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Double Bass Two Bassists in a band?

A

afroblue

Oct 25, 2012
163
57
#1
Hi all,
Duke Ellington started this trend I believe with Wellman Braud and Billy Taylor, then Hayes Alvis replacing Braud. Chubby Jackson and Oscar Pettiford played in the Charlie Barnet big band in 1943. Are there any other instances of two bassists in a band from this time. I don't know of any other instances, up until Ornette Coleman (Free Jazz) and John Coltrane (Ole), both in the 60's.
 
#4
Yes, that seems to be the case, that Duke didn't like firing people. Do you know of any other bands that used 2 bassists? I was able to find out that Duke mostly had 1 player bowing half notes, and the other plucking in 4.
 
#6
Mingus' Epitaph calls for two basses, but I don't think there's a time where both are playing pizzicato. Sometimes one is pizz-ing while the other is pulling an arco line.

On his Let My Children Hear Music sessions, he had a large bass section doing arco stuff.
 
#11
On side two of the Ornette Coleman Free Jazz album, you can hear a great duet between the young Charlie Haden and Scott LaFaro with their very personal contrasting styles. It also helps that they are recorded on different (right/left) sides, if you have the stereo recording. I've listened to it many, many times over the years. The rest of the album is (IMPO) an interesting experiment, difficult to listen to, but worth the effort if you're a LaFaro fan.
Martin Williams, in his liner notes, writes that the album ". . .would be exceptional. . .for the beautiful work of these two bassists alone." Pretty high praise considering the all-star players on the date!
 
#15
A few choices I have in my record collection would be the Duke Ellington Carnegie Hall concerts of 1947 w. Oscar Pettiford and Junior Raglin on basses. There is a feature called " Basso Profundo "....

John Lewis presents " Jazz Abstraction " on Atlantic from around 1959. This was a Gunther Schuller project of John's music that has a whole host of great artists including Jim Hall, Eric Dolphy, Bill Evans, etc. They do theme and variations of pieces for Monk, the tune "Django", real third stream... The bassists are Scott Lafaro and George Duvivier...

Clark Terry on Emarcy in 1955 called " Swahili". Again OP on bass and cello and Wendell Marshall on bass w. a 2 bass feature by Quincy Jones called " Double Play "....

And finally over the years here in Boston a group of some of the greatest local jazz artist and educators have merged two groups to form a group w. 2 tenors, 2 basses and 1 drummer.. The groups are the Fringe w. George Garzone, John Lockwood and Bob Gullotti and Gonz w. Jerry Bergonzi, Bruce Gertz and Gullotti. I think they may have used 2 drummers at one time years back... at any rate they call them selfs " GarGonz ".... A total mind blowing experience !!!!!
 
#18
Not sure if it's worth mentioning but:

There's those Ron Carter albums everybody loves to hate where he's playing a piccolo bass out front and Buster Williams is playing a regular bass.

There's also Arni Egilsson playing arco while Ray Brown is playing regular bass duty on his "Basses Loaded" album.
 
#20
Thumpie said:
Mingus' Epitaph calls for two basses, but I don't think there's a time where both are playing pizzicato. Sometimes one is pizz-ing while the other is pulling an arco line.

On his Let My Children Hear Music sessions, he had a large bass section doing arco stuff.
Click to expand...

Oh man, Mingus had a couple albums in 1977 w. George Mraz and Eddie Gomez and they are featured on a tune w. the changes to "Idaho" but I forget the album's name. Big ensemble w. 2 of every instrument....
 

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