double bass podcast
headshot via Jim Carmody
It was a pleasure to sit down with bassist, composer, and University of California San Diego professor Mark Dresser for this wide-ranging conversation about bi-tones, fingerboard amplification, telematic music performance, and much more!Continue Reading …
Today, we take a look at the remarkable impact that Paul Ellison has had on the double bass world as a teacher.
This episode includes our original interview with Paul from 2016 as well as thoughts on Paul as a teacher from five former students:
Performing solo and ensemble concerts as well as giving master classes on the double bass and period instruments on four continents, Paul Ellison is the Lynette S. Autrey Professor of Double Bass and chair of strings at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, Visiting Artist-Faculty University of Southern California and guest tutor at the Yehudi Menuhin School, the Royal College of Music, and Bass Club, England.
Current summer positions include principal bass at the Grand Teton Music Festival, faculty/performer at the Sarasota Music Festival and faculty/performer at Festival Domaine Forget, Quebec. Former students hold titled positions in major ensembles and institutions of higher learning on five continents.
Previous positions include principal bass of Houston Symphony, Houston Grand Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Aspen Festival Orchestras (also faculty), professor of double bass and chair of strings at the University of Southern California, and president of the International Society of Bassists. Ellison was the first to receive both the diploma and teaching certificate from Institut International Rabbath, Paris.
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This “best of” episode features Berlin Philharmonic principal bassist Matthew McDonald. Enjoy, and check out the original episode from 2016 here.Continue Reading …
This “best of” episode features composer, teacher, and bassist Ron Carter. Enjoy, and check out the original episode from 2016 here.
Ron Carter is among the most original, prolific, and influential bassists in jazz. With more than 2,000 albums to his credit, he has recorded with many of music’s greats: Tommy Flanagan, Gil Evans, Lena Horne, Bill Evans, B.B. King, the Kronos Quartet, Dexter Gordon, Wes Montgomery, and Bobby Timmons. In the early 1960s he performed throughout the United States in concert halls and nightclubs with Jaki Byard and Eric Dolphy.
He later toured Europe with Cannonball Adderley. From 1963 to 1968, he was a member of the classic and acclaimed Miles Davis Quintet. He was named Outstanding Bassist of the Decade by the Detroit News, Jazz Bassist of the Year by Downbeat magazine, and Most Valuable Player by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. In 1993 Ron Carter earned a Grammy award for Best Jazz Instrumental Group, the Miles Davis Tribute Band and another Grammy in 1998 for Call ‘Sheet Blues’, an instrumental composition from the film ‘Round Midnight.
In addition to scoring and arranging music for many films, including some projects for Public Broadcasting System, Carter has composed music for A Gathering of Old Men, starring Lou Gosset Jr., The Passion of Beatrice directed by Bertrand Tavernier, and Blind Faith starring Courtney B. Vance. Carter shares his expertise in the series of books he authored, among which are Building Jazz Bass Lines and The Music of Ron Carter; the latter contains 130 of his published and recorded compositions.
Carter earned a bachelor of music degree from the Eastman School in Rochester and a master’s degree in double bass from the Manhattan School of Music in New York City. He has also received four honorary doctorates, from the New England Conservatory of Music and the Manhattan School of Music, and was the 2002 recipient of the prestigious Hutchinson Award from the Eastman School at the University of Rochester. Most recently he was honored by the French Minister of Culture with France’s premier cultural award–the medallion and title of Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, given to those who have distinguished themselves in the domain of artistic or literary creation and for their contribution to the spread of arts and letters in France and the world.
Carter has lectured, conducted, and performed at clinics and master classes, instructing jazz ensembles and teaching the business of music at numerous universities. He was Artistic Director of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Studies while it was located in Boston and, after 18 years on the faculty of the Music Department of The City College of New York, he is now Distinguished Professor Emeritus although, as a performer, he remains as active as ever.
Photo credit: snapshotsfoundation.com
This “best of” episode features double bassist and contemporary music pioneer Bert Turetzky. Enjoy, and check out the original episode from 2016 here.
Bertram Turetzky has been a distinguished clinician and pedagogue for over three decades, giving master classes, seminars, and workshops nationally and internationally. His knowledge of repertoire, performance style, and his unique approach to technical, psychological, and physical problems has made him a highly sought-after teacher. His master classes have been referred to as “life-altering.”
Turetzky has been a featured contrabass soloist in the music centers of the United States, Europe, Latin America and Australia. The response to his many concerts, recordings, lectures, writings and his unique sonic vocabulary has taken the contrabass from it’s traditional role to assume the position of a major solo instrument. More than 300 compositions have been written for, performed by, and recorded by Turetzky, making him one of the few performers, in all of music history, to have created a large and impressive repertoire of music for his instrument.
He is is a prolific recording artist and has recorded for Nonesuch, Finnador, Son Nova, Desto, Music and Art, Incus, 9 winds, Advance, Vanguard, New World, and others as soloist, improvisor, chamber player, Jazz player, orchestra player, and Klezmer artist. He is also an acclaimed scholar/researcher in the fields of Jazz History, 18th Century Chamber Music and the author of many reviews, articles and the now classic book “The Contemporary Contrabass.”
After the success of his book, Turetzky was named co-editor of “The New Instrumentation Series” [UC Press]. He is also a published composer, editor, transcriber and arranger of music for his instrument. His compositions are published, reviewed and recorded. Turetzky has also received many awards for composition from ASCAP plus grants from the NEA and Meet the Composer as well as many commissions.
