I think of the bass as an orchestra. Its sonic properties offer colors that are beautiful, dimensional, and idiosyncratic. Instrumental augmentation, decades of musical research, and hyper-specific recording techniques offer new musical potentials.
Luthier, engineer and bassist Kent McLagan has been building remarkably strong sounding, affordable basses from sustainable woods for over 20 years. McLagan’s instruments maximize clarity of pitch and power in all the registers with innovative functional design.
Our collaboration began in 2000, when he embedded hand wound magnetic pickups in the fingerboard of my bass, in two specific locations, which amplifies three different pitch segments per string. This new music was first documented on the recordings UNVEIL (CD, Clean Feed 2005) and GUTS: Bass Explorations, Investigations & Explanations (CD/DVD, Kadima Collective 2010).
In 2014 I asked Kent to build me a bass with a removable neck and built in neck pick-ups that would weigh under the 50 pound limit for overweight airline charges. I also proposed an idea for an attachment to the bass that could be bowed and plucked, a set of metal tines, a cross between an African mbira and stroked rods designed by late composer, Robert Erickson, first recorded on Modicana (No Business, LP 2017)
In 2021 on a visit to Denver, Kent showed me a 5-string bass with a low B he had recently completed for himself. It was exceptional in its power and projection. I commissioned him to build me a five string with neck pick-ups and tines that could be strung with either a low B or a high C.
Alexandria Smith recorded and mixed this CD. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Music Technology at Loyola University, New Orleans. I first met Alexandria in 2017 when she was a graduate student at UC SanDiego. I showed her my McLagan bass with the tines and she offered to record me. I knew she as a gifted engineer she would capture the details ofmy performance and this new instrument.
Mark Dresser – December, 2022 Encinitas, CA
