Jazzy, the story of how I came to purchase this wonderful bass in one of perseverance and luck.
I met Susan, Mica and Ron in 1993 when I purchased my first Alembic. I shared with them the story of my first Alembic experience at the hands of Tom Fowler and mentioned that it was a dream of mine to some day own that bass. Susan remembered Tom Fowler and the bass, but as it hadn't been back to the Mothership they had no idea where it was or who owned it, nor did they know how to get in touch with Tom Fowler to ask him. Eventually, through some obsessive internet sleuthing I determined that Fowler must have purchased the bass in the summer of 1974. I found pictures of him using a black P-bass in December of '73, and a few pictures of him using a Jazz bass in the spring of '74. I had a bootleg copy of a KCET-TV television special recorded live in late August of 1974 (later officially released by Zappa and entitled "A Token of His Extreme") that clearly showed Tom with a brown Alembic (just like I remembered!). I also had an audience recording of a show played on July 19, 1974 in San Carlos, CA where FZ jokes about Tom Fowler "panhandling on the streets of San Francisco to get money to buy a new bass." (San Carlos was about 30 miles south down the peninsula from San Francisco). At some point in the late 90's Mica stumbled upon the build card for 74-74, upon which someone had written "Tom Fowler."
Not much happened for along time after that, except for me routinely bugging Susan or Mica about the whereabouts of the bass and finding every picture of Fowler with that bass that I could. Then, around 2005 or 2010 or so somebody emailed Alembic looking for parts for 74-74. Mica emailed the person and asked him to email me. He did, and I told him I was serious about buying the bass. Then, he disappeared and neither Mica nor I heard from him again. To this day I have no idea who he was or whether he actually owned the bass. I would periodically post things here, or elsewhere, looking for the bass or Tom Fowler, but nothing ever came of it.
Then, in October of 2020 Hal Henkel posted the picture below on the Alembic Bass Guitar group at Facebook. The bass looked like the pics of Fowler's bass I had found over the years. I went into deadly pounce mode and contacted Hal right away. Ha is a very cool guy... an L.A. based guitarist and Alembic player himself! He was kind enough to act as a go-between between the bass's owner and me. He was the owner/engineer of a small studio in L.A. and he bought the bass from Tom Fowler years ago. We chatted on the phone a few times, and he could tell that I really loved and respected that instrument and that it was important to me. The owner told me how to reach Tom Fowler, who confirmed to me that 74-74 was his bass, and that it was delivered to him in Montreal, CA in June of 1974. With its authenticity confirmed, the owner agreed to sell it to me the bass... and we all lived happily ever after.
