3. Charles Mingus – The
Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (1963)
One of the great Impulse modern jazz
albums. If you don’t have this in your collection you should go and stand in
the corner of the room until you feel better. Despite not containing any of
Mingus’ best known tunes this is a tremendously strong suite of compositions
that stands up against anything else recorded before or since, the opening
track alone includes enough themes and variations to fill the career of a
lesser composer. This album throws up the question whether Mingus is a greater
composer than he is a bass player. Difficult to answer when, at times a huge,
wide, interactive frenzy is built on the support provided by Mingus’ bass. He
gives us soul, wailing plantation blues, weeping gospel, urban torch song, a
folk waltz, frantic Mexicali strumming and Gershwinesque grandeur and it all
hangs together. It would be a breath taking ballet.
4.
Jaco Pastorius – Truth Liberty & Soul
(1982, released 2017)
The Hendrix of the bass was a perfect
fit for Weather Report’s ‘We never solo but we always solo’ ethos. I suspect
that many bass players at the time heard Jaco with Weather Report and went off
to train as accountants. This album was released in 2017 and I chose it as it’s
a great showcase for his bass playing. Even when the band is at a roaring full
throttle the bass is always prominent and always exciting and the playing of
Peter Erskine on drums and Don Alias on percussion creates a rampaging
three-headed rhythm beast. There is so much life and joy in this album, it’s
almost overwhelming. Played at the right volume, it’s a great way to meet the
neighbours.
An excellent 96 page booklet is
included with the CD though ‘Jaco’ by Bill Milkowski is the essential reading
if you want to get fully depressed about what was lost with his death in 1987.
5.
Marc Johnson – Bass Desires (1986)
I was tempted to discuss Swept Away, Johnson’s more recent, and equally excellent, album with his wife
Eliane Elias but went for this one as I like the work by both of the two
featured guitarists, John Scofield and Bill Frisell. The guitar synthesizer
that Frisell plays places it firmly in the 1980s, as do the mullets on the band
photo on the inside cover. Johnson had been Bill Evans’ bassist towards the end
of his career before forming this Bass Desires Band. Scofield provides curling,
oblique, angular guitar in his trademark fashion, Erskine is constant in
support, his drums bubbling under on each tune and Frisell’s guitar synthesizer
adds washes of colour without muting the effect of what’s going on. Highlights
include the Hollywood Chinese dance of Samurai Hee-Haw, Coltrane’s Resolution and the title track. Dave Sayer
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