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Double Bass Famous Jazz Bassists and their instruments

#23
Phil Rowan said:
I remember back when I was studying with Dennis Irwin, and in one lesson he used this old beat up cutaway plywood bass that had been sitting in my school’s bass room.. He made that thing sing, both arco and pizz, and his voice came through loud and clear (and the bass had steel or some such strings, not gut). Yes, he had his main axes, but make no mistake that it was/is largely in the player’s hands.
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I mean, yes, I am sure that is true. I still bet if we A/B that performance to him on his instrument it would likely be a different story altogether.
 
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#26
In 1980 I went to NYC to see some of the bass shops there at that time; Traeger's, Gage's and Kolstein's. The first shop I went to was Traeger's and I didn’t meet Chuck but I did meet Bill Merchant. He showed me the bass that Jimmy Blanton played during his revolutionary but relatively brief career. I didn’t play it but seeing it was thrilling. I’m almost sure that it was owned Richard Davis at that time. It was just like in pictures of him playing it, a factory-made German bass probably relatively inexpensive when he bought it. In his hands another story altogether. (Its interesting to note that none of those shops today are in the same location they were when I made that trip.)
My next stop was Baldwin Long Island where I met Barrie Kolstein. In his shop above his bench was Scott LaFaro's Prescott still in its post accident state. That was incredible to see if not very eerie as well. Of course some years later Barrie fully restored that bass.
At Gage's there was a bass owned by Ray Brown and in for repair, a Gagnon, which was a gift to Ray from Bill Cosby!
Somewhere in the annals of Talkbass are Paul Warburton’s postings about Red Mitchell’s basses. I know one of them is owned by the great bassist John Heard. I recently saw Dave Carpenter’s bass for sale here on Talkbass and Monty Budwig’s and Joe DiBartolo’s instruments for sale on two bass shop’s websites in the last 5 years. I’m sure there are many more basses out there that were once owned by the past masters.
It is interesting to read about and hear about all of these storied basses, at least it interests me.
 
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#27
Percy Heath’s Italian bass is at Kolsteins I believe. Buster’s Hawkes and Ron’s Juzek are both apparently still going strong. The bass Sam Jones played later in his life Rufus owned for awhile, I wonder who has it now (Doug Weiss told me he had a chance to buy it but didn’t have the money). Peter Washington has Eddie de Haas’ beautiful light colored Hungarian bass, and Milt Hinton’s once attributed Italian bass is at Oberlin now I believe. I got to play Dennis’ American Standard, that is one great bass. In a video from the late 50’s with Horace, Gene Taylor looks to be playing a Kay, I’m not sure what he played later in life. And just for the record I like Charlie best on that lions head Pollmann he had, though he sounded just like himself on every bass I ever heard him play
 
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#31
Here’s a couple of good shots of P Wash with the Eddie de Haas bass

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#33
Michael Karn said:
... and Milt Hinton’s once attributed Italian bass is at Oberlin now I believe.
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I played that bass when Milt was still with us. Oh, boy....

At the time, he said he was donating it to Rutgers when he died - I think maybe because of the David Berger connection? Wasn't aware the Matteo Goffriller attribution didn't stick; did anybody come up with a better idea who really made it?
 
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#34
I forgot to include that Jay Leonhart owns and plays George Duvivier's bass. This is the part I'm not 100 percent certain of but if memory serves it is a Gibson that is not plywood and one a very few carved basses they made in the 30's. I'm out on a limb here but thats what I remember. Years ago in Boston there was a bassist here for a short period of time trying to sell a bass purportedly owned by Oscar Pettiford.
 
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#35
isolated said:
I played that bass when Milt was still with us. Oh, boy....

At the time, he said he was donating it to Rutgers when he died - I think maybe because of the David Berger connection? Wasn't aware the Matteo Goffriller attribution didn't stick; did anybody come up with a better idea who really made it?
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I want to say that I saw it for sale on Arnold’s old website and it was listed as “high end German”
 
#36
msw said:
I forgot to include that Jay Leonhart owns and plays George Duvivier's bass. This is the part I'm not 100 percent certain of but if memory serves it is a Gibson that is not plywood and one a very few carved basses they made in the 30's. I'm out on a limb here but thats what I remember. Years ago in Boston there was a bassist here for a short period of time trying to sell a bass purportedly owned by Oscar Pettiford.
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Paul Gill owns that bass now, Jay sold it to him. And it is carved, and apparently heavy as a bitch too
 
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#40
msw said:
There you have it. I've heard Paul play that very instrument on the Smalls/Mezzrow feed. Michael, did you end up selling that Juzek? I thought I saw it being played by someone else on the aforementioned feed.
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I didn’t sell it, in fact I reinvested in it and finally took it up to Jed Kriegel and, with deep respect to the many great luthiers I’ve been to through the years, the work he did has it playing and sounding better than ever. What you saw was probably somebody sitting in
 

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