Artist: Slam Stewart

Slam Stewart was an American jazz double bass player, whose trademark style was his ability to bow the bass (arco) and simultaneously hum or sing an  octave higher. He was a violinist before switching to bass at the age of 20. 

Stewart was born in Englewood, New Jersey, United States and began playing string bass while attending Dwight Morrow High School. While attending the Boston Conservatory, he heard Ray Perry singing along with his violin, which inspired him to follow suit with his bass. In 1937, Stewart teamed with Slim Gaillard to form the novelty jazz act Slim and Slam.  The duo's biggest hit was "Flat Foot Floogie (with a Floy Floy)" in 1938. 

Stewart found regular session work throughout the 1940s with Lester Young, Fats Waller, Coleman Hawkins, Erroll Garner, Art Tatum, Johnny Guarnieri,  Red Norvo, Don Byas, Benny Goodman, and Beryl Booker. 

One of the most famous sessions he played on took place in 1945, when Stewart played with  Dizzy Gillespie's group (which featured Charlie Parker). Out of those sessions came some of the classics of bebop such as "Groovin' High" and "Dizzy Atmosphere".  

Further information about Slam Stewart is found here.

Photography credit: Brianmcmillen, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

This content was excerpted from the Wikipedia article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slam_Stewart, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).