Double Bass | b. 1942

David Friesen came to the bass late and sideways. Born in Tacoma, Washington on 6 May 1942, he was a professional musician at sixteen before he'd learned to play the instrument, picking it up at nineteen during army service in Germany and building his technique from scratch. He settled in Portland in the early 1970s, opened a coffeehouse, worked his way into the local jazz scene, and spent several years in trumpeter Ted Curson's group while sharing stages with Joe Henderson, Stan Getz and Sam Rivers. His debut album "Color Pool" (Muse, 1975), with bamboo flute and layered bass textures, set a direction that had more in common with the ECM aesthetic than with the mainstream New York post-bop of the same period. The Inner City albums that followed, primarily with guitarist John Stowell and Oregon reed player Paul McCandless, deepened that direction: "Star Dance" (1976) was a quartet date with McCandless and Steve Gadd; "Waterfall Rainbow" (1977) brought Ralph Towner in on classical and twelve-string guitar alongside Bob Moses on drums, producing the fullest realisation of Friesen's lyrical approach. A 1980 collaboration with Hozan Yamamoto and Masahiko Sato extended his reach to Japan. Friesen, now 83, remains active and based in Portland.