Double Bass Unknowingly Unamped!

[lurk]

I heard Richard Davis with the Thad Jones- Mel Lewis band Unamped at the Village Vanguard in 1968. I was sitting pretty close to the stand(almost on the piano bench with Sir Roland Hanna) and could hear Mr. Davis perfectly. The band played at a volume level that was appropriate for a room that size and I don't believe there were mics for anything, even announcing. There was even acoustic guitar. That's the big band sound I've always liked the best. Later bands of this size, several that I heard and played in, were much louder and "brassier", and a lot of the subtlety and dynamics were lost IMO.

Here's a funny story. That band came to Chicago when I was in High School to play a concert in the Civic Opera House. Thad at some point made a big deal of bassist Richard Davis returning to Chicago and said they were going to feature him on the next tune. Roland Hanna played a few plinks and was immediately hit with a tight spotlight. Richard launched into a long showy bass solo with occasional piano plinks. The spotlight stayed on Hanna with Davis in the dark mauling the bass furiously and fabulously. Roland kept nodding in Richard's direction trying to alert the lighting guy but the message never got delivered.

 

[JazznFunk]

I heard Richard Davis with the Thad Jones- Mel Lewis band Unamped at the Village Vanguard in 1968. I was sitting pretty close to the stand(almost on the piano bench with Sir Roland Hanna) and could hear Mr. Davis perfectly. The band played at a volume level that was appropriate for a room that size and I don't believe there were mics for anything, even announcing. There was even acoustic guitar. That's the big band sound I've always liked the best. Later bands of this size, several that I heard and played in, were much louder and "brassier", and a lot of the subtlety and dynamics were lost IMO.

I heard Larry Grenadier with Kevin Hays and Billy Hart at the Vanguard this past summer, and although Larry did plug in to an amp and feed the house (I assume) with some sort of blended mic/pickup signal, I doubt if there was much (if any) of it in the house to speak of. I was dead-on in front of his bass at the front of the stage about 6 feet away max. His tone during his solo warmup was so filling in the room without an amp that I can imagine most any double bassist could get away un-amped in that room with a sensitive set of bandmates.