We have, performers, teachers, scholars from China, Korea, Taiwan, Australia, England, Poland, Germany, Czechoslovakia.

I am Ross Kramer, one of the Perlman based makeup brothers.

We have come from Bavaria, Germany.

France.

Venezuela.

Argentina.

Romania.

Brazil.

I came to play a recital of mainly Brazilian music with friends.

Famous people like Dumas, Christine Corb.

It's a who's who of of bass players in in the world we have.

Rufus Reid is here and John Clayton is here.

And, yeah.

Cliff is the, leading jazz player from Poland, and he is here.

I have just headache for two meeting so many great players to meet.

To see hundreds of instruments.

And, you know, everything is a huge for many of these artists.

This is the first time in Oklahoma.

And that was one of the catalysts for me hosting the 2007 convention to try to tie in with our centennial.

The International Society of Bassist 2007 convention brought the world's best bass players to Oklahoma City for five melodious days in June, as if knowing the world had come to visit the usually rambunctious Oklahoma spring weather minded its manners, the entire week.

And this man couldn't have been more pleased.

My name is John Simic.

I play double bass in the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, and I teach here at Oklahoma City University.

And when invited, I go all over the world teaching, promoting, and playing the double bass.

John Schmuck and his Oklahoma City University played host to this year's biennial ISB convention at the school's brand new Wanda Alberts Music Center.

He has arranged these fabulous facilities that you have here to for our disposal.

And the Dean, Mark Parker, has been so gracious and so open with us has been it's just been fabulous.

It's a beautiful school.

Really, it makes a big impression for me.

That's a wonderful base.

It's beautiful.

It's been crazy.

We're just.

We're dealing with canceled flights and flip concerts, and every challenge is coming up.

We are dealing with it.

We are making it happen.

This was an idea that started about four years ago.

I previously had been approached wondering if I would be interested in hosting a convention.

I want to help and, participate, but our facilities at OCU weren't, extensive enough to host a convention like this where we're we're anticipating between 1000 and 1500 people throughout the week.

And fortunately, about three years ago, our great friend Wanda Al Bass.

Decided to do something really great for the university and built us this magnificent facilities and the Wanda Al Bass Music Center.

They attract the world's best bass players.

So, you know, you're never going to see anything better than here.

Everywhere I look, there's someone I've been wanting to meet for a long time, and, it's a it's a wonderful thing.

Rufus Reed is one of my heroes.

John Clayton John Klein is jazz bass player extraordinaire.

So I can go home and say, hey, I got to see John clayton.

Want me to take a picture of you in there?

Well, this is an old home week for me.

A reunion of people that I know and don't know if that makes any sense.

It's never bothersome or overwhelming for me to, spend time with or acknowledge or recognize or accept people coming to me and offering how they feel about what I've done or what I do and how I have impacted their lives.

No matter how famous they are when they're together, bassist all play the same note a symphony of support that resonates with all.

We're the ones that are usually in the back of the band, making everybody sound good.

We're listening to everyone.

We're we're being that supportive role.

It's really easy for us to get together as human beings and be that for each other.

Christian Korb is an acclaimed bassist and vocalist from Southern California.

[music] We're not around each other as much as you think.

Because we're jazz bass players in particular.

We play alone.

I mean, there's only one in the group and we see each other on festivals and things like that.

But seemingly the Eagles are put away.

I don't think it would be the same if it was, 800 900 trumpet players.

[music] I had the opportunity.

I almost said privilege, but I better say opportunity to play on a trumpet guild convention, which is their answer to ISB.

And I'll tell you what.

It's nothing like ours.

There's not a lot of hugging going on like there is here.

I think the trumpet players, I think their international greeting is I can play that higher and louder.

This is one of my students who is playing, who said a model that you.

Oh, hi, I'm Jordan.

Jordan, let's meet you.

Bass support extends to everyone, especially to the young.

Holding the convention in Oklahoma gives the state students a rare opportunity that many traveled halfway around the world to enjoy.

My name's Leo, so I come from Beijing.

Have students come do here for solo competition.

And I want to say to, international double bass style label.

Label.

Okay, they're both here.

I want to say, because in China, we can, no we can no, no, I anything.

So it is been so fun just meeting all these different people from different countries.

And I think meeting some of the best bass players in the world.

How are you?

I'm great.

Good.

I'm, can I take your autograph on a shirt But the young offered an inspiration of their own, impressing their elders and teaching them a thing or two along the way.

I like that, see these kids?

I like to see the light go on.

And I know it's thrilling.

And for me, I go home saying, oh, man, I need to go practice.

In terms of the young ones, the the judge announcement was made last night that the winners for the competitions and to a person the judges have said the first judge in particular who's judging the competition for 14 years old and younger, made the comment these students are playing pieces that I didn't touch until I was in graduate school.

