some love for acoustic bass

ginormous

ginormous

Understatmentologist
Credit where it's due: if not for the courage of the fearless crew, we'd all be playing washtubs.

An early advocate of the pickup-mounted acoustic bass in jazz recordings, and one of my personal heroes,
Ron Carter. This man brings it on standup bass or electric, and his credentials are impeccable:


Who's your acoustic bass daddy?
 
Re: some love for acoustic bass

Ron Carter is uber cool.

Probably the main reason why I never attempted to learn upright bass as a teenager was seeing a George Shearing BBC television series featuring Brian Torff. I knew immediately that I could never be THAT good.

Being British, my vote has to be for Danny Thompson.
 
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Re: some love for acoustic bass

Love Ben Allison:
 
Re: some love for acoustic bass

I don't know enough great double bass players, but I always enjoyed Stanley Clarke's playing with Return to Forever. Seems to me that he has a very personalized style that is instantly recognizable.


 
Re: some love for acoustic bass

ginormous said:
This man brings it on standup bass or electric
Click to expand...

Sure about that electric part? It's widely known in the URB world that Ron Carter does NOT like the electric bass, usually calling it a "fake" and considering it a lesser instrument. He's not my cup of tea, but took Ray Brown's foundation in jazz playing and completely blew it up.

My personal faves on upright are Milton Hinton, Slam Stewart, Ray Brown and Charles Mingus. All of those guys took the instrument in different directions and have a signature sound that after listening to for a second, it's apparent who is playing.
 
Re: some love for acoustic bass

One Bad Monkey said:
Sure about that electric part? It's widely known in the URB world that Ron Carter does NOT like the electric bass, usually calling it a "fake" and considering it a lesser instrument. He's not my cup of tea, but took Ray Brown's foundation in jazz playing and completely blew it up.

My personal faves on upright are Milton Hinton, Slam Stewart, Ray Brown and Charles Mingus. All of those guys took the instrument in different directions and have a signature sound that after listening to for a second, it's apparent who is playing.
Click to expand...
Well, he may not like it as such (for someone with his training and experience, who am I to argue?), but he has played it to great effect. Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly" and Bette Midler's "Do You Want To Dance" are examples of his session work on his tobacco burst P. He got gold records for the Roberta Flack single and "The Divine Miss M" album; I saw them on his living room wall myself as a young boy.

edit: Enough about the electric, though.
How about George Duvivier?
 
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