Double Bass How did you get your first double bass?

[jrj_ai]

My first bass was a Kay bought for $150, but it is my second bass that has the interesting story.

In the mid 1960's, a luthier (I forgot his name--he worked for Pierce Music) in Salt Lake City was building a bass that he wanted to compare to Pollmann basses that were used by many of the local players, the most prominent of which was a fellow named Jerry Johnson. The Pollmann's of that era were quite distinct due to the decorative carvings on the top and back. The luthier was going to put similar carvings in his bass. He wanted to compare his and a Pollmann side by side so he bought a Pollmann and stuck it in his back room. Unfortunately for him, the Pollmann he got was an outstanding bass and he was afraid to put it next to his bass for fear that his wouldn't cut it. So he kept it in the back room.

One I came into the store to check it out and he took me in the back room to see the Pollmann. Even though I was a young and inexperienced player, I could quickly tell it was an outstanding instrument. He agreed to sell it to me for $900, much below the going rate for those basses which was around $1500 at the time. I took out a loan, bought it and still have it and it's only gotten better with age.

 

[Ed Fuqua]

I was borrowing some kind of plywood from the little college in Augusta I was going to after I got back from my boat gig and I was telling EVERYBODY I knew that I was looking to buy one. Which at one point got to the director of the regional theater group my girlfriend was doing some work with. He played bass when he was in high school (he switched to a drama major in college) and still had the Kay M-1, without a bridge or soundpost. I bought it for $400 (this is 80 or 81) and Jim Ferguson fitted me a bridge and soundpost for $250. I played that bass up until the time I got my current bass (which I think was just prior to 92).

 

[Brad Maestas]

Yeah, I know. I just gotta wonder.......well, you know.

It's been so long that I totally forgot. I think it only had a solid top. Previous post edited.

 

[James A. Voss]

My high school had an old King upright with a broken neck. They didn't want to spend the money to fix it. At the same time I began dating the superintendents' daughter. He was not happy with his valedictorian/head cheerleader going out with a musician, so he asked me to stop. I said I would if he gave me the bass. I travelled from Manhatten to L.A. with that thing. She married a pig farmer. I win.

 

[miles'tone]

After dreaming of playing double bass for years I made a deal with myself to work hard, save up and just go get one. So after working my ass off all hours for a year and a half in a dodgy pub in the east end of London, picturing the wonderful instrument that would be mine eventually and boring the hell out of my friends who didn't think I would get it together, I got the cash together that I needed and headed south of the city to a decent shop that I had decided was the place to go.
After mulling around for about an hour or so I chose the bass that was to be mine and headed with the owner of the shop to the cash desk pinching myself that my dream was coming true......
Then a guy came running in nearly kicking the door of the shop off it's hinges and yelled about the world trade centre being attacked. It was 11th September 2001 of course and everyone was starting to flip. Boy that humbled me right out. Managed to get my bass back into London only to find the whole of Central London basically leaving the city on foot as there was fears of similar attacks at the time. The underground was closed and all those red London buses were wheezing around filled to the brim with people hanging out the back. And there I was with my new bass wondering how the hell I was going to get this honking great thing back across London. Started out on foot for a while and managed to pull a black cab after a couple of hours. You could say we bonded at this point (me and the bass, not the cab driver) but in a way I didn't forsee.
After all the dreams and the desires and the penny pinching to get this bass, the most important material thing I have ever got, I realised it was utterly meaningless in the bigger picture of that day.
So from the off I didn't worship the thing as I might have been guilty of otherwise. Just quietly set about learning and enjoying and discovering. Still got that bass, my only bass.

I got a letter about a week later from the luthier I bought it from appologising that I still owed him half for it. I was paying half cash, half on my card and due to what happened he didn't put my card through properly.

That was my first upright and what happened in my small world that day.

 

[Phil Rowan]

When I was in middle school, my uncle bought me a 3/4 electric bass to start learning on (I'd been picking out Nirvana bass lines on my mom's guitar when I was a few years younger). I took a few lessons and was getting into it.. once around the same time, my family went to church.. I was being a sneaky little kid and scoping out the greenroom of the church, where there happened to be a nice blond Kay (old one too, w/ hat peg tuners) on a stand, and I thought it was so cool that that was the same instrument I was learning, only there were a few things different about it.

Skip ahead to high school.. before starting my mom told me I ought to join the jazz band and the string orchestra.. I reluctantly agreed, and you can only imagine how I was plucking when playing jazz, and what letters were written down next to each note on the orchestral stuff. Then I heard a Paul Chambers solo on the radio..

The church where that old Kay was still sitting saw how big an interest I'd taken in music, particularly on the double bass, and I was looking into music school and what not. They saw the Kay just sitting there unplayed for so long, and they very kindly and generously offered it to me (for free!) so that it could be put to good use. After a great overhaul by the inimitable Ahnold, I got right to playing it, and it took me through college.. and I still use it to this day.

