The second installment of the Detroit Bass Fest was held Friday September 3rd 2010 at Bert’s Marketplace Jazz Club in Detroit’s historic Eastern Market District.

After years of uphill struggle with financing and scheduling the event, Detroit Bass Fest president Lester Collie with the help of performers and manufacturers alike was able to reinstitute the event for the first time since 2004.

The Fest started with Victor Wooten Band bassist Anthony Wellington doing looped based performance and giving the crowd on hand methods to learn every note on their basses or as he put it “knowing your bass as well as you know your wife”. Wellington was followed by Cleveland area solo bassist Doug Johns (accompanied by his regular drummer Chris Ceja) who took the crowd on a tour of his bass acrobatics including slapping, plucking, tapping and chords that was highlighted by a bass and drum arrangement of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven”. At the halfway point, 12 year old Detroit bass prodigy Brandon Rose ripped through Marcus Miller’s version of “Frankenstein” (accompanied by Grammy award winning producer Brandon Williams on drums) to the delight of the crowd. Third up was Philadelphia’s Gerald Veasley who moved the crowd with his unique brand of soul-jazz (with Williams on drums and keyboardist Tony Gordon) and touched on his practice routine, right hand technique and even talked briefly about his time with Joe Zawinul.

The headliner of the night was Detroit’s own Ralphe Armstrong, the former member of Mahavishnu Orchestra and jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty’s band who once beat Jaco Pastorius out for a gig. Armstrong (again accompanied by Williams and Gordon) played both 4-string with flats as well as six string fretless on such tracks as Herbie Hancock’s “Chameleon” and Eddie Harris’ “Ambidextrous”. Armstrong also went over the history of the instrument dating back hundreds of years, talked about Josef Harvey method (which he was schooled in) and talked about his relationships with such artists as James Jamerson, Aretha Franklin, John McLaughlin and Narada Michael Walden. The night was capped with Armstrong receiving the first ever Detroit Bass Fest Guardian/Vanguard Award for contributions to the instrument as well as the music community (which was recognized and signed by Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm and The Detroit City Council) as well as accolades emailed in from Reggie Washington, Geri Allen, Jen-Luc Ponty, John McLaughlin and Bob Babbit. Collie has said that Detroit Bass Fest will now be an annual event and he hopes it will grow each year attracting more fans of the instrument as well bigger names to eventually make it “a full weekend celebrating the bass”. Collie was thankful to all who attended the event and sent a special thank you out to the sponsors who “made it all possible”: DR Strings, Genz Benz, Aguilar, Pedulla, Pigtronix, Ibanez, Hartke and Essential Sound Products.