and I had to get around that. I didn’t really learn to hear the power and depth in his sound until years later. I studied with François at some summer programs, and after Rice I got a Fulbright scholarship to study with him in Paris for a year. All this time I’d been putting off a desire to go to New York City and be a jazzer, so after my year in Paris I went to New York and I spent about 6 years working as a freelance jazz player. I did some bandleading, played with some old timers, got inspired by a young group of players doing Afro-Cuban music. I saved up a nest egg and went back to Paris for another year of study with Rabbath. through transcription, and they work to be honest with themselves about their weaknesses and their commitment to improvement. I learn new strategies from them for growth and improvement every week. I am really enjoying my own individual practice time each day, and find meaning in connecting my own artistic pursuits with like-minded students and colleagues at Ithaca College. These days I am doing a better job balancing life as a husband, father, musician, teacher, and community member, but this is a complex equation for anyone. Thankfully I have it in the forefront of my life every day. ■ I decided that I wanted a more formal education in classical playing, and went to SUNY Stony Brook to get a Masters in double bass with Joe Carver, and then my doctorate degree in viola da gamba. I think some people probably felt like I was all over the map, but it was all connected for me. Early music is not dissimilar to jazz in the sense that you’re playing bass lines that provide the grove and harmonic context for the solo voice and rhythm section. Understanding the harmonies, improvising and adding ornaments around predetermined melodies, creating rhythmically subtle interpretations of the music is all central to both aesthetic disciplines. The viol didn’t replace the bass for me, but I felt like I was looking at the ancestor of the bass. It can also be a really incredible experience being the sole bass instrument in a chamber ensemble. As double bassists, we’re often doubling the bass line in an ensemble. I found the similarity between an improvised setting like a bluegrass trio and an early music ensemble, and I had a chance to explore that in a huge repertoire of music I hadn’t spent time in before. It also gave me time to work with gut strings. (Actually, I think this connects with François Rabbath’s approach on a deep level: his sound is like a viol approach to the bass, like a bowed, resonant membrane - across the string, lots of resonance rather than the violinists’ approach, which is more into the string.) I’d fallen in love with my wife, and got an opportunity to teach in a one-year position at Ithaca College, and I was able to secure that position and start to build a studio in 2005. That’s what I’ve been doing until this last year, when I spent a year on sabbatical leave in Berlin learning German bow. I worked with great German bass players, and learned a lot about yet another approach to bass playing. On the surface, it might seem very different from what we as Americans experience, but it is also tied to the viola da gamba approach. The gut string/flat back/5-string setup that they use in the Berlin Philharmonic is very much like a viol. They use a lot of bow and move the string with a huge amount of horizontal motion. It’s a very special sound, and the underhand bow supplies a lot of contact and “zoom” in the sound. Of course we all know that the viol is the ancestor to these 5-string, flack-backed instruments, and the predecessor of underhand bowing. What are you up to these days? Today, mostly thanks to my position at Ithaca College, I get to play lots of different styles of music with excellent musicians in all sorts of different contexts. I play jazz, solo recitals, and chamber music all the time. Sometimes I spend a week subbing in the section of an orchestra. Sometimes I get to play concertos, and do recording sessions, and compose and perform my own music. Each week I get to work with kick ass students at Ithaca College, a group of
bassists who are committed to most of what’s been presented in this interview. The students in the Ithaca College studio play at a level that is totally inspiring and motivating for me. They learn most of their repertoire 32 SUMMER 2014 NEXT LEVEL BASSIST
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