Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

You are browsing the archives of 2007 August.

Chicago Symphony bassist Dan Armstrong recently shared some musical experiences he’s been having with the Jason Seed Elixir Ensemble, a Milwaukee-based group with which he has been doing some playing. He writes:
In addition to my CSO job, I’ve been playing with a jazz-rock-folk-classical-world-new music group (all that — really!) called theJason Seed Elixir [...]

Last week Matt Wengerd pointed out the AllAboutJazz.com was using the Contrabass Conversations logo in one of their design elements. Rather than demand it taken down, I thought that it would be a good opportunity to let this site know about what’s going on over here. Well, I heard back from them, [...]

Double bassist Greg Sarchet (Bass Club Chicago, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Northeastern Illinois University) sent in this great photo of the late jazz giant Art Davis (see obituary here) posing with a very fitting ice sculpture:
Greg has contributed frequently to both the blog and the podcast (look for more from Greg later on this week), [...]

Last week, we asked how far you would travel for a $100 gig. Here’s what you all came up with:

0-25 miles

16 (25%)

25-50 miles

22 (35%)

50-75 miles

7 [...]

I spent the past two weeks performing with the Grant Park Symphony. This has been a real treat for me, both musically and personally. The GPSO is a great ensemble, and we played a lot of excellent repertoire, including Beethoven 2, Mahler 5, and the Firebird Suite. Bass blog readers will actually [...]

This week’s Contrabass Conversations episode features the second half of our interview with double bassist Guy Tuneh, conducted over a distance of thousands of miles. It was a real pleasure to get to sit down and chat with Guy–he’s a warm, intelligent, and passionate individual, and these traits come through in his speaking just [...]

Bill Harrison wrote a great piece on his blog recently elaborating on some of the issues I discussed in the latest installment of This Crazy Business. He writes:
There’s an old joke in the biz: Q: “How do you make a musician complain?” A: “Give him a job.” That is as succinct an assessment as [...]

Matt Wengerd (104 Weeks blog) pointed out to me yesterday that AllAboutJazz.com was using the Contrabass Conversations logo on their site for a series on jazz bass players. Jacque Harper (Chicago Bass Ensemble) sent me the following screen shot to demonstrate the context in which it was being used:
Now, speaking as someone who spends [...]

EveryZing, the podcast speech to text service that I use to archive Contrabass Conversations content, is really amazing. This is the kind of thing that makes podcasts really amazing, and it is what makes the podcast such a useful and dynamic resource. Type a key phrase into the search box in the sidebar, [...]

Due to overwhelming popular demand, I will be putting out the rest of our interview with Guy Tuneh this weekend. Hundreds of listeners have written in and commented on this interview, expressing their enjoyment, and it’s only fair to put out the rest of this interview as soon as possible. Check in this [...]