Every now and then I thought it would be great to learn to play double bass because it fits better to some styles of music than the bass guitar. But what always kept me away from that is the fact that it’s a very large instrument. It’s takes a lot of space to store it at home, it takes a lot of space on stage and it’s definitely not easy to carry it around on the road.
A while ago I saw some videos of an instrument that I thought could be an alternative: the Kala U-Bass. At Musikmesse, Frankfurt, Armin Alic, a great bassist, let me check out the instruments at the booth and introduced me to RISA Musical Instruments,the German distributer. So I went there, took the time to check out different models and finally got a fretted model with Mahogany body.
Meanwhile I played it at a lot gigs of different genres. It’s been no surprise that due to it’s full, round, warm and deep sound it fits perfect for Jazz standards, dinner music and acoustic pop songs, BUT: lately I played it at gig with Miss Kavila and me the whole band was suprised how great it sounds for Soul, R&B, House and “modern electronic dance music”! It blew me away and put a big smile on every one’s faces.
It’s really that big fun to play that small instrument! 🙂
P.s.: As all my instruments have names I chose “Ukuba” for my Kala U-Bass… 😉
JOERG FESER 