Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

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One of my colleagues recently won positions in three regional orchestras. This very talented individual began his college career as a biochemistry major, later switching his major to double bass performance. This highly intelligent and talented scientific mind then focused his energies on becoming the best double bass player he could possibly be, practicing [...]

Milwaukee Symphony and Grant Park Symphony cellist Peter Szczepanek sent me a link to this video featuring Stringfever playing Bolero. The thing is…they’re all playing it on one cello! Amazing. Now let’s see a bass quartet do the same thing. That gives me an idea…..

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Jaco Pastorius plays Portrait of [...]

Check out this episode from NPR’s From The Top featuring the great Bela Fleck and a young bassist named Mike Thurber. Just visit this page and click the ‘Listen’ button at the top. I love From The Top. To me, it is one of the best examples of how to engage young [...]

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 Ensemble. [...]

I spent this entire week in Wisconsin, first driving to Madison to play in the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, then heading up to Milwaukee to play a yearly concert called Gathering On the Green about 20 miles north of Milwaukee. This kind of driving reminds me of what it was like playing in the Milwaukee [...]

This is my first real week of vacation in over six months, and it is a humongous relief to finally have come time to kick back and relax. As a result of all this discretionary time, I have made some big behind-the-scenes changes to the blog and the podcast–the sort of thing that has [...]

I just put out a new listing on the bass blog For Sale page that I’d like to call to people’s attention. Milwaukee-area bassist Mike Britz is selling a 2004 Gagnon double bass which is a really excellent instrument. I’ve played on several of these in the past (Lyric Opera bassist Collins Trier [...]

Just what the world needs…….more smooth jazz. How about some Yanni DVDs and Kenny G albums while we’re at it?
Milwaukee loses classical music radio to fill void left by station shuffling
Classical music disappeared from Milwaukee radio today as WFMR-FM (106.9) flipped to smooth jazz.
It’s part of a chain reaction that started with WKTI-FM (94.5) [...]

Contrabass Conversations guest and bass blog contributor John Grillo is playing principal bass for The Princeton Festival, a summer music festival that opens this Saturday(6/23/07) with a performance of Bizet’s Carmen. John has mentioned that the singers and staging are superb, so this is definitely a performance to check out if you happen [...]

This interesting story from Polyphonic.org ties in well with my thoughts and observations on future directions for the music business covered in Road Warrior Without an Expense Account Part X - Refocusing (Musical Entrepreneurship). You can find this complete series (and dozens of other long-form essays) under my new Articles link above the post [...]