Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

You are browsing the archives of 2006 July.

Being able to play below the open E string is an essential part of the skill set for the modern bassist. Most orchestral bass parts reach below the low E, and not being able to play these notes means not really having all of the professional tools necessary for the job. Reaching [...]

Tonight I went down to Chicago’s beautiful Millennium Park to check out the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra. This orchestra moved into the facility just a couple of summers ago, and it is a massive venue improvement for this fine ensemble. Frank Gehry designed the pavilion, which is obvious to anyone familiar with [...]

My Libertyville students did a recital last month, and I assembled a small montage of their efforts set to the music of Vivaldi:

Because I have WAY too much time on my hands this summer, I decided to make a “bad film school” version of the same recital:

I’d like to mention that I have just started contributing to BIG BOTTOM, a really excellent website for both electric and double bassists. BIG BOTTOM is managed by Dale Cruse, and it is full of varied and interesting posts by several contributors. I will be writing some original posts for the site, and [...]

I have just created a double bass podcast of my solo performances. It is called Jason Heath’s Double Bass Performances, and it consists of live recordings of my double bass playing over the last few years. It is listed in iTunes–just search for “double bass” or “Jason Heath”. Also, you can subscribe [...]

My fiancee Courtney and I spent all of Monday walking around Lincoln Park in Chicago. Here are a few shots of our walk.
This is the Lincoln Park Conservatory. This great building was completed in 1895, and you can definitely tell its age up close. It has four large halls and [...]

Here are a few final shots of the Music by the Lake concert series that I did this past wekend. I will be up in Williams Bay, WI again in two weeks to play with the Three Irish Tenors.
Here you can see the extreme slope of this campus. The golf carts were for [...]

Michael Goode of the Chicago Reading Orchestra was recently interviewed this week in the Chicago Reader by Deanna Isaacs. The article caught my attention because it was referring to a piece written by composer Bjorn Berkhout. Bjorn was my roommate in college at Northwestern University in Chicago. He has taught at Loyola [...]

Our first peformance of The Student Prince by Sigmund Romberg was last night in Williams Bay, Wisconsin. The piece is very charming, and the cast and orchestra sound very good. Last year this festival was hit with record high temperatures, and one of the bass players actually passed out from heat exhaustion right [...]

I am adding a couple of new sites to my Blogroll. Rockabillybass.com is a site maintained by Shawn Burrell. It is an excellent site about rockabilly bass in general, with interviews, forums, gear talk, lessons, and the like. There are also set up tips and rockabilly links. One lesson covers [...]