Back to bass in New England

Gary Upton had plans to become a professional bass player. To fund his own instrument, he started flipping basses. Over two decades later, Upton Bass custom makes over 200 upright basses a year.

WORDS AND PHOTOS BY MATTIAS LUNDBLAD

In a red barn in Mystic, Connecticut, some of the best double basses in the United States are being built. The barn, with its old style, blends in with the rural environment, but it was actually built ten years ago. The inside is full of double basses at different stages of completion. The bottom floor is where the first steps in transforming the raw material into an instrument happen. The third floor is the showroom, with about a hundred instruments, some of which are restored used instruments. I quickly learn that there are lots of details in a bass that make a difference.

Gary Upton shows some of the models in the production, all with their own characteristics. An Upton bass is not an impulse purchase. It can take two years from putting in the order to having a finished instrument.

“But if it’s really necessary, we can push one through in six months”, says Gary Upton. The least expensive bass, the Bohemian, is $3,250 and made with plywood and a flat back. It is described as a robust instrument that can take the hits of touring in a van. The Brescian is inspired by Italian and English 16th century instrument makers. A model with more local connections is the Concord, inspired by Abraham Prescott, a luthier in Deerfield, New

Hampshire, who built his first bass in 1819 and continued on to make another 200. It is a more complex instrument, where parts of the sides have an almost circular bend. Starting at $11,000, it ends at twice that depending on wood variety and other choices. Having it among the styles is important part of the New England bass maker identity.

Inhouse Production

Most of the work is done on the middle floor, and when I visit, several steps are happening at once. Thomas Clark is putting a fingerboard on a six string bass – a very unusual instrument, and only the second in the company’s history. Chris Gutierrez is carving the top of another. In the next room, Jack Hanlon is setting a sound post. Upton Bass is one of few makers of double basses in the US where the whole production is done in-house. Most of the coworkers are able to do most steps in the making of an instrument.

Everything started with bass repairs and later assembly of instruments from Eastern Europe. Across the parking lot from the barn is Gary Upton’s own house, where he describes their beginnings.

“When I was in middle school, I played saxophone, trumpet and trombone. My teacher, an amazing bass player, asked if I wanted to stay after school and try the upright bass. I already played electric bass in church, so I understood some. The double bass has so much soul! I got into it and started playing bass in the orchestra and jazz band. When I graduated, I wanted to study bass playing, but I didn’t have my own instrument.”

THIS WAS IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THE INTERNET, AND I WAS MAKING AUCTIONS. THEY LET ME START TINKERING WITH BASSES. THEY SAID ‘IF YOU MAKE US MONEY, YOU DO WHATEVER YOU WANT’.

Because of that, he applied and got accepted as a singer at the University of Hartford. But bass players are needed in all genres, and it is easier to make a living, so Gary made new plans. He needed to pay for a bass, and took a job in a music store.

FLIPPING BASSES

“This was in the early days of the Internet, and I was making auctions. They let me start tinkering with basses. They said, ‘if you make us money, you do whatever you want.’ I got a couple of basses in and started selling. I think

I was getting eight dollars an hour. I figured I’d work half as hard and make four the money doing it for myself.”

Gary started flipping basses, got his own instrument, and went to school.

“Unfortunately, the bass is not something you can pick up for five hundred bucks. It can be a five or ten thousand dollar investment. I had to take that year to get one.”

Once in school, he realized he wanted to keep working with the instruments.

“There were ads in the newspaper, and sometimes I would find an old Kay bass and call and go see it. This was before the Internet was plugged into everything. I would go to antique shops, and if I found an old nasty bass in the corner, I’d offer 500 bucks for it. I would do some work — sometimes a lot of work — on it. Then I’d bring it to the global marketplace on the Internet and sell it for $500 or $5,000. So I just kept doing that.”

The Birth Of Upton Bass

The business grew into a company with five employees, importing instruments from Eastern Europe, a few at a time. After a while, they asked the supplier not to assemble them completely. They were doing more and more of the work, and finally the co-founder Eric Roy suggested bringing it all in-house.

“We were essentially getting the parts and assembling here. Then we had them custom designed for us. The euro kept floating upwards, and I had to fill the orders based upon the new buying rate. I was kind of chasing my tail. Eric said, ‘Why don’t we just buy the raw materials? We’re already almost there. Let’s start making basses.’ We started filtering in our own stuff. Clients had bought basses expecting the imported European things, and we knew we had to give them something better.”

Now the company is making 200 instruments a year, many of them at the same time, and among their customers are many famous musicians.

“So many Grammy Award-winning bass players, average Joes and everything in between are playing them. I was just texting with Jack White’s bass player. Mumford and Sons have three of our basses. Victor Wooten has two, and the guy who plays with Willie Nelson has one.”

With everything being made in-house, the instruments can be tailored to the customer, and there are lots of variables: the right size, the right sound, the right look.

“I can take a Brescian and make it with really hard maple back and sides to make it louder with the bow. A lot of times, I can talk to clients for five minutes, and I know exactly what we will make them. If they come here and I hear how they play, I know very quickly what we will sell.”

There is not much direct competition. Some high quality instruments come from China, and some European instruments are still imported. “But since we have made thousands of basses, our biggest competition is our own instruments in the used market,” says Gary Upton.