Meet your Vail Jazz Party musicians: David Wong and his lowly bass

Editor’s Note: Since 1996, more than 320 teenage musicians have been transformed by the Vail Jazz Workshop. Many have become professional musicians, including six returning to Vail this Labor Day weekend to perform as the Alumni Sextet during the Vail Jazz Party. Vail Jazz shares their stories here.

What makes a kid—an eighth grader—fall instantly in love with the bass, an imposing string instrument that’s awkward to play, hard to hear and harder still (if you’re young) to carry very far? Let David Wong answer that.

“I was growing up in Greenwich Village in Manhattan,” said Wong, now 41, “and had played the violin from age three or four. But I didn’t love it and wasn’t very good.” Then his mom had an idea before letting him quit music altogether: she rented a bass in Midtown and walked it, without a case, dozens of blocks home. Wong put down the violin and never looked back.

“Sometimes the instrument chooses you,” is how he puts it today. “I felt something very strong. Our personalities can be drawn to certain instruments and the role that those instruments play in the music.”

Wong’s musicianship will be on full display Labor Day weekend during the Vail Jazz Party. Just three years after taking up the instrument, his talent had become so apparent that he was one of just 12 high school students chosen in 1999 to attend the Vail Jazz Workshop. Now he’s returning to perform in a sextet with five other Workshop alumni on Thursday, Aug. 31, and Saturday, Sept. 2, at the Jazz Tent at Vail Square. He’ll also be performing in various ensembles throughout the holiday weekend. Ticket and other information can be found at VailJazz.org.

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The workshop, whose student-faculty ratio is 2:1, is an intense, ten-day tutorship emphasizing ears to hear what others are playing instead of eyes to read written music. Today, 14 years later, the lessons in life that Wong took from his Vail experience go beyond music. He remembers Workshop Education Director John Clayton talking of how “musicians hug when getting to work and also how we should not think about networking but instead forming meaningful relationships based on respect and admiration. I think about these things to this day,” Wong said.

Wong has warm memories of the camaraderie he developed with the other young workshop musicians, as well as with instructors and professional musicians who came to play for the concurrent Vail Jazz Party. “I remember sitting in with drummer Jeff Hamilton’s group,” he said. “We did ‘Cherokee’ very fast and were just cooking. I’d never played with a drummer of that caliber. It was incredibly easy in one respect and the hardest thing in another.”

Today, living in Brooklyn, Wong cuts a broad figure on the New York City jazz scene. His first professional break came at age 21 in 2003 when he joined pianist Eric Reed’s trio while still attending Juilliard School. “He was a tough band leader. But it was a valuable and educational experience for me,” Wong said. “Eric is an amazing musician and can hear everything. He taught me to be thoughtful about every note I play and how those note choices can affect the music.”

An even bigger break for Wong came in 2009. The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, founded in 1966 by cornetist and composer Thad Jones and drummer Mel Lewis and known worldwide, had lost its longtime bassist, Dennis Irwin, to cancer. Several bassists auditioned but could not project the pulsing, low-register sound the 16-person band demanded.

Wong’s turn came that January. He was asked back to NYC’s Village Vanguard on consecutive Mondays until finally, after two months, bandmembers sat him down in the club’s kitchen and said the position was his. He’s been at this now every Monday night for 14 years and never tires of the challenge of performing any of the orchestra’s 300 compositions on a moment’s notice before sold-out audiences.

But getting back to the bass: Why is it an essential part of every jazz band, large or small? “It’s the foundation of the harmony and rhythm while also providing counterpoint to the melody,” Wong replied. “I know I’m succeeding when I can connect musically with the drummer, pianist and soloist as we take a musical journey together.”