Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

You are browsing the archives of 2008 June.

I think that all men in classical music look at the concert attire worn by our female colleagues with a little bit of envy from time to time. Not that we men all want to wear heels and make-up (though some of us probably do….not that there’s anything wrong with that!), but putting on [...]

 

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This week’s episode concludes the interview with jazz bass legend Steve Rodby that we featured on episodes 58 and 78 of the podcast. Rodby has played bass on every Pat Metheny Group record since 1980, co-produced the group’s last five albums and won 10 Grammy Awards with the group. He has toured with jazz [...]

I’m soliciting suggestions for an upcoming “Dozens” piece that I’m writing for jazz.com. What are your favorite recorded jazz bass solos of all time? Please leave a comment or drop me an email if you’d like to suggest a favorite track. Thanks.
BTW, if you haven’t visited the site yet, it is a lot of fun [...]

Here’s a quick little video showing the “tough” working conditions that I’m subjected to on a daily basis up here in northern Wisconsin.

We’ve got more full-length posts starting Monday, plus the conclusion to our interview with Steve Rodby this Saturday. Stay tuned!
….and yes, this is a goat on top of a building. Welcome to Door [...]

Though this post’s title could easily be tied to a post about slow practice or something like that (which would make a good future blog post!), I’m actually referring here to the deliciously laid-back summer schedules that I’ve managed to get away with for much of my freelance career. While I have certainly had my [...]

MYA Saxophone Quartet featured on From The TopThe What’s Cookin’ Saxophone Quartet, made up of Midwest Young Artists members Amanda Peterson, Mira DeJong, Kateri Tumminello, and Joshua Plotner, was recently featured of NPR’s program From The Top. I do a lot of work with this metropolitan Chicago program–I host their weekly podcast at WMYA.fm, and [...]

I’ve got story for you, and I promise it’s true!
When I was getting started as a freelance musician at the tail end of my masters degree, I was quaking in my boots about my future prospects. After all, I was regularly buying CDs at Borders and Barnes and Noble from former Northwestern doctoral music students. [...]

 

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We’re featuring something a bit unusual for this week’s Contrabass Conversations episode. Ball State University bass professor and International Society of Bassists president Hans Sturm has been featured several times on the podcast in video episodes, and this week we’re featuring Hans discussing the fundamentals of the Rabbath technique left hand positioning system.
This dialogue was [...]

We’re featuring something a bit unusual for this week’s Contrabass Conversations episode. Ball State University bass professor and International Society of Bassists president Hans Sturm has been featured several times on the podcast in video episodes.

This week, we’re featuring audio of a session that Hans and I did concerning the Rabbath technique back in 2007. [...]

I’ve done a major overhaul of the doublebassblog.org user interface recently. Why? Well, I like to do some sort of design change every six months or so–it’s simply good web design protocol, and it keeps things from getting stale. Plus, web technology moves pretty darn fast, and there are a ton of new features that [...]