 

[sonic1988]

I opened a card on Christmas day and it said " I owe you one upright bass - dad" It came in the mail about two weeks later.

 

[Square Bear]

well i played on some school bass that i remember absolutely nothing about in college. the first two instruments that i could tell you anything about were a mittenwald tank of a bass that sounded and played quite lousy, and a morelli that i played for a couple years and really liked quite a bit. the first bass i owned myself was a german shop bass from the 50's or 60's. it was nice, i took out a school loan to buy it. in august, i sold it for the wan-bernadel i own now. honestly, i think these wan-bernadels blow anything else near their price out of the water. since i bought it i've played on several basses (some that cost over twice as much) that just don't compare. my german bass was nice, and i sold it for the same price as i bought my wan for, but sound-wise they are really not in the same league.

 

[Mark_T]

The first bass I ever owned was an old Kay C-1 that probably had belonged to a school before ending up in a crappy music shop in Toledo, OH. My parents bought it for me when I was in middle school for $600 and put in a little more for some new strings and an adjustable bridge.

I auditioned at CCM and Oberlin on it. The bass teacher at Oberlin wasn't amused, although Al Laszlo at CCM was very kind (I would love to get some time to take a lesson with him some day).

I didn't end up as a music major, but played in my my university's symphony on one of their instruments (my favorite was a Pollman that had the most beautiful 'B' on the E string) and eventually took a year or two off from playing after graduating.

When I started playing again, I sold the Kay and bought a Calin Wultur. The next year, I put the Wultur up for sale when I fell in love with my current bass.

 

[Jim S]

A friend called me one evening and said that a local music store had a beat up old bass that really fit my personality. I went down the next morning and bought the thing for $300. It looked like it'd been through a flood and two wars and the front was delaminating, but it sounded fine. Spent another $300 getting the old girl repaired. The Serial numbers are hard to read, but we think it's a Kay C1, built in 1941.

 

[anahata]

My basses found me!
It was 1979. I was about to graduate from the Milwaukee high school of the performing arts. I did not have anything to play on for youth orchestra or college. My foster dad was not able to buy me a quality instrument. However, my high school orchestra director (a certain Joe Seroogy) kindly found a bass for me. This instrument was in a bag completely in pieces. I think it was $50. It was a carved Czech flatback with a small swastika on the neck joint! A luthier named Bob Pascoe put it back together for under $1000 which my foster dad contributed and it served me through 2 years of college and 1 1/2 years into my 1rst gig. It was not a great bass but it got me through. I think I sold it for about $1000.
My second bass came to me through that same first gig which was playing 4 hours, 4 nights a week, 52 weeks a year, in a restaurant band that did credible ethnic east European/Balkan, Russian, Greek, Spanish/Flamenco, Italian, Light Jazz, Show standards, Bluegrass, Celtic and Opera...etc. strolling! The leader's former bassist was Pete Roth who had also played this bass with the Eddie Howard Orchestra. (Pete played Hungarian Gypsy Music on the Violin as well). I bought the bass from his widow. This highly weathered 190+ year old bass is a Mittenwald school shop instrument that has served me well. It was heard on every Jukebox in the US that had "Happy Birthday" or "Happy Anniversary" in the Late '40's thru early '50's. It needed an extensive restoration which Pascoe did. I put my own mark on the instrument rolling over my car on the way home from a recording session one night. Pascoe put it back together and it was fine. It has had many upgrades done since then to bring it to a decent modern symphonic level.
"Suzie" and I have done a lot together - and as much as I dream of a bass that can do some things she won't, she is the one I'm with today.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13036199@N02/4184217504/

 

[scrap-ivarius]

I'm always interested to hear how people get their basses. I've known people who have saved a little at a time for, literally, years to buy a bass and people who have had them given to them.

I went to college with a guy who owned a very nice bass from the late 1800's. His parents took out a second mortgage on their home to buy it. Talk about a good reason to practice!

After university I went without a bass because of expense until I gave up and made my own upright bass. I bought the fingerboard because of the need to curve it as it gets wider. I am not a carpenter so the bass does not look the best but it sounds great. I made it from various scraps that I had access to so I call it my Scrap-ivarius. I play it on the church worship team. It is something of a conversation piece because it is clearly home made.

 

[Rama]

I had to play ''It don't mean a thing'' at school and I was a young boy who solely listened to The Ramones with their 3 chord progression and suddenly I had to do a walking bass line (sheet, so I didn't improvised).
So I started listening to Swing Jazz and I was immediately hooked.
My dad bought me a cheap plywood bass for last years Christmas, which I love to the dead, I didn't do alot with it, but I started lessons a few months ago and my teacher really motivates me.
I've become a DB convert now and rarely touch the Electric Bass anymore, I only use the EB for church, until I got meselfs a pick up for the DB.

First post here of the bright side of the TB-forum.

