[Dixielandjazz] Doubling bass

[Patrick Cooke]

>>>>Find a bassist who plays both instruments today, and keep him.<<<
    Better yet, find one who is willing to schlep them both around!
         Pat C.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Ingle" <dingle@baldwin-net.com>
To: <dixielandjazz@ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2002 12:05 PM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Doubling bass


> 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
>
>
>
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