The 5-String Double Bass

[David Powell]

As a jazz player and mostly classical listener, I think the classical players have a huge challenge in making the music their own. With jazz it kind of starts as "your own" in the ideal world.

I will admit experiencing a certain sense of satisfaction after having come back from an annual festival that features diverse music and players and out of 4 DB players there, I had the only large 5-string. No-one had extensions. We were covering Chitlins Con Carne and bouncing down to that low C after a couple of choruses in the higher octave and hearing it reverberate across the stage and out to the audience;- no matter what the other players could do, that moment belonged to me. I think it might have scored lowest note played at that festival, unless some keyboard went a step lower. And I played all of Foot Prints arco, again using the lower G on the B string as the pickup to the head instead of the higher G. That's a dark foot print.

Paul, it was you and that Bohmann that did this to me. And I thank you!