Today, I’ve found the new issue of the Double Bassist magazine in my post box. This “winter 2007” issue (don’t we already have 2008?) features articles about bassist Henry Grimes, a Gagliano bass, music by Gustav Mahler and Paquito de Rivera, video conferencing in teaching, a history of gut strings, the future of pernambuco bows, luthier Daniel Hachez and many other topics.
But there are also bad news: editor Chloe Cutts has announced that the Double Bassist magazine will no longer be published. It will be re-incorperated into The Strad magazine from the April 2008 issue onwards. Double Bassist was launched 11 years ago, and since then, 43 issues has been published.
I also choked over my coffee this morning when I read this news. The new issue has Charlie Haden trancriptions from two of my all-time favorite jazz albums (“Beyond The Missouri Sky” with Pat Metheny, and Joshua Redman’s “Wish”). Great stuff, accompanied by the letter that the magazine is going to die…
I’ll wait to see if they really make The Strad into an adequate replacement. They tell me that as a subscriber I’ll be receiving The Strad instead of Double Bassist from April, and they proudly announce that I’ll get two issues of The Strad in place of each Double Bassist issue that I already paid for, which sounds like a good deal until you think about it – Double Bassist is quarterly while The Strad is monthly, so presumably the content of one Double Bassist issue will be spread over three The Strad issues, not two.
And when the time comes to renew my subscription at the end of 2008, I guess the bill for one year will be three times higher as well…
Right. I don’t expect that many *jazz* double bass content from The Strad, which is a magazine focussed on orchestral strings. In general, I’m interested in other string instruments than double bass, too, but I don’t think that I need to subscribe a magazine for that.
But the publishers of Double Bassist need to make money – so I don’t condemn them for discontinuing the Double Bassist magazine if they don’t earn money. For such a comparable small focus group like us, the double bassists, the internet is a great way to publish news and articles without the costs of a printed magazine!
I just want to invite you to have a look at our Free, online magazine and community.
http://www.Bassmusicianmag.com and http://www.Bass-musician-mag.com
I know it won’t replace double bassist, but I am sure you will enjoy it!
Best,
Raul Amador
Creative Director, Bass Musician Magazine
[ for the evolving bassist ]
http://www.BassMusicianMag.com
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