Double Bass Interesting pic - 5 string upright from 1965:

[GretschWretch]

I’ve played in lots of cover bands, and can kind of say that I too play a 5 string because Stevie wrote a lot in Eb.

I would just tune a four-string down a whole step.

 

[retslock]

BEHOLD! I HAVE FOUND THE WAY OF THE RIGHTEOUS. I shall hereafter playeth the bass of 4 strings, nay not 5 but 4 strings and damnation be upon those who do not see the light.
Ignore my avatar, it is but a wrongful aberration.

 

[grimjim]

There was a 5 string double bass that was popular in Vienna during what Brun calls "The Golden Age of Virtuosity". this period existed from about 1760 until about 1830. These instruments were usually tuned as follows: The first mention of a 5 string orchestral double bass was in the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in 1880. Hans von Bülow used 5 string basses in a cycle of the Beethoven symphonies.

 

[Lance Bunyon]

I’ve played in lots of cover bands, and can kind of say that I too play a 5 string because Stevie wrote a lot in Eb.

A 5er was a must in the horn band I played in for a decade.

 

[Slevage]

Interesting discovery . Custom build I’m assuming .

Here's a thread on TB about a 1941 model:
1941 "Chubby Jackson" Kay S-51 (5-string)

I’m part of that thread.
The 1941 Kay 5 string that I owned is a predecessor of the Chubby Jackson Model.

 

[Steven Ayres]

Yes, but did Kay widen the neck and fingerboard to accommodate the fifth string? The few examples I have seen suggest they did not.

The wider fingerboard was a feature of Kay five-string basses from the beginning of production.

 

[dab12ax7ef]

And yet we still have a thread a day on electric bass 4 vs 5...

 

[matthewbrown]

If the world contains bagpipes and accordions, I don't see why we can't have 5-string basses.

 

[shwashwa]

I'm still trying to get over the shock of the switch from three strings to four

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51pYUVokrdL._SY355_.jpg

 

[bearfoot]

This is the best gamba for metal

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

 

[HaphAsSard]

It was done in NYC, I think it's the Sullivan show. That Unisphere in the background was the symbol of the '64 NYC world's fair.

Thanks, you've pointed me in the right direction. Apparently it's from a series of promotional TV specials sponsorised by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, and it was indeed filmed in NYC, but actually ahead of the World Fair, on April 2nd 1962:
Goodyear Jazz Concert

So yeah, no, not a European fiver found on location.

 

[Nohrellas]

The upright bass has such a varied history and so many weird musical cousins and ancestors that a "normal" 5 string upright bass shouldn't really surprise anyone IMO. It really hasn't been standardised for a long period of time and even nowadays there are so many variations from body shape (gamba, violin, busetto, just to name a few), flatback vs roundback, scroll/pegbox shape, D or Eb neck, tyrolean vs individual tuning machines, using a german or a french bow, etc. The french used 3 string basses for a long time, the Violone had 6-8 strings, many of them were fretted in the lower register, in the viennese school the expected upright bass was a 5 string instrument (again fretted in the lower register) with the strings tuned F A D F# A.

This isn't supposed to be a pure information dump here, it's just to show that this idea of a "standard" upright bass really doesn't apply to the instrument as soon as you look just 100-200 years back and it doesn't even exist nowadays.

 

[Lance Bunyon]

And yet we still have a thread a day on electric bass 4 vs 5...

Because old men yell at clouds constantly.
The 5 string bass is over 30 years old and in my opinion the simple majority of this site fights the concept like horse and buggy salesmen first fought the automobile.

 

[Drucifer]

View attachment 3493721
Posted in fun only cause you may have found his dad.

@CereBassum's dad? Chubby Jackson's dad? Carl Weathers' dad? How was I being a damn fool?

 

[bearhart74]

@CereBassum's dad? Chubby Jackson's dad? Carl Weathers' dad? How was I being a damn fool?

Your taking this way too personally. I did say it was a joke. Obviously (to me) that this was about Chubby Jackson possibly being Chubbs' (Carl Weathers character in the movie) dad.

 

[Drucifer]

Your taking this way too personally. I did say it was a joke. Obviously (to me) that this was about Chubby Jackson possibly being Chubbs' (Carl Weathers character in the movie) dad.

Okay, I didn't catch the reference.

 

[CereBassum]

but actually ahead of the World Fair, on April 2nd 1962:

On YouTube it says '65 but you can't rely on that at all.

But I doubt it was in '62 - hard to believe they'd be using a unisphere motif that early (I'm old enough to attest to that.)

I tend to think '65 is accurate.

 

[HaphAsSard]

On YouTube it says '65 but you can't rely on that at all.

But I doubt it was in '62 - hard to believe they'd be using a unisphere motif that early (I'm old enough to attest to that.)

I tend to think '65 is accurate.

I can't find a date in the video. These three others agree on the '62 date in their descriptions - for what it's worth, as you point out.

After all, those - the one in the back* and the small one in the foreground - are just globes, with meridians and parallels. Not necessarily a reference to the big one in Flushing.


* (which, at a second glance, is actually a semiglobe, a glorified perspective projection, not an actual globe: you can't see Asia nor Australia from behind...)

 

[CereBassum]

which, at a second glance, is actually a semiglobe, a glorified perspective projection, not an actual globe: you can't see Asia nor Australia from behind.

which, at a second glance, is actually a semiglobe, a glorified perspective projection, not an actual globe: you can't see Asia nor Australia from behind.

You don't have to put up the whole thing for a stage set. It's only an allusion to the Unisphere.

Everybody's dating '62 - one copied from the other? I did see '65 - I'm still going with that Unisphere...

At any rate much better quality than what I posted - color too. Tnx

 

[Carl Hillman]

Not to derail this thread, but...
Danny Barcelona really kind of looks like a young Jackie Chan.