Contrabass Conversations

Dominik Wagner returns to the podcast for a wide-ranging conversation recorded during his visit to San Francisco for the 2026 Golden Gate Bass Camp. A prizewinner for many major solo competitions, Dominik has built an extraordinary career as a soloist, chamber musician, recording artist, and pedagogue, with albums including Giovanni Bottesini - Revolutio...

Don Prell passed away in 2026 at age 97. Born in 1929, Don went on the road with the Frank Ortega Band, played with people like Buddy Rich and Chet Baker, and was in the original Bud Shank Quartet.

He played for the San Francisco Symphony for 30 years and, after retirement, formed his own group called the Sea Bop Ensemble, which played at various San Francisco spo...

Noa Eve (NoaBass) joins the podcast to celebrate the long-awaited release of *Late Bloomer,* a debut album that blends virtuosic arco playing with the rhythmic grit of bluegrass, old-time, and acoustic music-making. We talk about the "10 years in the making" arc from Jason first hearing Noa play in the Bay Area to recording the album over three intense ...

Hal Robinson joins the podcast for a wide-ranging conversation on bass pedagogy, sound, and the practical fundamentals that actually move the needle. Hal reflects on his path from early studies with Paul Ellison to a career that spans major orchestras and shares how working alongside influential musicians like François Rabbath and Edgar Meyer helped shape a flexible, student-fi...

Bassist, composer, and educator Mary Ann McSweeney joins Jason to talk about a career that spans Bay Area roots, L.A. training, and the demanding, ever-shifting world of Broadway and studio work. Mary Ann shares how piano and violin shaped her musicianship, what it took to become a stronger reader, and much more

Enjoy, give...

Caleb Quillen returns to the podcast to talk about the path that took him from growing up in Sugar Land, Texas, to principal bass of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Along the way, he reflects on formative teachers, including Dennis Whittaker and Paul Ellison, the influence of the Boston bass tradition, and much more.

Check out our text/medi...

Photo credit: Oscar Benjamin Berg

Bassist, improviser, and genre-crosser Georgia Wartel Collins joins us today to talk about the winding path that led her to New York, via Gothenburg, Trondheim, and Amsterdam, and how a deeply musical family shaped everything from early street performances to a life that's always moved freely between styles...

Glasgow-based bassist David Bowden joins the show on release day for Unsung Songs, a solo double bass record shaped by years of gigging and arranging. David talks about coming up in London before moving to Glasgow for the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, finding a creative home in Scotland's close-knit jazz scene, and how folk music and "sounding like y...

Rosie Moon joins us today to share the story behind *Twelve Bees In A Jar, her* multi-year Dragonetti project exploring his music on gut strings, a three-string bass, and a convex "Dragonetti" bow. Rosie talks about how a chance encounter with a bow at a UK bass shop kicked off a deep dive into historical equipment, technique, and the surprisingly big th...

Bowen Ha joined the San Francisco Symphony at the start of the 2024–25 season after training at Juilliard with Timothy Cobb and Harold Robinson, and appearing as a substitute with major orchestras.

Born in Shanghai, Bowen's path ran from piano to cello and finally to bass, through Interlochen, the Shanghai Conservatory's affiliated pr...

John Goldsby returns to the podcast to celebrate Big Band Bass, a project that spotlights the double bass at the front of the band alongside the legendary WDR Big Band and arranger/conductor Bob Mintzer. We talk about what it felt like to close a 30-year run in one of the world's rare full-time jazz ensembl...

Valentina Ciardelli , double bass professor at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and an active performer/educator, returns to the podcast to talk about a project that goes way beyond the practice room: fixing the chaos of traveling with large instruments. Check out Valentina's work and latest updates on her website ....

Stephan Crump is a Brooklyn-based bassist, composer, and educator whose work moves fluidly between groove, spacious sound-worlds, and collective improvisation. We dig into the making of Slow Water, the magnetism of deep feel, and how growing up in Memphis—and spending a lot of life near the Mississippi—shaped the way Stephan hears music as ec...

Michał Bylina is a Polish bassist and composer whose work bridges early music performance and new music for the instrument. In this conversation, Michał shares how a love of the past pulled them toward gut strings, Baroque style, and the Vienna bass tradition, plus the path from studying in Kraków to a year studying in Brussels with Korneel Le Compte.

Isaac Trapkus is a bassist with the New York Philharmonic, rosin maker, and developer of Monkey Wrench DB—a tool that syncs sheet music PDFs with YouTube performances. He's also the creator of a free urtext-style edition of the Koussevitzky Double Bass Concerto, based on a previously unknown personal score copy he discovered...

Bassist and arts administrator Thomas Zera joins us today to share what changed between our first chat years ago and now, including life in the Utah Symphony and the path that led to building his new project, The Sub Pool.

We dig into what The Sub Pool is, why orchestra sub lists so often "run...

Casey Lipka is a Los Angeles–based singer, songwriter, bassist, and collaborator with a gift for building community around music. In this episode, Casey shares the winding path that brought her into jazz voice, bass, and a creative life that blends composing, performing, and heartfelt projects. Along the way, Casey talks about how coaching shaped her work supporting other...

This episode with Johnny Hamil and friends is a celebration of the music of Lloyd Goldstein. Enjoy this, and be sure to join Johnny and company March 21st at 11am Central Time via Zoom. You can visit KC Bass Workshop for more information and details.

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In this episode, we're joined by bassist, composer, and bandleader Marlonius aka, Marlon Martinez, the creative force behind the Marlonius Jazz Orchestra. We talk about growing up in a deeply musical family, moving through a serious classical conservatory track at Colburn, and the long arc of building a personal sound.