 

[AMJBASS]

I used to watch this special on TV once a week that featured different jazz orchestras, and combos. I saw MJQ with Percy Heath on bass, and decided that day that that was what I wanted to do. This was about 11-12 years ago. I looked online and found the most inexpensive bass available. I had to put about a thousand dollars over time into it including a new fingerboard, but it got the ball rolling until I was able to step up to a "real bass". And now several basses later I won't forget the first one.

 

[wayne holmes]

I got my first bass(new Engelhardt) in a music store near Chicago 23 years ago. The store was very small and sold mostly guitars. The owner told me that the one Engelhardt that he had was his first and last bass he would carry. He had it for a long time, and practically gave it to me to get it out of his way. He seemed very happy to get rid of it and I was very happy to have found one without looking very much.

 

[Bass]

I saved my money for a few months, meanwhile doing research on the internet.

Then I bought an Upton Laminate and it arrived on November 7, 2006.

 

[tornadobass]

In about 1972, I bought a 30" scale electric bass at Sears that turned into a double bass ten years later.

My teacher at the time came by and told me that he had found a Fender for $100, but I said, "No thanks, I just bought this from Sears."

I played the Sears for several years until I got a Fender Jazz. In 1983, I found a classified ad in our local newspaper (remember before CL?) for a double bass for $500. It was an American Standard that I paid $350 for PLUS the now-defretted Sears bass, because the seller wanted a fretless bass and mine didn't have frets.

I still have that American Standard as my only upright.

 

[MrSidecar]

The first electric (although that kinda doesn´t count) I found in some attic.

The first doublebass I got was a czech ply. Darn ugly, reddish sunburst finish. Rented it from a store and paid it off, was WAY too expensive. Had the bridge refinished, but didn't play much on it, I loathed the thought of being seen in public with a thing like that. I was young. And this doesn't feel like my first, more like "number zero".

The second, the first real instrument, was my beloved Rubner. Borrowed it from my equally beloved guru of an electric bass teacher (may he rest in peace) to play a big band gig with Sinatra/Basie music with it (because, I loathed the thought of being seen in public with the reddish czech). Fell in love after 2 hours. Basically quit bothering with electric bass soon after. Called the teacher up, he said "you can have it. Whenever you have some money, you pay off a bit." Took way too long, but not because of the generous price. -I really had a special relation to that instrument, and to the guy who opened up this world of beauty to me. Without this instrument, I wouldn't be playing professionally now, I'm quite sure. However, one of the last things the previous owner said to me (literally on his deathbed): "As soon as you get the chance to move up a level, do that. Don't feel tied to this bass".

Wise man. Pretty soon after, my current love entered the stage. The old hungarian. Boy, what a bass. Sold mine to an aspiring and promising youngster, bought this one, couldn't dream of anything better for my taste.

But wait a minute. That was the story to all my basses, not just the first. Well, I think the Rubner story is the most glamorous I can offer.

Best
Sidecar

 

[scrap-ivarius]

I made my first and only bass from scraps that I found and miscellaneous parts that I was give and a few things from the hardware store. I call it a Scrap-ivarius.

 

[Big Daddy Mac]

First a little background....
Back in the early 80's, my good friends and I put together an originals R & R band. One of the guitarists - Mr Rigg O'Mortis, due to his "locked in place" style of stage presence - and I liked to explore all the bands playing in and around Hamilton Ontario. We found this little jazz club on the second floor of a place on James Street called OC's. We may have played R & R but were always open to all genres of music if played by GOOD musicians. One night we decided to check out OC's to hear some jazz. And good jazz it was ! The band outnumbered the audience - Mr O'Mortis and myself were the only ones in place when they started. Yes, two long-haired rock and roll types, sitting right in front of the stage. This band had a line up of clarinet, piano, drums and upright bass.
It didn't matter what they played, everyone in the band got a healthy slice of solo. There is nothing like a twenty minute version of "Blackbird" to set the mood in a jazz club. But that bass player ! Good Heavens could he play that bass! I was hooked. I had to have an upright. Funny, I forget the name of that band but we saw them every time they played there.

Two weeks ago, I had to drive to Stouffville to pay a bill. On the way back, I see a Long & McQuades Music store. OK, lets have a look. I find a real nice Marcus Miller in the bass room. But no, it's almost Christmas and I shouldn't be buying yet another bass for myself. I'm just about to walk out of the store and happen to look in the Band room.
Here's this beautiful white 3/4 Carlo Giordano rockabilly upright. And one steal of a deal as well. One touch and I am hooked all over again. What beautiful tone !

When I finally got home, my wife asks if I got the bill paid all right as she was expecting me back a little earlier. I explained that I stopped at an L&M to check out some basses. I tell her about this Giordano. God Bless her heart if she didn't go get for me for Christmas.

I can't keep my hands off this bass. Yes, its a little different that a "plank" but the more I play it, the more I like it.

My good friend , Mr O'Mortis is now green with envy. We still get together and jam every now and then. I have a feeling he will be dropping by soon to check out my new (and first) upright.