Jim Ferguson And Mundell Lowe

Even if I am fighting my way out of a thicket of deadlines, as I am at the moment, when a Jim Ferguson CD arrives, I stop what I'm doing and listen to it. Fortunately for the viability of the exchequer, that doesn't happen often. The most recent Ferguson album came the day before yesterday. The previous one arrived seven years ago.

The new CD is Mundell Lowe & Jim Ferguson, Haunted Heart (Lily's Dad's Music). The record company, if that's not too grand a term, is Ferguson's. He is Lily's dad. Lily is pictured in the painting on the cover. Ferguson is self-effacing in that way, and also in giving credit; you'll notice that he put Mundell Lowe's name first. That no doubt reflects the respect he has for the guitarist, who was a mainstay of jazz in New York before Ferguson was born in 1950. Ferguson has spent much of his working musical life in Nashville, Tennessee, where he is in considerable demand in recording studios and television as a singer and as a bassist. Like Jay Leonhart and Kristin Korb, he sings and plays the bass at the same time. If I owned a concert hall, I'd hire the three of them to perform together. For now, however, I am content to listen to the magic that he and Lowe discovered a few years ago when they first toured together.

In his fine notes for the album, Richard M. Sudhalter writes, "A high tenor male voice is a rarity in professional music these days, and the tendency is not to take it seriously....." Ferguson must be taken seriously because his musicianship is as powerful in his singing as in his playing. From the instant vocal swing he achieves on the propulsion of Lowe's four-bar introduction of "Gone With The Wind" to the close of the CD with one unelaborated chorus of "I'll Be Seeing You," Ferguson's singing is without flaw. His bass playing finds the right groove on every one of the eleven songs, and it seems to me that his swing, singing and playing on "Mean To Me" combine in a little masterpiece. His bass work is as agile as he wants to make it, but in solo he does not indulge in fingerboard gymnastics. Ferguson and Lowe work beautifully together. Lowe's skill and inventiveness are firmly intact as he approaches his eighty-sixth year. That is evident in his solo features, "There's A Small Hotel" and his own "Big Star, Little Star." This is a kind and quality of chamber music we don't hear much any more, two masters of the art just playing, with no gimmick and no intent beyond making music.

The songs include "Haunted Heart," "My Foolish Heart," "Detour Ahead" and Mose Allison's "I Don't Worry About A Thing," which Ferguson personalizes simply by being Ferguson. He is almost unbearably moving in his vocals on Bill Evans' and Gene Lees' "Waltz For Debby" and that modern classic by Johnny Mandel and Paul Williams, "Close Enough For Love."

It's a joy to see Dick Sudhalter's byline again. If you're a Rifftides regular, you know what he's been going through. If you're not, there are several archive pieces about him, including this one. For background on Jim Ferguson beyond that in Dick's notes, see this biography.