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Greetings!
Some players just amaze me.
I should say all players amaze me as the ability to think
musically through your fingers into the instrument is something I
was musically never able to accomplish. Thankfully I am a better
maker than a player and my personal needs are fulfilled
though!
But players like Tony Falanga just amaze me, and here's why. Last
week I asked Tony what bass he was playing in the YouTube clip I
posted. I asked because Tony owns one of my basses, and the bass in
the video was not it. His reply was that it was a loaner bass.
Airline travel with a bass has become so daunting that most players
who do serious touring, especially overseas, have instruments they
see for the first time at the gig. Tony can play the Bach suite on
just about anything! No excuses, no fuss, just business as usual.
I applaud that. So many players "can't" play other basses because
the string length or neck heel or (etc) is different from their
bass. Being able to play every bass in a room no matter the size,
and play the Bach suites at that, is amazing to me. Bravo
Tony!
So...without further ado, I bring you some Friday night double bass
entertainment!
And remember...if you have ANY links, news, videos, etc. you want
to share, eMail it to me at eroy@uptonbass.com and I'll be sure to
share it. Oh...and if you just want to say "Hi" you can do that
too!
Have a nice weekend!
Eric
Roy
Upton Bass String Instrument Co
860-535-9399
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John
Martyn with Danny Thompson
Solid Air
YouTube
Hi Eric,
Here's another YouTube clip for The Upton Report.
The late, great John Martyn supported by the equally great, but
thankfully not yet late, British double bassist (and my earliest DB
influence) Danny Thompson.
Thoroughly enjoying The Upton Report each Friday,
Andy
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That
One Guy
YouTube
Also known as Michael Silverman, That 1 Guy is a Berkeley,
Calif.-based, classically trained string bassist. After performing
with some of the nation's top progressive jazz ensembles throughout
the 1990s, Silverman created an instrument out of wire and iron
pipes that could serve his ever-expanding musical techniques. Think
"gutbucket" bass with a lot more firepower. The result is an
astonishing solo act. |
Our
annual concert (the 14th one!) called Basses Loaded was a big
success. Thought you'd enjoy some of the wording.
All
the bassed,
Gary
(Karr)
Here's
the review:
Basses
Loaded XIV
Participants
of KarrKamp 2010
Phillip T Young Recital Hall
July 27, 2010
By
Deryk Barker
Until roughly four decades ago - when it was unceremoniously
toppled from its throne - John Philip Sousa's most famous single
piece was almost certainly The Stars and Stripes for Ever. (The
toppling came about when the rather less well known Liberty
Bell march was chosen for Monty Python's Flying Circus, thus
ensuring its instant recognisability even in places where they have
never heard of Sousa).
Even today, especially within beer-can-hurling-distance of an
English football (soccer, if you must) stadium, the Stars and
Stripes can still be heard, albeit it truncated form and
accompanied by the deathless lyrics "Here we go, here we go, here
we go" (this is the total libretto, repeated numerous times), so
that many in the UK habitually refer to it as "The earwig song"
(trying singing it aloud while dropping the initial
aspirate).
And it was with a splendidly vital, not to mention jolly, account
of the Earwig Song that the official programme of Basses Loaded
XIV closed on Tuesday evening.
One of the (many) delights of Basses Loaded is the way in which the
same formula can be the source of endless variation; one can fairly
easily summarise that formula: start with a Bach chorale prelude,
proceed with the ensemble playing a number of arranged works, have
some music played by smaller sub-ensembles, then a brief Karr-Lewis
duo recital and end with frequently well-known and
less-than-completely-serious pieces from the full ensemble
again.
Oh yes, I must not forget the mandatory and greatly anticipated
appearance of the two Karr-Lewis canine accomplices during the
final piece.
But no matter how formulaic the programme may appear each year,
somehow ennui never sets in.
This year, for example, the first half of the evening featured
music from five composers, all of whom were born in the same decade
(1681 to 1690); one, Giacobo Cervetto, even lived to the ripe old
age of 101 - remarkable to think that he was born three years
before Bach and Handel and died a mere eight years before
Mozart.
