This three-CD box set is the first ever anthology of the upright bass. It explores the earliest recorded history of the instrument with 79 tracks and a 96 page book.
Recognition: Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Awards – 2008 Nominated for Reissue/Historical Box Set of the Year
Compiled by Lance Ledbetter and Dick Spottswood, this three-CD box set, the first ever anthology of the upright bass, explores the earliest recorded history of the instrument. Without it, the revolutionary sound of American mongrel music of the last century would have been thin gruel indeed.
Not so long ago, the string bass stood tall and proud — roughly the length and breadth of a poor man’s pine coffin — in every musical aggregation throughout the land from Bangor to Buenos Aires, from the highest high life to the lowest lowdown: From tuxedoed symphony ensembles to tipsy calypso bands to honkytonkers in oil-field dives, from elegantly gelled tango orchestras to jazz combos in unspeakable speak-easys to methed-out rockabilly trios right off some flatbed.