Twitter Updates for 2008-01-31
- Hanging out with Courtney and watching TiVo after a long (but fun!) day of Elgin Symphony. #
- Doing some morning blogging. I’ve got a full line-up of bass activities today. #
- Both cats are helping me podcast at the moment. #
- Dreading my afternoon commute – the snow’s coming down pretty hard right now. #
Compendium of Jazz Quotes – Jaco Pastorius
Matthew Mullenweg created the content management system WordPress (which is what I use to blog). He is also a jazzer, and he has created a great compendium of jazz quotes–quite likely the only comprehensive online resource available for this topic. Check out the complete index on Matt’s site here. Here are some selected quotes from this great resource:
- “I’m not a star. I’ll never be a Frank Sinatra or Elvis Presley or a Ray Charles. I’m just an imitator, man. I’m doing a very bad imitation on the bass of Jerry Jemmott, Bernard Odum, Jimmy Fielder, Jimmy Blanton, Igor Stravinsky, Jimi Hendrix, John Coltrane, James Brown, Charlie Parker… the cats, man. I’m just backing up the cats. ”
- “A chimpanzee could learn to do what I do physically. But it goes way beyond that. When you play, you play life. ”
- “Women and rhythm-section first!”
- “It ain’t braggin’ if you can back it up!”
Photo credit – http://www.flickr.com/photos/jlacpo/
Invitation to Hear the Chicago Bass Ensemble at NIU
This is a guest post from bassist John Floeter – johnfloeterbassstudio.blogspot.com
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The Chicago Bass Ensemble will be performing in DeKalb at Northern Illinois University as the featured artists for the All-School Convocation at 11am on February 14th,2008. This will essentially be a 50 minute concert with a minimal amount of lecture. Although it is a required class for NIU music students, it is also open to the public. I would like to invite anyone who is interested in hearing the unique sonority of 4 double basses to attend.
Bassists Jacque Harper, Michael Hovnanian, and Doug Johnson will join me, John Floeter, in works specifically written for 4 Double Basses by Jan Alm, Seth Boustead, Doug Johnson and Teppo Hauta-aho. We will also present transcriptions of choral works by Hindemith and Orlando di Lasso .
The concert will take place in the Concert Hall of the Music Building, which is located on the northeast corner of campus on Lucinda Ave, between Gilbert Way and the Kishwaukee River. There are some parking meters available near the corner of Gilbert and Lucinda, otherwise you must purchase a permit and park in the parking structure a few blocks from the music department.
Helpful Links:
http://www.niu.edu/visit/parking.shtml
Dissecting opera repertoire with John Grillo
Double bassist and classical music blogger John Grillo put out a recent post on his blog highlighting his upcoming performances of Verdi’s Rigoletto with Opera New Jersey. John writes:
I look forward to playing Rigoletto again. This is my second time tackling this mighty work. It is really an outstanding piece of art with many heavenly moments. The word we hear over and over again is maledizione. Maledizione in Italian means curse, doom or malediction. While living in Italy for a summer playing at the Spoleto Festival, I came across an interesting story. There is a 13th century aqueduct in Spoleto that spans the valley imbetween two beautiful hills. It is a breathtaking site. One of the best foods I have ever tasted there was wild boar-cingale. These cingale live underneath this ancient aqueduct. It just so happens that the people of Spoleto have believed for centuries that this area under the aqueduct was cursed.
Read John’s complete post here, and check back regularly with John’s blog classicalmusicnews.tv for his fresh perspective on the arts world.
John and I also created a follow up to the extremely popular orchestral excerpts breakdown that we put together in the fall of 2007. On this previous episode, John discusses and plays excerpts from much of the major orchestral repertoire, including pieces by Beethoven, Mozart, Strauss, and Schubert. You can check out this episode over on the Contrabass Conversations site.
On our opera excerpts breakdown, we take a look at excerpts from operas by Strauss, Wagner, Britten, Verdi, Weber, Mozart, Humperdinck, and Beethoven. Our hope is that this special episode, combined with our previous orchestral excerpt feature, will help young bassists worldwide to gain familiarity with the core orchestral and operatic double bass repertoire.
For more multimedia pedagogical resources for the double bass, check out our Contrabass Conversations series of virtual lessons from bass teachers Hans Sturm (Ball State, ISB president) and Andy Anderson (Lyric Opera, Chicago College of Performing Arts).
The virtuosity of Victor Wooten – video
OK–he’s not an upright bass player. But the indisputable awesomeness of the Woot certainly warrants attention here at doublebassblog.org. He’s one of the most popular electric bassists of all time, and rightly so–his inventiveness, creativity, and virtuosity shine through in everything that he plays. Go Victor!
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