Famous Jazz bassists and their basses!

[Bijoux]

I've been wondering how much the basses of the guys that are well known cost.
I still enjoy listening to old records. before there were any amps and all the fancy stuff we talk about today. A lot of stuff sounds fantastic and some records not so much.
I was reading on the Mingus book that he sent $900 on a bass, and then later on $2200 on another bass, etc.
I also remember hearing that Dave Friedsen's bass cost an obscene amount of money!
So i am wondering if you guys have any good stories.
Thank you.

[jazzEADG]

sorry, double post.

[jazzEADG]

some guy in the Toronto Symphony Orchestra plays Ray Brown's last bass
got it for $250,000 or something, I can't remember. "too much" is the price I give it

[Bijoux]

I wonder how much Ray brown paid for that...

[Bijoux]

I heard years ago that John Patitucci got his Pollman for about $1000! don't know if it's true, but I do know that was the bass the he used for most of his career. I don't know what he has now but it sure sounds great.

[davidAaronCarte]

Originally Posted by Bijoux

I heard years ago that John Patitucci got his Pollman for about $1000! don't know if it's true, but I do know that was the bass the he used for most of his career. I don't know what he has now but it sure sounds great.

When I saw him last winter, he said that he'd been playing it since he started

On another note, my girlfriend's dad is playing Don Thompson's old bass
And my buddy now has the Kay Dave Young owned and played on Live at Bourbon Street with Lenny Breau

[txstatebass]

Bromberg said he bought his 300 year old Guersam for about $300 at a pawn shop. Lucky.

[Bijoux]

Originally Posted by txstatebass

Bromberg said he bought his 300 year old Guersam for about $300 at a pawn shop. Lucky.

wow! that's pretty incredible! have you seen on Lemur's website how much the copies of that bass cost!!!

[bassist14]

some years ago there was a similar very long thread with some pics etc, maybe you can search it

[jsbarber]

Originally Posted by Bijoux

I wonder how much Ray brown paid for that...

I believe it was a gift from his wife, the one and only Ella Fitzgerald.

Jim

[Sam Sherry]

Last month's JazzTimes has a picture of Ray Brown's bass with its current owner, John Clayton. Mr. Clayton is in the Blindfold Test and they play an RB cut. He says something like, 'I know that's Ray; I'm just listening to hear which bass it is. Aha! It's THAT one (points to his own bass).'

Many interviews report that Brian Bromberg's Dad bought him his bass when he was a kid. Mr. Bromberg pokes his head in here sometimes; maybe he'll talk in detail about it some day.

[Bruce Lindfield]

Jazzwise magazine had a small article about the great UK player Alec Dankworth :

Wednesday, 07 February 2007 15:55
Alec Dankworth’s journey to the nether regions of the bass clef began in 1974 when “the bass player left the band I was playing in.”

Dankworth had started out on the guitar, but because his dad John, the alto saxophonist and composer, “had this very strange bass lying around the house” he felt almost obliged to pick it up and lay down the lower line.

“Soon afterwards I got myself a Fender Mustang”, he says, “closely
followed by an Aria Pro 2 with a long scale neck". But it was a bit of a shock “finding that I had to stretch my hands a bit more.” In 1977, he took up a place at the Berklee College of Music, where he played all sorts of electric basses.

“It was like guitar world. Over the year and a half I was there, I got to try out a new instrument almost every two weeks”. The one that sticks in his mind more than any other is the Schecter. “This instrument could be bought as a modular system. You select the neck, the type of body and the pick ups. But with the exotic woods, they’re not cheap.” Being at Berklee meant that he was also spending a lot of his time listening to the acoustic bass.

“I was enjoying the natural sonority of the instrument. So when I returned to the UK in 1980, one of the first things I did was to pick up a copy of Exchange And Mart and look through the back pages to see if I could find an acoustic bass that was being sold privately”. Dankworth was fortunate to pick up a Mittenwald 1870 German-made factory bass for the princely sum of £400. “It’s a small 3/4 short scale bass”, he says. “It has a very distinctive sound all of its own. It’s not a deep bass with a lot of bottom end and it may not be as deep and resonant as other basses. But it has got an attack and centre that I like for jazz playing.”

Twenty-five years later and Dankworth still gigs with the Mittenwald, as he has never been able to find another instrument that produces the same unique sonic qualities. “When I’m in New York I go to [string instrument repairer] David Gage’s shop. I’ve played on basses that cost £25,000, thinking ‘now I’ll find one that I like’. But the sound doesn’t necessarily relate to the price of the instrument – and then there’s always the antique value”. Dankworth’s search for, and experimentation with, the character and quality of sound never ceases. “I tried gut strings a little while ago, which I really liked. But my electric bass style fingering made things a bit tricky. It makes a warmer sound, but then again it limits the type of music you can play.”

So how does he amplify his acoustic instrument? “They still have a problem with acoustic bass amplifiication”, he says. “The pickups are not ideal. That’s something that I have experimented with over the years. At the moment I’m back to Underwood, having tried both the Fishman and the David Gage pick ups and mikes.”

