[Dixielandjazz] Doubling bass

[Don Ingle]

In my five year at Jazz Ltd in chi, I was able to work with a legend, Quinn
Wilson. Quinn played string bass and a Sousaphone blow bass. He recorded, at
age 16, onthe blow bass with Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers in Chicago
(Chimes Blues, etc.). Then worked for years with the Earl Hines band at
Chicago's famed Club Delise and Grand Terrace. He recorded with Hines that
period, a band that included Darnell Howard,Omar Simeon and other players of
note.
Quinn played both instruments equally well.  It was my good luck and great
pleasure to have known and worked with this fine musician, and good friend.
In act, that friendship wasso strong that when he andhis wife Olive has a
late-in-life son, Ronald, Quinn asked Jean and I to be Godparents, which we
proudly agreed to be.
It was common practice in the early days for bass players to play both
insturments. I have a 1934 picture of the Ted Weems Band in which my father
was a member (the shot shows dad and Rosie McHarge in the Sax Section) and
in the back row you can see Joe Washburne's string bass and frontward bell
tuba.
Bassist Phil Stephens played both on the Matty Matlock
albums, and, if I recall, on Coast Concert with Hackett.
Most of the top bassists of that period were at home of both.
At Jazz Ltd.with a doubling bassist and a doubling guitar/banjoist, and we
would switch from a New Orleans sound on one number and to a four beat
swinging Chicago style band on the next with guitar and string bass.
It was a lot of fun and opened up a wider set of choices for the music we
would play.
Find a bassist who plays both instruments today, and keep him. They may be a
dying breed.
Don
Ingle