Ira Coleman

[richhansen]

Been listening to Herbie Hancock's "Gershwin's World" as of late. Does anyone know what kind of strings, bass and setup Ira Coleman uses? His tone is just beautiful.

Thanks

[Eric Hochberg]

I'm with you on that. One of my favorite albums and Ira sounds great. I hung with him a few years ago as we were on a tour together in Germany. He was playing the prototype of the Czech-Ease bass he developed with David Gage. We talked about the Gershwin's World sessions - he was really knocked out about playing on that one. Sorry, don't know about his setup.

[uprightbass.com]

He's incredible on Bob Belden's Black Dahlia also. He should have more recognition in the bass community based on his abilities and the people he has played with.

Ira changes setups fairly frequently, so I don't know what he used for that particular album. For live music, he used a String Charger pickup + condenser mic on his Czech Ease for a while. I've heard that he's also tried a full circle + String Charger for a period. Preferred strings aren't consistent either. Helicore, Spiros, and others.

I doubt that he used the Czech Ease for the recordings. The sound engineers usually prefer to use the track with their mic over the pickup tracks anyhow so I would do a best guess based on tone that it's a carved 3/4 with Spirocores.

[Eric Hochberg]

Originally Posted by uprightbass.com

I doubt that he used the Czech Ease for the recordings. The sound engineers usually prefer to use the track with their mic over the pickup tracks anyhow so I would do a best guess based on tone that it's a carved 3/4 with Spirocores.

John Esposito gave me one of his recordings featuring Ira, and he was playing a Czech Ease on that. Fairly lame sounding in that context. John told me Ira was sorry he used it.