Bass Mecca

By Andrea Appleton
Photos by Géraldine Agren
POSTED JAN. 2, 2007

Tucked away on narrow Walker Street, hemmed in by wholesale textile distributors, is a shop called David Gage String Instruments. From outside, it looks like a one-man operation, the storefront small and a bit dusty, the sign understated. But inside, hunched over their meticulous repairs, are six luthiers, craftsmen specializing in stringed instruments. The shop happens to be one of the most respected bass repair shops in the country.

“This place is bass mecca,” says Timothy Cobb, principal bassist for the Metropolitan Opera. One morning last month he dropped by the shop, which has been in business at various Tribeca locations for nearly 30 years, to have adjustments made on a borrowed bass. Owner David Gage repairs Cobb’s own instrument as well. “David knows my bass inside and out,” Cobb says. “He’s been working on it for 20 years.”

Cobb’s photo hangs among hundreds of others that line the walls, the stairwells, and the entrance hall of the shop. Jazz greats like Michael Moore and Eddie Gomez bump up against classical bass players from as far away as the Berlin Philharmonic. There are klezmer, samba, and reggae bassists, even local kids with their very first instrument. Every customer gets their picture on the wall, and there are so many that they have to be rotated in and out.

Despite it’s venerable reputation, the shop tends to be a friendly, raucous place. On a recent Friday afternoon, a jazz musician plunked on one of the basses sold on consignment in the showroom, while a worker played along with him on another. Someone in the workshop vacuumed up sawdust, the humidifier on the ceiling hissed, and the phone rang repeatedly over the sorrowful strains of a cello. Near the front desk, several musicians laughed and chatted while they waited, instruments by their sides.

“Bass players tend to be social,” says Gage. Tall and lanky, with a broad, easy smile, Gage is a bassist himself, as are all of the shop’s luthiers. “It’s a supportive role. You’re keeping the beat, what’s going on behind everybody,” he says. “Bass players are kind of the Golden Retrievers of the music world.” The workshop portion of the store takes up most of the main floor.

Gage’s nephew Simon is the newest of the luthiers, while several others have been with Gage for more than 20 years. They each work at benches surrounded by basses in various states of repair. Tools, brushes, and delicate filigreed bass bridges lie strewn among small heated vats of horsehide glue. Dozens of cellos, which the shop also repairs, hang overhead.

Gage rubs his thumb over a series of tiny wiggly grooves inside a turn-of-the-century bass lying on a table, its top removed. “Worm damage,” he says. The interior is a hodgepodge of thin wooden “cleats,” the legacy of the dozens of different patch repairs a bass can accumulate in its long life. From time to time the luthiers repair basses as old as 300 years.

To make the repair easier, the top of this bass has been removed with a hot knife. “Taking the top off means you’re committed, like an operation,” says Gage. “We tend to do a lot of ‘arthroscopic’ bass work here.” For a less intrusive method, the luthier hangs the bass overhead, upside down, and puts mirrors inside the body through the f-holes.

A hybrid of surgeon and mechanic, he then operates through those holes from below, using flexible pincers, bolt extractors or other long tools. Peering up into the dark cavity, he might brush glue into place or tamp linen down over a crack, for instance.

“You have to really have patience to learn this technique,” says Gage. “It’s backwards and upside down, and you get glue on your face.”

Basses, not surprisingly, are a bit accident-prone. Unlike a violin, which can be hugged safely to the body, basses are more easily dropped or knocked over. Certain escalators are notorious bass-crushers, prone to trapping the strapping things between stair and ceiling. And the large swathes of wood that make up the bass body shrink and expand with changes in humidity, causing cracks or sound distortions.

Jazz musician Gil Smuskowitz came in recently to have a new soundpost put in. He has been bringing his bass in for repairs since he moved here from Israel four years ago. “The first time I got it fixed here it felt like it came from a spa,” he says. “It sounded so much better.”  Minor repairs like Smuskowitz’s are common, but the luthiers are also sometimes called upon to virtually rebuild instruments. After Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, several severely water-damaged instruments from the jazz capital made their way to Gage’s shop.   “The ribs were twisted on some of them,” Gage says. “They were like bass kits, like Salvador Dali bass kits.” While the shop was able to revamp some of the basses, a number were beyond repair.

Gage did not always have the resources to take on such daunting projects. He opened his first workshop in 1978, out of a loft on Chambers Street.

 “It was a big empty room with a vise on the floor and a couple of tools,” Gage recalls. “You’d go out and buy like two pieces of sandpaper, thinking ‘What can we afford today?’”

The shop moved to Reade Street in 1983, and to 36 Walker St. in 1990. Though Gage advertised very little, business steadily grew as word of his skills spread through the music community.

“Word of mouth is very important in this business,” says Judy Epstein, Gage’s wife and the shop’s business manager. “Reputation is everything.” Besides running their business out of the neighborhood for all these years, Epstein and Gage have also lived in Tribeca, on Reade Street, for 30 years and raised two children there. Buzz about the shop has increased since Gage started hosting workshops.

These have so far been led by such legendary bassists as Henry Grimes and Ray Drummond. On Jan. 12, Grammy Award-winner Charlie Haden will pay a visit.

Gage also has expanded into less traditional realms.

Manny Salvador, who once made a star-shaped electric bass complete with flashing lights for famous funkster Bootsy Collins, became one of the shop’s luthiers eight years ago. Salvador repairs electric instruments, and he is also the resident guitar specialist, besides being a skilled bass repairman.

Several Gage inventions are also sold in the shop, including a pickup for amplification that is used by bassists the world over, and a portable bass designed for an era of heightened airport security. But Gage has not strayed far from his first love. He walks along a row of basses awaiting repair in the workshop, pointing out the distinctions between different varnishes, between gamba and violin corners, between a flatback and a roundback.

He casts a paternal eye over the assembled instruments. “One of the charms of the bass,” he says, his hand resting on one sloping wooden shoulder, “is that they’re all different.”