Family: String instruments
Photo: User:AndrewKepert, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
The double bass is the largest and lowest-sounding bowed string instrument. It stands about 1.8 metres tall, and its four strings are tuned in fourths: E–A–D–G. In an orchestra it is played with a bow, in jazz almost always with the fingers (pizzicato).
The heart of the jazz rhythm section
In jazz the bassist plays a walking bass – a steady line of quarter notes that keeps the time and leads the harmony at once. The pianist, the drummer and the soloists all rely on it.
Fun facts
- Jimmy Blanton, bassist of Duke Ellington’s orchestra, showed around 1940 that the double bass could play solos like a melodic instrument.
- Charles Mingus was not only a bassist but also one of the most important composers in jazz.
- In rockabilly the double bass is played with a slap technique – the strings hit the fingerboard, giving a percussive „click”. That is how Bill Black played in Elvis Presley’s first band.
Listen to
Ray Brown, Ron Carter (Miles Davis Quintet), Charlie Haden and, from Poland, Zbigniew Wegehaupt.
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