So this is the level has just it's just phenomenal right now.

Some of it, some of us who are a little bit older are thankful we have jobs.

What we do is in jazz, we there's so many.

Just like there are different ways of bowing.

You can not only different styles of bowing, but also in pizzicato.

There's different styles of plucking the strings as well.

Oh, it's so amazing that that the students today are doing and this is the way it should be.

You mean if it if it wasn't that younger people are doing things that we did when we were older?

If it wasn't that way, then that means that pretty much the growth of music has leveled out off with our playing, and it shouldn't be that way.

It should be something that always continues upward.

So it makes sense that as the music evolves, you get more scales, you get more instruments, invented.

You get all the stuff that really represents growth.

The bass instrument and methods of playing it continue to evolve, despite the fact that it's been around since the 1600s.

Conventions like this one that bring artists of the world together nurture that evolution, which just evolves.

As we get more aware of the world cultures, things start to blend and mix, and then somebody makes a left turn somewhere and we end up with something that, you know, we feel is new, but sometimes it's just the rebirth of something that used to be around.

[music] Rob Nairn is considered to be one of our bass experts in an early music performance, and it's a style and a technique that's so totally different than today's modern orchestral technique.

That's an exact duplicate of, instrument from the early 1700s.

That's in the, Berlin Museum.

The interesting point about that is, without these people coming to the conventions, none of us or the younger players would ever see where our instrument is.

evolved from Now is our renaissance time for the bass.

And we are seeing more powerful, faster growing things than than ever before.

[music] the building up of individual websites, web spaces, the Myspace things and so on.

It's creating niches and people who would ordinarily would have never had a chance to be heard, now have an opportunity to be sought out and to be heard.

And so now all of a sudden, we're seeing interest in genres which were considered marginalized to begin with and now are becoming people are becoming much more interested in the evolution of music, vibrates through this ancient industry as basis, and demand for their music evolves, so must the instrument itself.

We make.

Since more than 300 years, violins and cellos and string instruments since 1888, we make only double basses.

The Kramer brothers are from the oldest bass making family in the world, overseen centuries of evolution now and a new millennium, these brothers must meet the latest evolutionary demand that the bass players are looking for solo instruments now will be bass makers.

We have to change a lot inside the instruments for the construction, for the show shape, so you see it on the bonobos.

Many of different shapes are here.

They're looking for another instrument.

It's not only boom, boom, boom, they're looking for solo instruments.

But I know that the pressure of everything is completely different than ten years ago.

To gauge how important this convention is, consider this more than 900 bassists, vendors and luthiers went to the trouble and expense and took the considerable risk of shipping their beloved instruments to Oklahoma City.

These are big instruments.

They're always horror stories.

It's there always it's it's terrible even to bring up here.

Living into the bedroom is hard, but never mind, bring it around the world.

This bass from Brazil almost didn't make it.

As we stopped in Dallas, we learned that, the track could not continue the trip over to Oklahoma City because it was damaged.

Severely damaged.

You can see it was smashed, by a machine of some kind, probably, like unloading from the plane.

Probably.

Traveling with their instruments is a major problem for bassist, considering that some can be worth over $100,000 and be hundreds of years old.

Their attendance at this convention is no small affair.

All five nights of the convention, Oklahomans could pay $10 and see the renowned of the world perform on stage.

We have a classical concert and a jazz concert by a featured artist.

And if they haven't, if the participants haven't had enough bass from 830 in the morning till 1030 at night, there's an afterglow.

That most convention goers had not had enough bass or more precisely, they could not get enough of each other.

And so every night they gathered again informally, at a restaurant that opened its doors to them so they could enjoy the camaraderie that comes from being with those who share your passion.

Oh, there's been this guy's been the bass player.

No, no, no.

When you make a connection with somebody who plays your instrument is very interesting and fascinating to you.

You want to see what they've been up to for the past two years?

What's been happening?

What are they been doing?

And so, yeah, it's a chance for me to catch up with the bass players whom I know and love from, Brazil, from Japan, from Germany and from, from, from all over the world.

It's it's the greatest opportunity for us bass is to to meet, our colleagues from all over the world.

And, it's a very friendly environment.

So you get to hear and to learn from, professionals and from students as well.

How about here is good.

All right.

There's no way you could commercially produce this.

I mean, it's just.

No way.

If somebody said, I want to create a bass festival and have all these professors coming, there's just you.

You couldn't get it done.

You can only do it through the mutual love and admiration and, that sort of group spirit that we've engendered.

For five days in June, double bass performers, teachers, artisans and students from all over the world gathered in Oklahoma City.

It was a rare moment to toast one another and offer the support they'll need to hone their craft and evolve as members of a bass society.