For the future Dankworth has been contemplating purchasing a travel bass. “The difficulties of flying with a big instrument are getting more problematic these days. I’ve tried ‘stick’ basses, but the sound is too much like an electric instrument. I like the idea of something that David Gage has come out with recently. It’s called the ‘Czech travel’ bass. It’s a normal bass with the bottom bit below the bridge removed, so there’s a lot of acoustic chamber still there. There’s also a bass that’s half as deep as a normal bass – sort of cello size. I shall be looking at that, too.”

http://www.jazzwisemagazine.com/the-...th-double-bass

[Greg Clinkingbeard]

My friend Bob Bowman bought his Pollman in the 70's for $700-brand new. He's toured with many of the greats with that bass and sees no need to get anything else. It's a nice bass.

[Bruce Lindfield]

Here's another great Brit from Jazzwise :

Dave Green - Double Bass

Monday, 12 February 2007 12:15
David Gallant talks to the bassist who grew up next door to Charlie Watts, about how he got started, the instruments he has played over the years and his all time favourite choice.

"I started as a skiffle player with some school friends when I was about 13, in the mid-to-late-50s," says Green. "It was a trio. I got a tea chest, painted it and put a broom handle on it – great fun." Green’s love of the bass however, had started well before his skiffle days. "I used to spend Sunday evenings tuning into Radio Luxembourg listening in to the likes of Glenn Miller on the Chesterfield programmes," he says.

"My mum tells me that even then I used to hum along to the bass line when I was listening to the radio. I must have been about 10 or 11, it was an extraordinary period of discovery for me. There was this wonderful record by the Jess Stacey trio that I used to love and I still do love it. It was called ‘Barrelhouse’ and it had a very young Israel Crosby on bass (he was just 16) and Gene Krupa on drums. This was the disc that really started my love affair with the bass."

Green remembers copying the Israel Crosby bass solo from ‘Barrelhouse’, thrilled that he could actually do it. "It was my first major achievement, I wore that 78 out!" Then he discovered Duke Ellington and Jimmy Blanton, who played bass with Ellington from 1939-41. "Jimmy was a wonderful player and a great influence on me and still is to this day."

Green purchased his first "proper" bass in 1958 off a friend in one of the "rival" skiffle groups. "I was very jealous," he says. "This guy had a proper upright bass and all I had was an old tea chest. So when he wanted to sell it, I was right in there. It was an old English bass, about 1895, and cost me the princely sum of £15."

In 1963, Green turned pro and promptly went off to France for about six weeks on a gig. When he returned, he was fortunate to get a call from Humphrey Lyttelton, who asked Green to join him on a tour with Big Jo Turner and Buck Clayton. "That was a terrific experience," he says. "You know I stayed with Humph until 1983." But was Green still playing the old English bass that he had bought for £15? "No, I’d bought a 7/8th size Bohemian bass which got the nickname Big Ben," he says.
"I still have it, although I don’t play it any longer – it’s stuck upstairs in the bedroom. It’s a wonderful old instrument and it brings back so many wonderful memories, I could never sell it. It’s got a certain quality about it and a big bass end on it. When my old mate Phil Flanagan comes over once a year, I give it to him to play."

Green’s tenure with the Lyttelton band may have lasted many years, but in the mid-to-late 60s Green was one of the most sought after bassists in town. One of his earliest stints as a sideman was with Stan Tracey. "I remember meeting Stan when I started doing gigs at Ronnie Scott’s old place," says Green. "We really had a wonderful rapport together – it was wonderful to play with him, he’s such a strong player."

Such was the rapport, that Tracey invited Green to join his quartet in 1967 while Green was still playing with Humphrey Lyttelton. But he’s not quite sure how he managed to juggle all the gigs.
"At one point in the 60s I was playing with four or five different bands including those of Don Rendell and Michael Garrick, as well as backing some American stars at Ronnie’s such as Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Roland Kirk and Sonny Rollins."

‘Big Ben’ was semi-retired in 1976. "I think it’s a good thing to change instruments sometimes," says Green. "Playing different instruments gives you a different perspective on things." Green picked up a Louis Lowendahl bass as the replacement for Big Ben. "It’s a German bass circa 1860," he says. "A 3/4 with a lovely warm sound and I’ve been playing it ever since." Why a three quarter size I wondered? "I don’t like an instrument that’s too cumbersome and too big."

"You’ve got to feel at one with the instrument and I think that this really suits me, it’s a personal thing. It’s the size that suits me, the whole feel of the instrument that suits me. The 7/8 was fine too, but other basses tend to be too large for me, and anyway I haven’t got particularly large hands!"
Green’s string choice comes in the form of Thomastik mediums. "They seem to suit the Lowendahl. The tension of the strings seems about right and the overall feel seems to suit the bass pretty well. I did try Golden Spiral strings some years ago, which was a good string, but the tension didn’t suit the bass, so I decided to stick with the Thomasticks."

Basses are notoriously difficult to travel with, so how does Green cope? "OK, this was before I had a hard case," says Green. "But ever since a pair of Heathrow baggage handlers managed to punch a hole in the side of one of my instruments with their fork lift truck, I try to pick up a bass at the gig."