Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

In 2005, Lyric Opera of Chicago bassist (and Contrabass Conversations guest) Greg Sarchet organized a recital celebrating the 100th anniversary of the first known double bass recital in the United States. This 1905 double bass recital was performed by Václav Jiskra, a former student of Sladek in Prague and Simandl in Vienna. [...]

Here’s a clip of the outstanding DaXun Zhang performing a song called Galloping Horses with Yang Wei.  You can learn more about DaXun Zhang at www.daxunzhang.com, or listen to him perform on Contrabass Conversations #20.

Related Posts:

DaXun performs The Swan by Saint-Saens
DaXun leaves Northwestern University for UT-Austin
DaXun tames the double bass - Washington Post article

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Here’s the second part of the magnificent new video series with Rufus Reid and Tom Hill. This new site from Tyrone Bishop is a really great new destination for jazz double bassists, with forums, videos, and much more to come. Check out our Contrabass Conversations forums here (leave us some ideas for incorporating [...]

International Society of Bassists President and Ball State University Bass Professor Hans Sturm and I got together recently and filmed a chat about the Rabbath left hand position technique. This final segment of our chat covers more general mental approaches to practicing the double bass.
If you’d like to watch the complete series, you can do [...]

Ian Hallas, principal bassist for the Midwest Young Artists Symphony Orchestra (and my student for the past six years) is seen here performing the second movement of the Bottesini Concerto in B minor with his high school orchestra in Northbrook, Illinois. This was recorded live on October 29, 2007. Notice the low B extension that [...]

International Society of Bassists President and Ball State University Bass Professor Hans Sturm and I got together recently and filmed a chat about the Rabbath left hand position technique. Hans does a great job explaining the concepts behind this technique, and I hope that folks out there will benefit from this video. It is also [...]

I recently got a chance to play around with one of luthier Chris Threlkeld-Wiegand’s double basses. Chris used to work at Robertson and Sons in Albuquerque, New Mexico, building extensions with capos (like the ones you see on the Contrabass Conversations logo). He now runs his own business in Iowa City called the [...]

I’ve blogged before about Vito Liuzzi’s performance of the Divertimento Concertante by Nino Rota, posting video of the first two sections in earlier blog posts (that annoying 10 minute limit on YouTube videos really gets in the way with classical music–one of the reasons that I use blip.tv for the podcast video material).  This video [...]

Ian Hallas, principal bassist for the Midwest Young Artists Symphony Orchestra (and my student for the past six years) is seen here performing the first movement of the Bottesini Concerto in B minor with his high school orchestra in Northbrook, Illinois. This was recorded live on October 29, 2007. Notice the low B [...]

International Society of Bassists President and Ball State University Bass Professor Hans Sturm and I got together recently and filmed a chat about the Rabbath left hand position technique. Hans does a great job explaining the concepts behind this technique, and I hope that folks out there will benefit from this video. It is also [...]