Loaded Bass

Bassist Gary Peacock certainly gets his licks in when working with his chief employer Keith Jarrett, alongside drummer Jack DeJohnette in the so-called "Standards Trio." Despite the many solos that the superstar pianist allots Peacock, there's still significant aspects of his musical personality that remain hidden. To hear the bassist in all his multi-dimensional glory these days, you have to turn to his work with others. I find his interplay with pianist Marc Copland -- particularly in a duet setting -- to be specially rewarding. There's a sense of yearning and deep mystery to a performance like this that you hear far too rarely with the Jarrett trio. Peacock's woody sound is also fully captured here in a way that even escapes the pristine fidelity of the Jarrett ECM recordings. Much like Jarrett, Peacock has his prolix tendencies, but both men convey the most expressive depth when paring their technique down and concentrating on extracting the juice from every well-chosen note.
"Calls and Answers" can be found on the Copland-Peacock recording "What It Says" on the Sketch label.

Fancy Footwork

Unlike the late President Gerald Ford, I can walk and chew gum at the same time, but the most physically coordinated person I admittedly am not. So I come to the first generation Hammond organ players with much respect and not a little wonder at their multi-limbed dexterity. Although all kinds of weaving bop lines and greasy blues phrases are emanating from the dual keyboards, the sounds generated from the instrument's lower extremities are what tend to grip my attention. Did these guys have eyes in their feet? How do you keep those swinging bass lines popping from the pedals below while grooving on the keys above? To me it seems a minor miracle, but then again manipulating the vacuum cleaner correctly can strike me as a triumphant act as well.
Be that as it may, Don Patterson was really quite the juggler, keeping hands and feet independently alert and working overtime. The throbbing bass undercurrent that he lays down, grounding this "Impressions" -like workout, is thrilling in its rhythmic solidity and unerring harmonic accuracy. Not to ignore all the activity on the surface, but the substrata action, at least for this flabbergasted listener, is just as riveting. Booker Ervin takes a typically vivid solo that strikes me as being just the right length, considering that modal pieces like this tend to encourage elephant age improvisations. And drummer Billy James, the unsung champion of this performance, exhibits the supportive swing of such 1960s peers as Grady Tate and Al Harewood: utterly dependable, ever-elegant, rhythmic engines steaming behind the onrushing trains. And when the mighty Ervin drops out, the fun really begins. Patterson and James go to town, more than happy to prove that the melodic interjections of a horn or the chordal underpinning of a guitar are unnecessary for them to generate a full-rounded sound or to maintain intensity and interest. A performance like this inspires me to possibly consider clog dancing lessons. Well, maybe not.

Taking the Time

The 1954 Bethlehem album "Basically Duke" isn't a full-fledged Ellington tribute, but it includes a smattering of Duke classics and the presence of three players associated with the band: Pettiford, Clark Terry and Jimmy Hamilton. I don't own the album -- too bad, because I'd love to know who's responsible for this attractive arrangement. Hamilton, the featured soloist, couldn't have possessed a more mellifluous tone and fluid approach; this is the epitome of effortless playing. Pettiford, for his part, is pure class. His interweaving lines during the theme statement and firm support throughout Hamilton's solo turn are evidence of the selfless contributions he could dependably provide. That is, when he wasn't grabbing the spotlight with his flashing bass and cello solos. Indeed, Pettiford was a strange figure whose historic role is difficult to assess. Although routinely acknowledged as the pioneer of bebop bass playing -- he can be heard on important nascent bop sessions with Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie and others -- O.P. is conspicuously absent from the Parker-Gillespie axis during the major years of the musical firmament. (Pettiford sequesters himself away in Ellington's band from 1945 to 1948, bebop's peak years of fertile innovation.) He demonstrates his true gifts as a player,composer and occasional bandleader in the 1950s; particularly impressive is a 1956 trio date that finds him with tenorist Lucky Thompson and guitarist Skeeter Betts. Pettiford was also instrumental in introducing the cello to jazz, but to err, it must be remembered, is only human.

Check Please

Call it a privileged moment; a brief segment of time that, in this gorgeous case, stands outside the official body of the song. For a musical minute and a half that acquires the weight and beauty of a full concerto, Art Pepper delays his entry to Legrandland to spin his own story. Not exactly an introduction, this brief but sumptuous improvised fragment is typical of the concentrated power that Pepper regularly summoned in the last decade of his out of control merry-go-round of an existence. If "The Summer Knows" ended right there, I'd walk away fully satiated. But then I'd miss the dessert.
Mainly a feature for bassist Williams, this performance still reveals much of the legendary Pepper magic. Legrand's wispy melody doesn't seem to engage him nearly as much as his own filigrees and bookending statements. Starting at 5:54, the saxophonist digs in again, pulling extemporized morsels of melody from the air, giving himself the well deserved last word.

Oscar Takes a Chill Pill

Gary Giddins recently mentioned to me that his favorite piano duet recordings were the Pablo albums pairing Count Basie and Oscar Peterson because each of the two participants could be so easily identified. Have two players ever had such diametrically opposed styles? Oscar never met a note he couldn't jackhammer into a two bar phrase, while Bill Basie seemed reticent to touch a key for fear of disturbing it. Yes, it doesn't take a listener with Giddins's attuned ears to tell them apart.
In this charming get together Basie takes to slow blues as if to the manor born; the big surprise is that the loquacious Canadian also dons the cloak of the kid from Red Bank, New Jersey. Has Peterson ever played so sparely? And why didn't he bask in effective simplicity more often? Restraint may have been the greatest tribute that Peterson bestowed on the older master.

The Idea of North

There are few pleasures of the aesthetic variety that match the personal discovery of an artist hitherto unknown to you. Lars Gullin was a superb baritone saxophonist from Sweden who was nothing more to me than a name that invariably popped up in references to Scandinavian jazz of the pre-ECM era. I can't exactly recall how I stumbled across this clip, but I'm just glad I did; Gullin had a rare gift that was hidden from me for too long. His mellifluous tone and lyrical leanings have much in common with peak-period Gerry Mulligan, but Gullin's extraordinary composure lends him distinction. In the second part of this too brief clip he's joined by (presumably, as per posting ID) saxophonist Rolf Billberg, another mystery to me. And he too makes an immediate first impression in the handful of seconds that he's featured. Billberg's also been influenced by American cool school players of the 1959s -- in his case Lee Konitz -- but like Gullin, he transcends mere imitation through musicianly focus. Their duet is brief but glorious.
Now to find more of their work and move on to other (to me) shadowy figures like pianist Bengt Hallberg, a favorite of Miles Davis. Just what I need in my life, a new jazz obsession...

Getting Misty

If I never hear "Misty" again it will be too soon, but when there are interpretations like this...The young Warren Vache sounds so poised and inventive (as he still does), while bassist Slam Stewart steals the show with lovely melodic turns that demonstrate how expressive his simultaneous bowing and humming technique could be. (To hear him display his wares at ballad tempo rather than swing time is a special treat.) Trading eights between trumpet and bass was also an inspired move, nudging Vache and Stewart to give it their best shots in the limited time available. Today Slam is missed; Vache is perpetually underrated and Wein needs a new sponsor for his New York fest.