The virtuoso double bass of Aladár Pege

Discogs

Aladár Pege was a Hungarian double bass player, mainly in jazz. This album has mostly classical titles, but mostly leaning into jazz. I was not very impressed upon hearing it, and that explains why I almost never do. Reading up about him, I think he earns a bit more respect than that.

In the 70s and early 80s Pege was playing with the greats in jazz, like Charly Mingus and Herbie Hancock. According to the (unverified) wiki page, he was called the Paganini of the double bass. From what I understand mostly for his technique playing flageolets. When playing flageolets, you allow the overtones of a string to come forward. You can do that by very lightly touching the string with a finger while bowing it. I play the cello, and from experience I can tell that the lower the string, the heavier it is, and the harder you need to work to get it to sing. When you play those overtones, it is even harder work.

On Spotify there is a CD release of the same name, but it is not the same music. It was released well after Pege died in 2006, so I suppose it was a commercially interesting title.

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