Chicago bassist Jacque Harper has included a very insightful About the Ensemble page on the website of the Chicago Bass Ensemble. He writes:

Every musician who aspires to a career with a symphony orchestra has experienced their share of setbacks: lousy auditions, lousy orchestras, driving all night just to get to a job. After a while, you can get sick of doing all that just to sit at the edge of the orchestra and watch the conductor crack jokes with his pals up in the first chairs of the violin, viola and cello sections. Jacque Harper got to that point, and realized that if he really wanted to contribute something musically to the world, he was going to have to do it some other way.

That’s the impetus that got this group going. Honest.

There’s a wealth of recently-composed music for groups of bass players, it’s a really cool instrument that most people think of as solely a support instrument, and Jacque wants to make groovy sound. I mean, he spent all that money on a nice instrument!

You, the visitor to this site, have in all likelihood, not heard too many double bass concerts. Now’s your chance to change that! Grab the opportunity, man! First, see if we’ve got anything listed on our performances page to see what’s shaking. Next, think about places you’ve been where a bass ensemble (might be any size from a duo or trio on up) would be well-received, and tell us about it. Hey, who knows, when we start making t-shirts with our logo on it, we might give you one!

I definitely agree with the sentiments that Jacque expresses (and I also appreciate the links to my stories!), and I think that the mission statement of this ensemble is very cool. We have talked about doing a special Contrabass Conversations episode featuring this group in an actual rehearsal setting, which would make for a very interesting show. I’ll be sure to pass along any updates on this or any similar project as it develops.

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