Contrabass Conversations

We're featuring Josh Skinner on today's podcast.   Josh is a bassist, composer, and faculty member at the University of Idaho .    Josh also directs the annual Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival , which brings together thousands of jazz students from the United States and abroad.   I also had the pleasure of being a clinician at the 2020 festival and spending some time in person with Josh.   We talk abo...

Today we're featuring Christian Dillingham , a Grammy Award-winning bassist who happens to be one of my longtime friends.   Christian recently joined the faculty at Indiana University to teach jazz bass.   We chat about that and much more!   Check out my in-person conversation with Christian from the 2019 International Society of Bassists Convention , and be sure to follow him on Instagram !   Lis...

Today we're featuring Sam Morel , a French double bass luthier who has recently taken a job at David Gage String Instruments .   Sam won a Silver Medal for Tone at the 2019 International Society of Bassists Convention and a Certificate of Merit at the 2018 Violin Society of America Competition . We talk about the various basses he has built, how life has been for him during the pandemic, working w...

We're chatting with conductor and career development coach Stephen P. Brown today.   Stephen appeared on the podcast in 2019 , and we dig into developing your career during the pandemic, what holds so many musicians back, what life is looking like for Stephen at the present moment, and much more. Follow along with Stephen on Facebook and Twitter , and be sure to check out his podcast Classic Jabbe...

Today's episode is the 4th and final of The Scholarship Roadmap's takeover of the Contrabass Conversations podcast feed. The Scholarship Roadmap is an online program for student musicians pursuing careers in music. It was developed by Contrabass Conversations team member, Trevor Jones . Book a discovery call with Trevor to see if it's right for you.   "A performance degree is a way to give you a l...

Today's episode is the 3rd of 4 of The Scholarship Roadmap's takeover of the Contrabass Conversations podcast feed. The Scholarship Roadmap is an online program for student musicians pursuing careers in music. It was developed by Contrabass Conversations team member, Trevor Jones . Book a discovery call with Trevor to see if it's right for you.   "What I'm looking for is seriousness, talent, and a...

Today's episode is the 2nd of 4 of The Scholarship Roadmap's takeover of the Contrabass Conversations podcast feed. The Scholarship Roadmap is an online program for student musicians pursuing careers in music. It was developed by Contrabass Conversations team member, Trevor Jones . Book a discovery call with Trevor to see if it's right for you.   "We have to understand the significance of what we'...

Trevor Jones is launching a new program called The Scholarship Roadmap that addresses the tricky business of choosing a college that fits your musical needs.    We talk about the challenges, experiences, and tactics that Trevor has developed through his broad range of experiences teaching at the high school and collegiate levels.   Enjoy!   Listen to Contrabass Conversations with our free app for...

It's rare for me to interview a fellow San Franciscan like Dan Turkos over the web instead of in person, but we're in strange times for sure right now.   Despite the pandemic, Dan and his wife successfully raised over $12,000 on Kickstarter for her debut album.   We talk about this, their life before moving to San Francisco and what attracted them to the city, their multi-genre duo Beneath a Tree...

Johnny Hamil has been building bass events for the past decade, and he has organized something really special for this summer: Bassists 4 Bassists . This online event will take place July 7-11, and will feature Francois Rabbath, Lynn Seaton, Jessica Valls, Hans Sturm, Billy Sheehan, and many other well-known bassists. You can register here , and check out this preview video to get a taste of what'...

Helen Svoboda has just released a solo album titled Vegetable Bass featuring her compelling compositional voice and combination of bass and vocals .   I had the chance to chat with her in 2019 , and it was so much fun connecting with her about this new project and other topics.   In addition to the album, we talk about our current respective living situations, her upcoming move back to Australia a...

Chris Fitzgerald has been putting out incredible jazz bass content on YouTube for years.   He recently released a comprehensive review of the Noble Tube Preamp , and he is in the early stages of a new project that he is calling "Bass Jitsu."   We talk about this new project, how his early piano teacher was the original inspiration for this approach tot he bass, what it's like putting these massive...

