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Clarke and Wasserman? Are you kidding?

Sorry, maybe this is bashing, but as talented as these gentlemen are they don't hold a candle to any random section player in a collegiate orchestra when it comes to bowing.

I feel a rant coming on...

Many, perhaps most, working jazz bassists do not possess the bowing technique that would earn them a chair in a professional orchestra. Their tone is nasally and scratchy. It is not an easy thing to reach into a bass string a produce a big, fat tone with a bow.

As long as I'm on the box, I might as well add that I've never been a fan of Mr. Clarke, bow or no bow, acoustic or electric. Although I respect and admire his fretboard gymnastics, the man seems to have a hard time just holding down a groove. I've seen him three times and walked away shaking my head after each performance.

OK, I feel better now. A jazz player with a bow is one of my pet peeves.

Bowed basses? Check out the introduction of the "Ode to Joy" theme in the final movement of Beethoven's ninth or the all too brief passage in the third movement of Sibelius' op. 47 violin concerto. Too many others to mention.


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  Kimber Kable  


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