Talented artists touch different people in different ways. Bass player Philip Rex remembers the lessons he learnt from Gary Costello.
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Gary was my first serious jazz/improvising teacher, and I started studying with him on a weekly basis when I was about 16, on (fretless) electric bass, before I ever bought a double bass.
His teaching methods at the time were influenced by one of his earlier teachers, Murray Wall; originally a Melbourne bass player who has been living and working in New York for many decades now.
The teaching method involved singing Lester young solos along with the original recording at half speed(!) – something I became very good at and performed at a school concert. Of course, Gary later informed me that it was only intended as an exercise and that actually performing such an exercise was a bizarre but nonetheless interesting thing to do.
So Gary and I became quite good friends, and my brother David and I would see him play whenever my parents would drive us up to town and “supervise” their underage sons at the various licensed jazz clubs. One such gig was at the Tankerville Arms where Gary was backing Johnny Griffin with Paul and Al Browne (a gig I stole from him some years later….Ha ha!)
Me being the upstart that I was, I insisted that Gary introduce me to the main man, and when Mr Griffin found out on inquiry what instrument I played – the electric bass – he exclaimed, “No man, you got to play the BIG MAMA!!!”.
So I swapped over to the “BIG MAMA” and continued studying with Gary, and also with Marion Brysha, a classical teacher originally with the Berlin Philharmonic and later with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, who had been Gary’s main classical teacher and partly responsible for Gary’s fantastic technique. After studying classically with Marion for a time, I realised that Gary had taken these particular classical techniques and had adapted and developed them to suit his own unique musical approach to the instrument.
I suppose this was the main thing I ultimately got from my years of study with Gary, that he didn’t sound like or play the instrument like anyone else I had heard live or on recording; his approach was his own and it was distinctive. There were definitely influences, but they were diverse enough and there was enough of pure Gary in there that in the end he really did speak with his own voice.
I decided that this to me was the most important aspect to an individual’s playing, and have been following Gary’s lead ever since.