Bach and Telemann were the "big" names of this group, Cervetto,
Veracini and Durante (I'd love to discover that he was an ancestor
of Jimmy) the lesser-known.
The opening Bach chorale prelude is perhaps the Basses Loaded
signature piece (not that we hear the same one every year) and the
joys of apparently sitting inside a single huge instrument have
been well-enough adumbrated by myself and others in the past. This
year's performance of "Erbarm' dich mein, O Herre Gott" was up to
the usual high standard.
Cervetto's Sonata IV, played by the full ensemble, had a lumbering
elegance all its own; Durante's Vergin Tutto Amor was beautifully
plaintive.
Gary Karr and Hector Tirado gave a wonderful performance of an aria
by Telemann, made even more remarkable by the fact of Tirado's
deafness.
Karr and (Victoria Symphony principal bassist) Mary Rannie gave a
delightful performance of Sonata VII by Veracini which culminated
in a deliciously lively 6/8 allegro finale.
More Veracini - the Sonata IV - closed the first half of the
evening performed by Karr and longtime partner Harmon Lewis. I
thought the opening largo e nobile particularly fine, even if
(because?) it bore a superficial resemblancee to "Ombra mai
fu" - or Handel's Largo as it was still known when I learnt to play
it (very badly) on the piano.
After all of this early-18th-century music, the opening of the
second half - a divertimento by Haydn - came as almost a shock. It
was marvellously played by Karr, Noriko Okamoto and Airi Shoda,
with some enchanting diminuendo and pianissimo playing in the
minuet's trio.
It was a performance to remind one once again what a great, great
composer Haydn was, to be able to produce music of this quality in
such quantity (I suspect that this may well have originated as one
of the 176 trios he wrote for the baryton).
Although there are age-limits for admission to KarrKamp - eighteen
to (for some bizarre reason) ninety-seven - as Karr admitted, he is
prepared to make the occasional exception.
Bazelaire's (who?) Aria di Chiesa was performed by three of those
"occasional" exceptions: Daniel Carias, Milad Daniari and Moe
Winograd, all of whom are just seventeen years old.
It was a sombre piece and played with much feeling, even if a
(presumed) lack of small-ensemble playing meant that there were
infrequent minor infelicities in synchronisation.
For many of the audience, I am sure, a - if not the - highlight of
the evening is the performance by the Karr-Lewis Duo; in this case
they gave two pieces by birthday boy Robert Schumann, the Romanze,
Op.28 No,2 and Abendlied, Op.85 No.12.
These were the kind of performances which silence criticism: each
of the pair is a magnificent musician in his own right but their
duo is more than the sum of its parts. I look forward every year to
these few minutes more than I can say.
After which the entire ensemble trooped back onto the stage - for
some more Schumann.
Northern Song certainly had the air of something from the Baltic
and Wild Horsemen was bouncy and great fun.
At which point we shifted to North America with Down at the OK
Corral by T. Osborne - the only composer of the evening who
is still with us - a decidedly cheerful piece, given the
association most of us have with the name "O.K.Corral", full of
nods in the direction of Copland and even a hint of the theme
from Bonanza.
Some real Copland followed - the Hoe-Down from Rodeo - and then
Leonard Bernstein's paean to the joys of 6/8
time: America from West Side Story ("Everything's free in America -
for a small fee in America"), taken at a somewhat deliberate tempo,
but not lacking in propulsion.
And finally, the aforementioned Earwig Song, enlivened by Karr's
dazzling playing of the fluting (actually I think the original uses
the piccolo, but there is no such word as "piccoloing") descant
somewhere in the nosebleed section of his bass's fingerboard.
For some reason I always leave the hall on these occasions with a
mild feeling of regret that I ever gave up the bass; but it is
inevitably tempered with the knowledge that, even on my best days,
I never had one iota of the talent displayed by the people on stage
on Tuesday evening.
Basses Loaded is an institution; long may it flourish.
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Tony
Falanga
YouTube
This video was shot in our showroom. Tony had
been here less than 5 minutes after a 3 hour car trip. Tony has
never played this bass before the video...this is cold with no warm
up.
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