[78-L] Use of double bass in dance bands

[Rodger Holtin]

Although we've had some fine answers so far, as a recovering bass player and one-time aspiring tuba player myself, and father of a current professional tuba player, suffer me the opportunity to weigh-in here.
 
Steve Brown of NORK, Goldkette and Whiteman fame is my hero.  He could saw away on that thing ("arco") and make it sing, and he could make it dance when he plucked it ("pizzicato"). (One of my all-time favorite moments on 78 is the Whiteman Victor of Make Believe where it's Steve and Bing.)  NORK was from the old New Orleans tradition where many assume a tuba was used, and he stands as only one proof that the bass was used, as has been noted.  Since the Gennetts do not display any trace of him, I have long been curious as to how and when he used either method and on what tunes.  Early Goldkette sides display generous use of arco technique, then a mix (as in Dinah and others of the Bix era) and the Whiteman records display mostly pizz, although he's so buried that it's kinda hard to tell.  Much as I love Whiteman, the sound of the Whiteman band regressed five years when Steve left just before the Columbia contract.  Trafficante was just not on
 the same par, period.
 
It has been said the bass fiddle is a rather inefficient piece of machinery.  True, if you’re interested in making loud noise, but its function is not as a noise maker.  It makes music, a nuance lost on some.  Also note that the "double bass" is called the "double" bass because it plays an octave below most tubas (or most anything else) and that makes the sound that much more likely to dissipate faster – again, the nature of the large lovable beast.   
 
***
I, too, have long loved to make the comparisons of the band records using tuba (or bass sax) and bass fiddle, and also note with fascination the magic changeover in the instrumentation towards the bass fiddle at the dawn of the swing era.  I am very, very well aware of the relative agility of the tuba or bass sax, so do not misunderstand the following.  MY take on it is this – the plucked string gives it an illusion of bounce, and perhaps an unearned reputation of extra agility over the brass or reed bass, but I truly believe the “ring of the string” is the key to the success of the bass fiddle and guitar coming on as they did to propel the swing band rhythm section – more like the piano and, to some extent, the traps.  
 
While not a dance band, it was a swing-era group, and there's a reason it would be hard to imagine the King Cole Trio with piano, tuba and banjo.  The tuba somewhat came back as a brass voice after the dance band era, as there are some wonderful Kenton sides to illustrate, but that's another subject for another thread and another subject line.
***
  
Two side points and I’m done.
 
A quiet instrument – As the bass player in the high school stage band, I was up on the tallest riser next to the drums.  It was a point of pride for me when the director told me to tone it down a bit :-) 
 
Intonation – we’ve had some mention of playing a bass line out of tune.
My successor in the stage band had intonation problems, and the solution was to tell her to hold the strings lightly against the finger board – they created a thud rather than a distinct tone and ring.  She was replaced by an electric bass the next year and I graduated and lost track after that.
 
 
Rodger

For Best Results use Victor Needles.

.

--- On Sun, 10/28/12, Doug Pomeroy <audiofixer at verizon.net> wrote:


From: Doug Pomeroy <audiofixer at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [78-L] Use of double bass in dance bands
To: 78-l at 78online.com
Date: Sunday, October 28, 2012, 7:42 PM


We've been on this thread for a long time now and all
I can add, speaking as a recording engineer, is that the
acoustic energy produced by the string bass is a fraction
of that by brass bass, and this is the main reason records
used the latter as frequently as they did, all other things 
being equal.  I realize others have pointed this out.
As multi-miking became more common, 
starting in the late 20's (listen closely to the Red Hot 
Peppers' "Doctor Jazz"), the way to get the string bass 
loud enough was still was to put it on a riser near the 
main microphone (there is a photo taken at an Ellington
session which shows this - and just listen to his "Hot And
Bothered" on Okeh from 1928, in which the bass is the
loudest and most "present" thing on the whole record!)
but very soon thereafter it was normal to give the string 
bass a separate mic at his normal place in the rhythm section.

I think Ellington wanted the string bass because it sounded
more "modern" than brass bass at that time, and electrical 
recording made it possible for the first time to really hear it.
I think this was a "selling point" for early electrical recordings;
even Gennett got on the bandwagon with its "Walkin' The 
Dog" by Carmichael's Collegians in 1928.

I cannot resist mentioning a reissue I recently acquired
(on Retrieval label) which includes some really fine
brass bass playing by Henry Edwards, including some 
perfectly executed sixteenth notes, with Noble Sissle's
Orch on HMV B 5731, "Kansas City Kitty" from 1929.
Anyone who wants to hear it, let me know and I'll send
you an mp3.  It's a gasser and it gets hotter (and louder)
as the performance progresses.

Doug Pomeroy
Audio Restoration & Mastering Services
audiofixer at verizon.net
========================================
> Message: 7
> Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2012 12:11:09 +0000
> From: David Lewis <uncledavelewis at hotmail.com>
> Subject: [78-L]  Use of double bass in dance bands
> To: 78-l <78-l at 78online.com>
> Message-ID: <BAY156-W12994ED64DB8D79C419CB9CC7C0 at phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
> 
> Belated response to this thread, and apologies for that. My experience has been, and that comes from merely from listening to lots and lots of dance records from 1918-34, is that while the brass bass dominates before 1928 both brass bass and string bass are used interchangeably inthis whole period. There are very early dance records from around 1920 that use bass clarinet or bassoon in that role as well. And the brassbass doesn't necessarily disappear from the scene after 1928; witness this Fletcher Henderson recording from 1931: https://www.box.com/s/f6hiw1l0crf83tm60jv7 It seems most bass players in jazz/dance bands in that period were capable of playing both, much as a saxophone player in the 1920s wasexpected to know clarinet too, and several kinds of saxophones and if needed, other reeds such as oboe. If there was a conscious transitionfrom brass bass to string bass, and I'm not sure that it was "conscious" per se, before that it was up to the
 player or arranger to det
er
> minewhich option sounded better within a given piece. Vince Giordano is the bassist in the Nighthawks and he crams into his little spot on the'stage at the Edison Hotel a bass sax, tuba and a metal string bass. You do see similar configurations in old photos of dance bands; I reallythink it was up to the discretion of the player. Possibly the pluckier sound of the string bass "won" by 1935 simply because it fit better with the tempo of swing music, but note that in theHenderson file the brass bass has no trouble swinging this chart. I play the electric bass regularly and I can attest, yes, if you are a bassplayer it is easy to detect mistakes in the bass line. But the upside of that is that you can better appreciate really outstanding bass playingwhen it happens.  
> 
> Uncle Dave Lewis
> uncledavelewis at hotmail.com 

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