The great Charles Mingus playing with the bow at a jazz festival. Note the lion’s head scroll on this bass. Anyone know who made this bass?
- Christian McBride video
- Ray Brown video
- Charlie Haden video
- Reg Kehoe and his Marimba Queens
- Previous bass shots of the day – 1 2 3 4 5
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I think that his son, Eric Mingus, has that bass. No idea who made it.
Jason I only took the photo, but I found this on bassplayer.com
Best,
Tom Marccello
Charles Mingus’s 1927 Ernst Heinrich Roth
By Dave Pomeroy | July, 2006
After writing quite a few of these columns, it occurred to me that perhaps I would be missing the boat if I didn’t write about the original bass sound, the acoustic upright. But of course, I didn’t want to write about just any upright. Having seen various incarnations of the Mingus Big Band a few times during recent trips to New York City, I was blown away by the energy and spirit of the whole group, which is run efficiently by Charles Mingus’s widow, Sue Mingus, who has kept the flame burning since his 1979 death. In particular, I was really impressed with the bass work of Boris Kozlov, who does an amazing job filling legendary shoes, while bringing plenty of his own musical personality to the group. The first time I saw the band, I noticed immediately that he was playing Mingus’s famous “Lion’s Head” bass. Later that night, it struck me that this bass would be the perfect Retro-Rama subject.
Boris has “custody” of the bass, and when I was in New York recently, he was kind enough to let me spend some time with it before a Mingus Orchestra show and in between sets. Having heard its enormous sound on record so many times, I was somewhat surprised that it wasn’t ten feet tall! As a longtime Mingus fan, I can’t begin to put into words what a thrill it was to play “The Bass,” as Charles called it. There is a special aura about it, for sure, and I felt honored to be in its presence. But like all great instruments, it is meant to be played. Once I got over my awe sufficiently enough to pluck a few notes, the instrument sounded even and full, with no obvious “wolf tones” or dead spots. As you might imagine, I was very happy (and deeply moved) to play a few of my favorite Mingus licks on it, and I loved its big sound and comfortable feel.
Ernst Heinrich Roth, a second-generation instrument builder whose father founded the family business in 1877, built this bass in the late 1920s in Markneukirchen, Germany. The Roth is a 3/4-size, 41 1/2″-scale upright with a maple neck and headstock, and an ebony fingerboard. The body has a carved spruce top and flame-maple back and sides. The G string is quite close to the fingerboard edge, which may have facilitated Mingus’s unusual technique of “over bending” the G string, pulling it over the side of the neck for a percussive, almost flamenco-like sound that you can hear on many Mingus recordings.
No one seems to know exactly when Mingus acquired this bass, but in the documentary film Mingus: Charles Mingus 1968 he calls it the “Mingus Fingers” bass, referring to the tune he wrote and recorded with Lionel Hampton in 1947. He is seen playing it in numerous photos dating to that time period. The unique “Lion’s Head” carving (which has also been called the “Dragon’s Head”) is of unknown origin, but it’s definitely not original; it is easy to tell that it was carved from a typical scroll.
A fan of gut strings, Mingus used Golden Spiral strings on this bass. While Boris prefers steel strings, the instrument still has a big, warm, earthy sound. A great example of Boris’s tone on this bass can be heard on the latest Mingus Big Band Orchestra & Dynasty CD, I Am Three [Sunnyside, 2005]—especially on the track “Tensions,” which he also arranged. The bass has been fitted with a David Gage pickup, which sounds great onstage with the Mingus Band. David did some work on this bass in the 1970s while Mingus was still alive, and he has continued to maintain it periodically for the Mingus estate. It has been damaged and repaired many times over the years but has survived surprisingly well, all things considered.
Special thanks go to Boris Kozlov, David Gage, and especially Sue Mingus for making this article possible. It is a beautiful, wondrous thing that this instrument, an icon of jazz music history, is still being played rather than collecting dust in a warehouse or sitting in a museum somewhere. Whenever the Mingus Big Band plays—whether in New York City or around the world—the spirit of Charles Mingus’s and his music is alive and well, and this bass is still making magic. Now, if it could only talk . . . .
Until next time, groove on, brothers and sisters!
I have actually had the privilege to play that bass! You have to dig to get the mingus tone but once you do, it sounds just like it does in the recordings!
How cool that you got a chance to play that bass!
Also, It looks like he’s bowing the strings from behind. I’ve seen other pictures of Mingus in that position.