[Dixielandjazz] Tuba & String Bass

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

and let us not forget Milt Hinton
a great judge of tuba players, Milt.
He learned violin at Hull House in Chicago 
(which somebody ought to have noticed before writing the sleevenotes to the duet 

LP he recorded with Art Hodes!) 

but great judge of Tuba players that Milt was 
he dismissed out of hand his own early recordings on brass bass 
as a teenager with Tiny Parham.  
He had listened to and learned enough from New Orleans bassists
to take over from Al Morgan in Cab Calloway's band 
strictly on string bass

One of Milt's moments of delight came after he'd become interested enough in 
"bass guitar" or "electric bass" to buy one of those contraptions. Some days 
later he had a telephone call, a discreet inquiry about his finances, as if 
something unhappy might have discombobulated the Hinton family exchequer, 
requiring the prospect so horrifying to the caller and some others, as Milt 
making a date on electric bass guitar. Financial assistance was tendered to the 
great man, rather than his take a date on the dreaded electric string burper. 

Milt reassured the worried, the gadgetry was strictly for his own cellar, and 
not to be deployed in public places. 


Red Callendar does seem to have applied his early acquired expertise on brass as 
well as string bass later in a distinguished career. 


Bill Barber, who recorded on tuba on Birth of the Cool (which some sympathetic 
souls re-dubbed "Let's Bix Again" because of the trumpeter's Bixian enthusiasms) 
spent some time emulating Slam Stewart -- not in the man+ bass + bumble bee 
game, but performing Bach on string bass (without vocal, unlike Pablo Casals on 
Cello --- "we can hear your voice on the tapes, Mr, Casals..."  "Good! You can 
charge double for the records."). 


 And I seem to have stirred some enthusiasm among members of another web group 
by reporting the presence on some recordings by the demi-yodelling blues singer 
Dr. Clayton of very nice tuba solos by Ransom Knowling, the New Orleans veteran 
whose string-bass contributions to recordings by Arthur Crudup ought to have 
earned him lots of the money Crudup too wasn't paid when one of them was 
imitated in some detail by the man one UK comedian pastiched as Elvin Pelvin

Of course the late "Professor" Jimmy Edwards, comedian who came onstage 
sometimes bearing and playing euphonium, used to have a line about how there was 
one major difference between Rigoletto, and Aida. The two notes of the tuba part 
to the one were played the other way round in the other. Edwards could also 
project the  amazing sustained buzzy note that joke deserves. 


Robert, ten miles south of Glasgow, Scotland