Luigi Ferraroti

Luigi Ferraroti worked with his two sons in Turin from 1880 until his death in 1920. His output of string instruments was very impressive except that most of his instruments were rather trade like in the making. But having said that his basses usually worked extremely well. Here picture on the right is a very good example of this makers work. A rather Germanic looking bass until you look at the wood used. It is hard to be sure, but the ribs and back are probably pear wood, and the table is a very near slab cut rough pine. But, the bass works, and it works very well. An easy instrument to get around as the shoulders are cut very low. As can be seen it is a viol shape bass with a very nice swell back. A well cut scroll also shows the Italian craft as apposed to the rough plain German scrolls that often show up on basses. This particular double bass is set up for jazz playing, and what a good jazz instrument it is.

Geoff Pearson

Geoff Pearson is a very fine jazz musician who works and lives in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, to our overseas readers this is in the Midlands to North of England. Geoff has been playing the double bass for many years and has worked with many fine Jazz musicians and groups. To name but a few, Geoff has worked in the U.S.A. with, Art Farmer, James Moody, Teddy Edwards, Tal Farlow, Mundell Lowe, Johnny Griffin, Mark Murphy, Scott Hamilton, Harry Allen, Warren Vache, Jean Toussaint. In this Country the list continues with, Ronnie Scott, Tubby Hayes, Barbara Thompson, Tommy Whittle, Art Themen, Don Rendell, Dave O'Higgins, Ian Carr, Guy Barker, Allen Skidmore, Bill Le Sage, Alan Barnes, Jim Mullen, Pete King to name but a few. More recently Geoff has been working with a modern Jazz quartet called "Second Nature". One of there projects has been to work with the author John Harvey, who wrote the "Resnick" series of crime novels which has also been featured on TV over the last couple of years. With John Harvey they have appeared on quite a number of music and literary festivals in the U.K., including the Edinburgh Festival, which featured a combination of extracts from his novels, poetry and Jazz. These liaisons have worked extremely well and have become once again, like in the 1960's, very popular with the audiences. When one gets a chance to hear fine Jazz musicians such as Geoff, one should take the trouble to go and be there to see and hear him and whoever he is playing with.

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