Good tracks with double bass ("stand up bass")

[dewar]

Any good recs for some well recorded music featuring good double bass tracks? Just discovered this site. I'm trying to finish piecing together my setup and trying to build up a good lossless music collection. Thanks for any input! Glad I found this place!

 

Chris

 

Setup:

30" Cinema Display

B&W Signature 805s

Denon 3806

MBP

Airport Express

 

Lusting over:

PS Audio Link III DAC

Krell 400xi

 

[Abstraction]

There are many great jazz bass players. What kind of music are you interested in? I think anyone would find most of Charlie Haden's albums fine--try the Montreal tapes (they are all good; I especially like the the one with Paul Bley), or the several duet albums--Haden and Hampton Hawes perhaps my favorite. The solo album by Dave Holland is great. There is a young guy named Stephen Crump, who plays with the Vijay Iyre quartet. He has led a couple of albums, with a guitar player (can't remember his name) that is well worth hearing. If you like stuff that is a little more demanding, all of the albums by Mike Bisio and William Parker are fantastic, but mostly out there. Bisio's Undulations and Parker's Sound Unity or his duos with Hamid Drake are on the tamer side. I was just listening to a great duo album--Luminesence by Daniel Carter and Rueben Rading. If you can deal with really far out stuff, take a listen to Peter Kowald, Was Ist Das. And then, of course, there is Charlie Mingus. You might have to go to Downtown Music Gallery's excellent site to find some of these. They provide excellent, extended comments written by the DMG staff on most albums.

 

I can give you more if you are interested. I could file thru my collection and give you bass solo, duo, and quartet albums, and some of the earlier great bass players--Oscar Pettiford, for example.

 

 

 

[IamKirk]

Contemporary Noise Quintet. Band doesn't sound anything like their name might imply. Sort of a cinematic nu jazz of sorts I guess. Elements of post rock too. Interesting for something different.

 

[BobH]

Absolutely anything with Danny Thompson on it, but a quick search at your favourite on-line record emporium should unearth some of his solo stuff. 'Live 1967' is brilliant but short! 'Peter Knight and Danny Thompson' is a personal fave.

 

[Vincent]

Ray Brown Soular Vision, I think that's the name of the album, available in 24/96 DVDA

 

[borderdog]

Gary Karr is considered the greatest living double bassist. He doesn't do jazz, though.

His rendition of "O Holy Night" is unbelievable. He is accompanied by a pipe organ and together they will

test the lowest octave of your system.

He's got a website: http://www.garykarr.com/

 

Aaron H.

 

 

 

[Innertuber]

I'm thinking that in This Is Spinal Tap they do a dbl bass version on Big Bottom. Going from memory here. I think they are standing up but Niles may falls over.

 

[iansen]

many years ago someone made me a cassette themed on exactly this topic: i supsect he might have done it just to expose the supremacy of his nakamichi dragon...

 

don't know if these tracks are all available as hi-def download versions but, from memory, here are some of them:

 

carmel : tracks of my tears [live version from the 12" but the album version is ok..]

abdullah ibrahim: Ishmael [both versions, on the album bunyana - children of africa]

scritti politi: rock-a-boy blue [from the album songs to remember]

 

and some more recent tracks from me:

 

4 hero + Chris Bowden: hero / lullaby 12

roni size: brown paper bag [from the album new forms]

massive attack: sly [the underdog mix and the underdog double bass, accapella mix versions]

madlib: mystic bounce [from the madlib invades blue-note lp]

 

[iansen]

wow - some of those gary carr tracks are amazing.

and to the user called "Abstraction": yes please! would love you to provide a quick list of albums: anything stark, emotional, hurt, abstract, modernist...

 

[Matthew Vaughan]

Mikyung Sung's "The Colburn Sessions (double album, 2023) is stunning. Easily the best bowed (classical) double bass solo playing I've ever heard - gorgeous, exciting, engaging, moving, tender, and expressive.

 

(There are lots of other good classical bassists besides the now-retired Gary Karr these days. He was a great, great pioneer of the instrument, but I wouldn't consider him the best any more.)

[SoundQcar]

Moonlight Serenade - Laurindo Almeida & Ray Brown

[christian u]

Rosedale intro to Up Jumped the Devil  very well recorded bass

 

 

[christian u]

One more;

 

[christian u]

Here is a whole album sublimely well recorded bass;