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Bertram Jay [1] Turetzky (born February 14, 1933) is a contemporary American double bass (contrabass) soloist, composer, [1] [2] teacher, and author of The Contemporary Contrabass (1974, 1989), a book that looked at a number of new and interesting ways of playing the double bass including featuring it as a solo performance vehicle with no other instrumental accompaniment.
Turetzky has performed and recorded more than 300 pieces written by and for him. His interpretations of early music and composers like Domenico Dragonetti have achieved some prominence. [3] Music critic Michael Steinberg has praised his continuo playing. Turetzky has appeared as a featured soloist in the major music centers of the world and is the most widely recorded solo doublebass player with seven albums on Advance, Ars Nova, Nonesuch, Takoma, Desto and Finnadar music labels. [4]
Turetzky is a versatile musician, conversant in chamber music, baroque music, classical, jazz, renaissance music, improvisational music and many different genres of world music. He has also developed a special affinity for klezmer music.
In addition to The Contemporary Contrabass, Turetzky has co-edited a book series called The New Instrumentation; seven of a planned eight volumes have been finished. Turetzky wrote an introduction to The Autobiography of Pops Foster: New Orleans Jazz Man which spoke to the early development of jazz bass playing.
Bernard Jacobson of the Chicago Daily News described Turestzky as "a virtuoso of caliber unsurpassed by any other practitioner of his instrument today." [4]
Turetzky was born in Norwich, Connecticut, United States, and grew up there. He received a master's degree in music history from the University of Hartford. In his youth, he was drawn to classic jazz music, playing professionally in that style at his first performances. His aspiration to be a jazz player was encouraged by many of the older swing stars. Turetzky continues to play classic jazz, and appears regularly at jazz festivals.
Turetzky first recorded in 1964, featuring the work of American composers George Perle, Edgard Varèse, Donald Martino, Kenneth Gaburo, Ben Johnston, and an early instrument and tape piece by Charles Whittenburg. Recording activities continued with records on labels Nonesuch, Son Nova, Ars Antigua, and Desto. He has worked with Charles Mingus, and has made a series of recent recordings on the Nine Winds label with improvisational musicians George E. Lewis, Vinny Golia, Wadada Leo Smith, Mike Wofford and others.
Turetzky is a Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego. [4] His former students include bass virtuosos Mark Dresser and Karl E. H. Seigfried; Dresser now holds Turetzky's former UCSD faculty position, while Seigfried is working with Turetzky on the latter's autobiography.
He is married to flutist Nancy Turetzky, and they have two sons and a daughter, and live in Del Mar, California.
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