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Double Bass Contemporary bass players that play gut strings.
- Thread starter 834federal
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About half of the roots players currently on the scene...
Depends how you define it, if you mean all four strings with the traditional silver wound A and E, very few still do that. Wolfe, Neil Caine, Carlos (i'm pretty sure he has multiple basses strung differently), i saw Ben Street last week and he had a full set of Genssler guts on an amazing new bass made by Jed Kriegel. There are a few guys who are using Eudoxa A's and E's, Ari Roland and Joel Forbes come to mind. And there are other guys using non gut bottom strings, Neal Miner using Spirocores under an Olive D and Golden Spiral G, i've seen Street and Jeremy Stratton wth the gut G & D over Spiro's Charlie Haden thing. When i played gut G's and D's i used Evah Weichs underneath and i really dug that setup
Thanks!
I haven't tried the evah/gut combo. Interesting!
Seems like Ben Street always some gut strings on there from the sounds of it. He's one of my favorites for sure. I'll have to keep an ear out for this new bass of his. I haven't heard him live in a few years.
I've been playing the Carlos Chordas recently and they're fantastic. I'm always listening to wolfe lately for inspiration, but I'm looking for others too.
How about Thomas Morgan? Is he an all gut guy?
I haven't tried the evah/gut combo. Interesting!
Seems like Ben Street always some gut strings on there from the sounds of it. He's one of my favorites for sure. I'll have to keep an ear out for this new bass of his. I haven't heard him live in a few years.
I've been playing the Carlos Chordas recently and they're fantastic. I'm always listening to wolfe lately for inspiration, but I'm looking for others too.
How about Thomas Morgan? Is he an all gut guy?
Chris Wood plays Olivs on top of a Spiro weich E.
edit: ...And if my memory serves me correctly Reid Anderson of The Bad Plus plays plain gut DG over Spiro W EA nowadays.
edit: ...And if my memory serves me correctly Reid Anderson of The Bad Plus plays plain gut DG over Spiro W EA nowadays.
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I've actually never seen Thomas play (gotta fix that) so I couldn't tell you. There are other guys not so well known, Murray Wall, Kelly Friesen, i think Frank Tate told me he had guts on one of his basses. Jamale Davis who's posted here recently has them on, and i haven't seen David Grossman (he of the NY Phil) play jazz lately but he always had a full gut set on his Juzek. A few gut guys switched to Velvets, John Webber, Lee Hudson and Tal Ronen come to mind
Bozo Paradzik. He says steel strings have too much tension for solo playing.
That was definitely the setup he was using a few months ago. Also lots of players out there using just a gut G.
His interview in Bass Player lists Gamut guts and Spiros, but he uses rental bass when he travels and probably can't always get gut strings.
- Steve
Reed was a big gut guy back in the day here in Philly, where he studied at Curtis.
A lot of players in trad jazz groups use gut. Two that come to mind are Beau Sample of The Fate Babies (Chicago) and John Joyce of The Smoking Time Jazz Club (New Orleans). Both of them are slap specialists. Here in Florida, Don Mopsick uses a full set of Chorda guts and high action. He was the bassist for Jim Cullum's band on the Riverwalk Jazz radio show.
- Steve
- Steve
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I remember him listing Charlie Haden as his hero, so I quess it`s sort of natutal setup for him. When touring he uses bass du jour, as Steve writes above.
I`d love to hear him again live, it`s over a decade ago I saw The Bad Plus here in Finland. I didn`t even play bass at the time and I listened to them with a drummers ear, as I was primarily a drummer back then. It was a game changer for me, I remember thinking that " now, there`s a hell of a band and greatest bassist I`ve ever heard live ".
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Last time I saw Larry Grenadier I'm pretty sure he was using guts over Obligatos. It was 2 or 3 years ago so I may have remembered wrongly...
Interesting. I heard Larry playing my friend's Kay here in Philly and it was unbelievable. I've played that same bass on gigs and it sounded NOTHING like it did in Larry's hands. I will never forget that.
There's also Thomas Morgan who uses genssler guts. Eric Revis uses Velvets with a gut G. Larry Grenadier seems to change his setup every once in a while but often has guts in there.
Ernst Glerum, Michael Bisio, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten & Wilbert DeJoode all do or have, some of them seem to switch back to steel.
Ingebrit Håker Flaten! Haven`t seen him with guts on, would shure love to! The Thing is pretty wild s**t, pure awesomeness!!!
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I think Greg Cohen has a bass with all gut that he brings out to certain gigs
He is in Austin, so I saw him a lot and we played a nice duo once. He is using those Gerold Genssler steel wrapped gut. They are unbelievable.
Wow, would have been nice to hear that one! I`m tempting to order a set of Genssler gut if the finances allow at some point.
What I`ve seen him do tends to be pretty physical at times, what kind of setup he had overall, were those Gensslers set high?
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