Jazz double bassist Kells Nollenberger has conducted an interesting interview on double bass gear with Steve Rodby. Rodby has played bass on every Pat Metheny Group record since 1980, co-produced the group’s last five albums and won 10 Grammy Awards with the group. He has toured with jazz greats Joe Henderson and Tony Bennett, and also works regularly as a producer.
In this interview, Rodby shares his experience in amplifying the double bass, and talks about pickups’s impedance, phase cancelling, feedback, and bass sound in general. Rodby really has in-depth knowledge about amplifying techniques, so I absolutely recommend to listen to this podcast, which can be accessed through Jason Heath’s Contrabass Conversations or iTunes.
While I’m looking forward to see bassist/singer Esperanza Spaldings (mentioned in my blog before several times …) on her concert tour in Germany next month, I just stumpled upon another young and promising female jazz bassist this morning: Brandi Disterheft from Canada. Oscar Peterson said about her: “She has the same lope or rhythmic pulse as my bass player, Ray Brown. She is what we call serious.” So I listened to some tracks of her first CD Debut (Superfran Records, 2007; samples availabale at Brandi’s website), and she really sounds great! On Debut, Brandi Disterheft not only plays bass, she also wrote the music, influenced by Charles Mingus and Bjørk. “They are not just original, but appear to have come from a voice so distinctive that one can safely say, ‘You’ve never heard anything like this before.’”, says Raul d’Gama Rose at AllAboutJazz about Brandi’s music.
The Washtub Bass Page is a focal point and clearinghouse for information on all aspects of the washtub bass - who plays one, where to hear one, how to make one, and so on. The page offers links, building tips, sound clips, picture galleries amd many more. “We’re not narrow-minded (washtub bass people can’t afford to be), so our scope includes the tea-chest bass, the gas-tank bass and the like, and even the occasional cigarbox guitar or fiddle.“
Published on August 2, 2008
in News.
While cleaning up my backup CD shelf, I’ve found a very early version of my DoubleBassGuide website from 1997. Wow, this is more than ten years ago! I remember that back then, I used a HTML-editor called Page Spinner and Photoshop 2.5 with Mac OS 7 or 8 running on a Quadra 950 …
As far as I remember, Spam wasn’t invented yet at this time, either. Good old times 
Latest Comments