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But enough of the tortured metaphor. This is important -- why? Because Sunday begins the Hawaii Contrabass Festival, a week of concerts and master classes celebrating the lowest of the low among string instruments. The festival was founded in 2000 by the late George Wellington Sr., a contrabassist and educator, and continues every two years under the direction of his daughter Fumiko, a violinist with the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra. The festival draws an international roster of top bassists, among them the legendary François Rabbath (the event is dedicated to Rabbath's 75th birthday). The string bass lives among the notes at the bottom of the musical staff -- and below. If you don't read music, think of it this way: If the bass could sing, it would be Barry White. It's 6 feet tall and 21 inches wide and can be plucked by hand or strummed by bow. Its job is to provide the foundation, in tone and rhythm. "The bass is the heartbeat," says Bruce Hamada, a professional bassist and singer. "We're the root; we play the time and the beat." And yet, their work often passes unnoticed. "You're invisible in a sense because everything sounds right," says John Kolivas, bassist with the Honolulu Jazz Quartet and the symphony -- and a teacher of future bassists at Punahou School. If the bass stops, the other musicians flounder, Kolivas says, "because the bottom falls out."
Adds Hamada, "We get there, and we decide how (the music) is going to be. We just let them think they're running the show -- you can print that." The word "contrabass" actually refers to the lowest-pitched instrument in any family. There are, for example, contrabass trumpets and trombones, as well as octo-contrabass clarinets. Not to mention the B-flat sub-contrabass tubax, a 4-foot-tall instrument that plays like a saxophone but is pitched more like a tuba. The Contrabass Festival, however, focuses on the string bass, which is the most familiar among these unfamiliar instruments.
You know you're a contrabass maniac if:
People come up to you and ask, "What is that thing?" ... And after you tell them, and they still don't understand, ... And it's your band director who's asking.
That particular bit of wisdom comes from Grant Green, a patent lawyer in the Bay area who has an interest in contrabasses that borders on obsession. He plays contrabassoon with the San Jose Wind Symphony and maintains the Web site www.contrabass.com, an immense collection of facts about deep-voiced instruments, few of which the normal person has ever seen, heard or heard of. Green also has a collection of 40 or 50 of them, mostly winds, and can play them all to some degree. He started out on clarinet in the fourth grade, then kept moving to lower and lower instruments, fascinated by their tonal qualities and what they contributed to the music. "There are parts where you have the root of the entire orchestra. There is an indescribable thrill that goes with this."
You know you're a contrabass maniac if:
Your instrument eats smaller instruments when you turn your back ... including euphoniums and bass clarinets ... and tubas ... and pianos, if it hasn't been fed for a while.
Playing an instrument the size of a string bass requires some accommodation. Your car, for example. Bassists require vehicles at least the size of station wagons, although Hamada says he used to strap his bass into the front seat of his Honda. At home -- "I stick it in the bathroom or the garage, wherever my family let's me," says Steve Jones, a bassist and music producer. "I keep mine in the corner next to the piano. ... My wife keeps trying to find another place for it," Kolivas says. And these guys play three-quarter-size instruments. A full-size bass is wider and deeper (smaller sizes are also available, for younger players). Traveling is another issue. For neighbor-island trips, some bassists will buy a first-class seat for their instrument and belt it in. But mainland travel requires packing it in a trunk that is inevitably oversized and can result in extra fees. Total weight exceeds 100 pounds, quadrupling the weight of the bass itself. "The trunk is like a coffin -- you need pallbearers to carry it," Jones says. "Airlines can get farty about it."
You know you're a contrabass maniac if:
You donated your old instrument to the local high school, and they were able to re-equip their entire band just from the scrap proceeds.
Hamada, Kolivas and Jones all were assigned low instruments as preteens in school music programs. For Hamada it was the trombone; Jones, the tuba; Kolivas, the cello (based on the size of his hands). They gravitated on the side to the electric bass guitar "because of Paul McCartney, I think," Hamada says, and quickly found that the instrument gave them entree into bands. As adults they immersed themselves in the vibrant musical stew of Waikiki in the '70s and eventually learned how much more the standing string bass offered, able to straddle genres from classical to jazz to Hawaiian to blues. They remain part of a small community -- they count fewer than a half-dozen among them. "If you play bass you'll always work," Kolivas says. "Every group needs a bass." Add to this the basic importance of the instrument. "Technically, I don't care how you analyze it -- everything rests on that lowest note," Jones said. "That harmonic series runs all the way to the top." Do other musicians realize this? "They do," Kolivas says, "as soon as they hear a bad bassist."
To hear the bassists quoted in this articleBruce Hamada performs with pianist Jim Howard from 8:30 to midnight Thursdays and Fridays at the Halekulani and 7 to 10 p.m. Saturdays at the Pacific Beach Hotel. John Kolivas performs with the Betty Loo Taylor Trio from 7:30 to 11 p.m. Thursdays to Saturdays at the Kahala Mandarin Oriental. Steve Jones plays with pianist Tennyson Stephens from 9 p.m. to midnight Thursdays and 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. Saturdays at the Bistro at Century Center.
Required: To listen to MP3 audio clips, a music player must be installed on your computer. We recommend using either Apple iTunes (Mac), Yahoo! MusicMatch Jukebox (PC), or RealNetworks RealPlayer (PC/Mac), available for free from their respective web sites. © Honolulu Star-Bulletin -- https://archives.starbulletin.com
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