CULTURE VULTURE

Homage to the stand-up bass

BY CS GILBERT

Two weekends ago provided three evenings of musical delight, all by coincidence or not created by bands featuring not an electric but a real, wood, stand-up string bass. One grows accustomed to the electric variety more common on today’s bandstands, but the joy of the original is almost palpable.

First, on Friday night at TSKW, was a new group out of western Virginia, the Hackensaw Boys. The name implies boot-stompin’ bluegrass, and that they were, with a couple of R-rated lyrics. They were very high on energy, if a little low on clear enunciation (what else is new? I’m probably growing a bit deaf), but altogether a lot of fun, especially when they ditched the chatter and just played. The stand-up bass player was a study in contrast: An old man’s collarbone length beard on the face of a young man (all of the Hackensaw Boys are young). Of particular fascination, too, was their percussionist, playing a breast-plate hub cap from which dangled an assortment of washboard-ridged tin cans, played with wire brushes. Damn effective; we never saw anything like it before.

The buzz during intermission (and after the show) was the encore performance set for the next night, Saturday, at a relatively new (certainly to me) venue called Coast, on Front St. on Stock Island, before you get to Hogfish. What? We’d been that route several times lately; we certainly never saw a new nightclub.

There’s a reason for that.

But back up to Friday: Love Lane Gang’s weekly 8-12 midnight gig at McConnell’s, with the always entertaining Steve LaPierre masterful on stand-up bass (for one thing, he’s as tall as the instrument). This group has taken the town by storm since its first appearance about a year ago, and we’ve described them as the most fun music around more than once. One of the joys of the group is that the age-range is from 20-something (the leader, songwriter and lead vocalist, Jerrod Isamam) to probably 60-something, and they all rock, including vocalist Briele Jeannette, whose pending baby is due in early April. Is this One Human Family or what?

Friday we learned that the Gang would open for the Hacksaw Boys in a family-friendly hootenanny beginning early, about 6:30, and there would be wood chips available to exchange for wine, beer and barbecue. This gets better and better, we thought, so we got ourselves out there in time for the opener. The Gang did not disappoint — nor did the Boys.

But the people-watching was almost as much fun as the music. “Family friendly” is an understatement. There were lots of young families, dads and moms dancing with toddlers as elementary-school kids dashed around having fun. A particular delight was Krista Hunt’s small son Alexander. In my day, give an imaginative kid a stick and it became a rifle. Not Alex. For this child, it was a guitar.

Also in attendance were Nancy Forrester and her large hyacinth macaw, Big Blue, eco-activist Jody Smith-Williams and hubby Dr. Ross Williams, PR guru Susan Waddia-Ells, the Little White House’s Bob Wolz and friends and a solid delegation from TSKW. Gina Maseratti did a turn on piano with the Gang as Portia Maseratti mingled. (Gina plays a wild electric stand-up bass, by the way.)

It was a wonderful evening.

But there’s more. Sunday night was Key West Art and Historical Society’s second Howl at the Moon party at the Lighthouse, and what did we find? A folk-country ensemble that included — you guessed it — a stand-up bass. This, too, was happy music, with the opening group, the Solares String Band, playing on a corner of the spacious grounds and the main attraction, the band Magnolia, playing on the porch as night fell and the full moon rose huge and silver overhead. As it happened, they shared a stand-up bass player, and a woman at that. Cheers for Cindy Jefferson!

That’s five groups with stand-up bass in three days, a record we’ll probably not see anytime soon. But it was glorious and we can keep our fingers crossed for more, especially from Coast, an unobtrusive, almost hidden outdoor venue that is a combo of downhome stages, a rustic bar, a graveyard of vintage vehicles including an inhabited Airstream trailer and half the hippie performance spaces I loved in the ‘60s. I was wearing a tie-dyed sundress with chartreuse, three-quarter length jacket. Perfect!

But costuming by serendipity aside, it’s a majestic, most versatile of instruments, the stand-up bass, truly the only one that smoothly transitions from foot-stomping genres to symphonic orchestral music. And stand-up bass players don’t get a lot of press or solo time, either, except maybe in jazz, although the weekend’s players got in some nice riffs. So thanks, folks. (I almost said guys; sorry, Cindy!) Long may you pluck and bow.

 

 

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