Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Various Artists - 1989 Jazz-Club - "Bass"

Selecting representative recordings of bass players is an especially tough task, given the relative scarcity of recordings of bassists as leaders, but the Ralf Enoch/Horst Hohenböken Jazz-Club series has come up with a fascinating anthology from PolyGram's archives. Although there are some unavoidably glaring omissions due to ties with other labels -- Jimmy Blanton, Milt Hinton, Scott LaFaro, Charlie Haden, for example (Christian McBride wasn't on the scene yet in 1989) -- the collection still makes its way from the nifty Slam Stewart hum-scat swing of "Beyond the Blue Horizon" (1944) through the mainstream '50s and closing with the emergence of Jaco Pastorius and Stanley Clarke in the jazz-rock '70s. "Prayer for Passive Resistance" is an exciting example of Charles Mingus' sudden shifts of tempos; Percy Heath is shown off effectively on the MJQ's "The Golden Striker." Oscar Pettiford's solid, booming sense of time in Tal Farlow's "Blues In the Closet," Ray Brown's self-explanatory "Solo for Unaccompanied Bass," and Clarke's spellbinding "Bass Folk Song" are standout tracks. Other bassists anchoring their bands here are Chubby Jackson, Eddie Safranski, Paul Chambers, Red Mitchell, Sam Jones, Ron Carter, Niels-Henning Orsted-Pedersen and Richard Davis.

Artist / Tracklist

01 –Slam Stewart With The Coleman Hawkins Quintet - Beyond The Blue Horizon Take 1
02 –Chubby Jackson & His Orchestra*  - Northwest Passage
03 –Charles Mingus - Prayer For Passive Resistance
04 –Ray Brown  - Solo For Unaccompanied Bass
05 –Oscar Pettiford With Tal Farlow  - Blues In The Closet
06 –Percy Heath With The The Modern Jazz Quartet  - The Golden Striker
07 –Eddie Safranski With The Metronome All Stars - How High The Moon Part 1
08 –Paul Chambers, Jimmy Cleveland And His All Stars  - Little Beaver
09 –Red Mitchell With The Herb Geller Quartet  - If I Were A Bell
10 –Sam Jones With The The Cannonball Adderley Quintet  - Tribute To Brownie
11 –Ron Carter With Kenny Burrell - Stompin' At The Savoy
12 –Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen With Oscar Peterson  - Younger Than Springtime
13 –Richard Davis  - Muses For Richard Davis
14 –Jaco Pastorius - Foreign Fun

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