter]], the Mahavishnu Orchestra, [[Elvin Jones]], [[Keith Jarrett]] and many others. Much of his collection was posted online.<ref>[http://jazz.com/jazz-blog/2009/3/5/the-jazz-photography-of-richard-laird "The Photography of Richard Laird"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090612234449/http://jazz.com/gallery/richard-laird }} at Jazz.com; accessed 12 October 2022.</ref>