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Other Places: Detroit & Philly Basses

August 30, 2008 By Doug Ramsey

The Detroit Jazz Festival is playing this Labor Day Weekend. One reason the four-day event is subtitled “A Love Supreme: The Detroit-Philly Connection” is the powerful legacy of bassists from those cities. In a sidebar piece leading up to the festival, Mark Stryker of The Detroit Free Press writes about their importance.

If it weren’t for Detroit and Philadelphia, the history of modern jazz would be a lot shorter and a lot less hip. These two meccas are so similar in substance, style and the sheer number of musicians that rose from their streets to prominence that they could be twins separated at birth.

But when you narrow the focus specifically to bass players, the connections become even more striking. The roll call includes more gods per capita than from any other city.

“It’s not an accident that almost all of my favorite bass players are from Detroit or Philadelphia,” says Christian McBride, the Philadelphia-born bassist who serves as artist-in-residence at the 29th annual Detroit International Jazz Festival, which begins Friday and runs through Labor Day. “You take away Paul Chambers, Ron Carter, Percy Heath, Jimmy Garrison, James Jamerson, Alphonso Johnson and the others and you’re left with a very short list.”

Stryker’s piece includes brief profiles of several of those bassists and others, with comments from McBride and video of two bassists in action. To read the whole thing, go here.

08/30/08 1:48 PM | filed under: main |

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Doug’s Picks

CD: Corea, Gomez, Motian

Chick Corea, Eddie Gomez, Paul Motian, Further Explorations (Concord)

The two-CD album is described in the notes as a “template,” a “tabula rasa,” rather than a tribute to Bill Evans. Nonetheless, Corea’s encounter with two great Evans sidemen underlines Evans’s profound influence on the development of the jazz piano trio and on Corea’s own playing. Released less than a month following Motian’s death at 80, the live recording from New York’s Blue Note beautifully captures the drummer’s freedom, swing and interaction. In pieces from Evans’s repertoire and others by members of the trio, there is a spirit of adventure and, in Evans’s newly found “Song No. 1,” the challenge of discovery.

CD: Pinky Winters

Pinky Winters, Winters In Summer (SSJ)

To borrow from Paul Williams’s words to Ivan Lins’ “Love Dance,” Winters knows how to turn up the quiet. Using subtleties in phrasing, pitch, intensity and tone shading, she takes ownership of a song without violating its writer’s intentions. Here, her bossa nova repertoire includes Jobim, Lees and Moraes, plus Brazilianized songs by Cole Porter, Dave Frishberg, Bob Florence and Jack Jones. A highlight: her caressing of Jobim’s and Lees’ “Dreamer,” which also has one of several simpático tenor saxophone solos by Pete Christlieb. Years pass between Pinky Winters albums. When one appears, it is an event.

CD: Ronnie Cuber

Ronnie Cuber, Ronnie (Steeplechase)

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DVD: Chet Baker

Chet Baker, Candy (MVD)

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Book: Clark Terry

Clark: The Autobiography of Clark Terry (UC Press)

The great trumpeter, flugelhornist and mumbler writes with joy about the good times in his long life and with frankness about the rough patches. His humor and generous spirit are intact whether he is telling of his love for Basie and Ellington, his triumphs as a performer, his legions of friends, or encounters with racists and bottom feeders in and out of the jazz world. Terry’s ear, eye and memory for detail provide insights into not only his remarkable career but also the trajectory and development of jazz as an art form and a social force during his many decades in music.

CD: Ron Carter

Ron Carter’s Great Big Band (Sunnyside)

The venerable bassist’s first recording at the helm of a big band has style, depth and power. The playlist of jazz standards may suggest that Carter and arranger Robert Freedman are plowing old ground, but they produce a crop of fresh ideas. They transform “Opus One,” “Con Alma,” “Sail Away,” “The Golden Striker,” “St. Louis Blues” and eight others. Harmonically and rhythmically, Carter leads. He solos, but does not dominate the album, leaving space for Steve Wilson, Greg Gisbert, Wayne Escoffery, Jerry Dodgion, Mulgrew Miller and Scott Robinson—a few of the 17 top-flight members of the band.

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