About me
Dennis Kong is from Hawaii:
Dennis went to grade school in Guam, high school in Hawaii, and moved to the Bay Area in the ’70s to go to college and learn music.
In the late 60s, Dennis’s first influence came from his classmate’s mother Darlene Fillius.
Darlene listened to swing jazz from the ’40s. He recalls she used to take them to Hilton Hawaiian Garden bar to see Trummy Young and friends on the weekends. One of the most memorable nights is when she introduced Cozy Cole (drums-Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong) and Jerome Dahl (guitar) to him at her cocktail parties.
Dennis went to Kalani High School with some well-known alumni which included:
Mackie Feary (Kalapana), Pam Arcerio (Sesame St), and Charlie Icarus Johnson ( Stanley Clarke, Al Jarreau).
Dennis started with electric bass with Richard Francis Leandro– who claimed to be the first one to switch from upright bass to Fender bass in Hawaii in the early ’60s.
Another major influence: Vance Keever (Blue Note Club Soundman & a high school friend) was showing him about modern Jazz and blues, Fender and upright basses.
After High School, Dennis tried to study with Angel Pena: (The first chair bassist in Honolulu Symphony at the time) but was immediately rejected: because he wanted to learn how to play jazz string bass. Undeterred he started with Porky Britto (the local jazz bassist) for reading and preliminary upright techniques.
Dennis moved to the Bay Area, attended the College of San Mateo for music, string bass, and San Francisco State University for business. And started studying with Al Obidin Sky and Tom Rutley for string bass and reading – who heavily influenced him on music concepts & string bass techniques.
Always wanting to improve he started studying with different teachers and managed to meet many of his heroes for electric and upright bass at the clubs in the Bay Area and Hawaii.