Ten albums by bass players. Part four.

8. Esperanza Spalding – Radio Music Society (2012)

By the time that this album, Spalding's fourth, came out she was really starting to make a name for herself. This one mixes several black music genres and she was probably reported to the Jazz Police on the back of it. In defence of the album you only have to look at the cast list which includes Jack DeJohnette, Joe Lovano, Terry Lynn Carrington, Gretchen Parlato, Leo Genovese and Lionel Loueke amongst others. Indeed I saw her sat on a stool (her not me, she’s quite short for an acoustic bass player) in a group with DeJohnette, Lovano and Genovese at one of the Sage Gateshead jazz festivals. Radio Music Society is music from that place where soul meets jazz, reminiscent of Stevie Wonder with Spalding’s vocals and popping bass.

9. ACV - Fail in Wood (2009)

It was a toss-up between this album and the later, psychedelically covered, Busk as to which ACV album I would nominate for this exercise. AC is, of course, local lad and ‘hardest working man in showbiz’ nominee Andy Champion and this is a fine album on the late and very lamented Jazzaction label which carried the work of much local north east talent in its heyday. The album is full of knotty twisty rhythms and the bassist and drummer, Adrian Tilbrook, are joined at the hip throughout. Highlights include the dancing, skipping bass solo on Waking the Sleeper, the swaggering title track and the centrepiece of the album, the elegant Black Embrace (Knight Moves). The other members of the quintet, Graeme Wilson on saxes, Mark Williams (guitar) and Paul Edis (keys) are all stars in the local jazz firmament and are consistently inventive throughout.

10. John Pope Quintet - Mixed With Glass (2021)

This is the third album released this year on the New Jazz and Improvised Music Label and is another album with the bass high in the mix so that you are aware of what the leader is doing at all times. It features Faye MacCalman from Archipelago on tenor alongside Jamie Stockbridge on alto and Graham Hardy on trumpet. Johnny Hunter plays the drums. This is a fat, full, in your face sound using a range of rhythms such as the high stepping New Orleans funk of the opener Plato and the Mingus meets Ornette of  Misha, A Miner. There are a number of free excursions, such as on Ing and the fact that I’m never entirely sure what’s going on doesn’t diminish the joy in it. The title track sounds like a second cousin of Once I Had a Secret Love but features a soaring alto/bass duet which isn’t in the Doris Day version. 

A cloth-eared reviewer only gave it 3 stars in April’s Jazzwise. It’s my favourite album of the year so far. A monstrous album. Dave Sayer.