Sara Neilson will be running an online beginner bass camp for students age 8-12 from July 6th through July 30th.   She'll be doing hourly sessions from 10-11 am Central Time. Sara teaches bass at the Merit School of Music in Chicago, and she has been running a series of warm-up classes each weekday on Facebook .   She also recently wrote an article titled 'Game Changer' for the International Socie...

Susanna Klein has been working on a really cool project the past few years: Practizma .   This is a journal that takes you through 16 weeks of guided practice, with goal setting, reflection prompt, action challenges, and journal pages to track your practice.   In addition to this very cool system, we talk about Susanna's background, what it has been like teaching online these past few months, the...

Tom Walley has certainly been keeping busy during the quarantine, publishing a ton content on his Instagram and YouTube , including his arrangement of the Adagio from Mahler's 9th Symphony with his fellow London Philharmonic Orchestra section members. Tom and I talk about this recording and his other quarantine projects, canceled tours, moving out of London for the time being, long-distance relati...

I've been following along with the musical adventures of Hans Roelofsen and Rudolph Senn for years.   They have toured the world as a bass duo, with 15 trips to the United States alone.   Throughout these trips, they have collected some fantastic stories.   We dig into these stories, how they came to play as a duo, challenges of transcription, the implications of choosing a particular key for an a...

Bill Rinehart has been teaching jazz piano online for the past 13 years, and he has been working with Jaime Slutzky recently to redevelop certain aspects of his online offerings. I've been obsessed with finding new ways to frame the private lesson experience for years, and the current pandemic has made music teachers across the globe rethink the one-on-one traditional private lesson experience. Bi...

Abo Gumroyan truly is a musical chameleon.   In addition to winning Grammys with the Pacific Mambo Orchestra, Abo has played with the San Francisco Symphony, played on countless sessions, worked on Las Vegas shows, and much more. We dig into Abo's musical background, his time studying with Scott Pingel , Steve Tramontozzi , David Allen Moore , and many others, what it has been like adjusting to th...

In addition to being an outstanding bassist, Mary Javian has an inspiring goal in life: to use music to create positive social change in communities. We dig into her role as Chair of Career Studies at the Curtis Institute of Music , what this institution offered in terms of career development when she was a student and how it has evolved over the years, what this work means to her, the importance...

The whole world is adjusting to new ways of interaction, and the world of music advocacy is no exception. Jessica Garand 's Opportunity Music Project has been doing a particularly good job of adapting their El Sistema-style program to these current times, with their Sponsor a Student program and many other initiatives and offerings. In today's episode, we chat with Jessica and OMP bass instructor...

Drew Gress ' biography reads like a who's who of the jazz world, including collaboration with Tim Berne, Ravi Coltrane, Uri Caine, John Hollenbeck, and countless others.   He has appeared on over 140 recordings, 4 of which have received Grammy nominations. In this conversation, which was prompted by Richard Ivy, a former student of Drew's, we discuss many topics, including: Drew's in-depth intervi...

Marcos Machado shows no signs of slowing down even during the pandemic!   He recently joined the Discover Double Bass teaching team and released a course in the fall of 2019 titled I ntegral Technique . photo credit: Discover Double Bass This course is based on the extensive research and experimentation Marcos has done in fingerings through his epic work Tao of Bass .   We spoke with Marcos about...

Miles Perkin is exploring fascinating musical territory with the double bass.   Originally from Canada and now living in Berlin, he recently released a solo bass album called Subtones that mixes voice, bass, and extended techniques in unexpected and compelling ways. In this conversation, recorded in March just before the pandemic fully shut down the globe, we talk about his background the Berlin e...

Susan Cahill has been finding all kinds of ways to keep herself inspired musically during the pandemic.   She had finished filming an episode for the PBS Series Now Hear This prior to the lockdown, and she has been immersing herself in several music at-home projects. We talk about these projects, how practicing other instruments fits into her musicianship, thoughts on small and large group perform...

We're featuring Czech double bass player Jaromír Honzák on the podcast today.   Jaromír recently released an album called Hard To Understand , and like everyone else right now, he's finding new ways to cope with our current pandemic. We talk about the jazz scene in Prague, the value of building a local scene, recording the latest album, and much more.   Enjoy! Listen to Contrabass Conversations wi...