Double Bass Major Holley

[robgrow]

I always seem to come back to Major Holley, one of my all-time favorites. Here's something to check out on Youtube:

 

[Michael Drost]

I just found this video of Major Holley.

He is awesome. What great playing!

I have no idea why I haven't listened to him before. His solo on R-changes is worthy of transcription for sure!

 

[lurk]

That Coleman Hawkins Roy Eldridge quintet with Major, Tommy Flannigan and Eddie Locke was absolutely great. Perfect creative loose jazz.

 

[Michael Karn]

That Coleman Hawkins Roy Eldridge quintet with Major, Tommy Flanagan and Eddie Locke was absolutely great. Perfect creative loose jazz.

+100, and Hawk's quartet record with the same rhythm section is also superlative

 

[Bigbassguy]

Thanks for posting info on Major Holly.
Gotta love him!

 

[damonsmith]

This Jaki Byard trio with Warren Smith on percussion is a favorite!

 

[Michael Karn]

I can take or leave the vocalizing, but he was a great bass player. I really love this video from Nice in 1979, as i say in the caption, these guys don't need any drums

 

[salcott]

He's playing a bass he probably met ten minutes before the gig........

 

[Bigbassguy]

He was so great in my NYC days!

 

[mdcbass]

He's playing a bass he probably met ten minutes before the gig........

I heard a story that he punched a hole in a bass at the end of a gig saying "That mf ain't gonna bother nobody no more".

 

[Bigbassguy]

I never heard that story, but I did hear that mingus use to break players basses if he thought they suck!

 

[gerry grable]

I never heard that story, but I did hear that mingus use to break players basses if he thought they suck!

Where did you hear that? I find that hard to believe. He did have a bad temper, however. If he did it once, okay, but "used to" implies repetition.

 

[Bigbassguy]

I heard it in NYC from a basses. You are right about implying he did it all the time.
That I don't really know.

 

[lcdck]

I always seem to come back to Major Holley, one of my all-time favorites.

I can take or leave the vocalizing, but he was a great bass player.

+1 or +1+1. I'm always awed by his sound. He's always present and big sounding without being overpowering or too loud.

 

[Harry Landers]

I studied with Major Holley at Berklee School of Music (before it was a real college) in 1970, when I was in high school and playing in rock bands. I had a Telecaster electric bass and he wasn't very happy to be teaching me to play that and I wasn't very happy that I was being taught by some old guy who played jazz on an upright who expected me to read music written in bass clef. That's what being a 17-year-old knucklehead is all about. I didn't find out just who he was until many years later. The post-script is that, after not touching a bass for 40 years, I started playing again about 3 years ago. And just 3 months ago, I got myself an Englehardt and am taking weekly lessons, learning to play jazz. If only I had paid more respect and attention to Mule Holley long ago...

 

[Steven Ayres]

Major Holley, one of my all-time favorites.

And I notice he's playing a late Kay C-1.

Same tour?
Gerald Wiggins and Major Holley in concert - YouTube

 

[Joshua Pickenpaugh]

It was '89 or '90, I was in High School, and Holley was the staff bass player at a jazz camp in Oklahoma that I was attending. He was both generous and incredibly insightful. I remember writing him a letter soon after thanking him for offering his wisdom to the camp, in which he responded with a hand written letter looking forward to seeing us next year. Unfortunately, he passed soon after that summer, but most of the same bass players came back the following summer to reminisce about that great week. Truly a great man/player.

 

[JBarz]

Found our man on ‘the street’ around 11:33