The Bebop Shop Bass Desires: Peacock, Vitous & Others

The Bebop Shop : Changes: Post-Bop Modernists : Bass Desires: Peacock, Vitous & Others


	Larry Grenadier: The Gleaners (CD: ECM) Larry Grenadier’s The Gleaners is a profound and highly creative album, harvesting influences from many sources, its title inspired by Agnès Varda’s film The Gleaners and I. In between his own pieces here, including a dedication to early hero Oscar Pettiford, Grenadier explores compositions by George Gershwin, John Coltrane, Paul Motian, Rebecca Martin and Wolfgang Muthspiel. “The process for making this record began with a look inward,” Larry writes in his liner note, “an excavation into the core elements of who I am as a bass player. It was a search for a center of sound and timbre, for the threads of harmony and rhythm that formulate the crux of a musical identity.” The result is an important addition to ECM’s series of distinguished solo bass albums. The Gleaners was recorded at New York’s Avatar Studios in December 2016, and produced by Manfred Eicher. (ECM Records) Price: £14.99


Niels-Henning Orsted Pederson: The Bass In The Background (CD: Storyville) Price: £13.99


	Gary Peacock: West Coast Years (CD: Fresh Sound) Bassist Gary Peacock (1935-2020) made his first recordings in the West Coast between 1959 and 1962. He was in his mid-20s when he arrived in Los Angeles, and although his talent was starting to get some recognition, not many would have counted Peacock among the most proficient young bassists in jazz. After the release of these recordings, there were few who wouldn't have. Before him, the most prominent new bassists of the early 1960s were Scott LaFaro, followed by Charlie Haden, Steve Swallow and Chuck Israels. LaFaro's unexpected death in 1961 was a great loss because we most likely missed on further developments he would have contributed to the role of bass in jazz. Gary Peacock's push for innovation was a win for the same reason. The Peacock who suddenly burst in 1962 onto recordings with Jimmy Woods, Clare Fischer and with Don Ellis and Paul Bley was among the most challenging young musicians in jazz, a bassist learning to make his way into the most advanced groups. His playing had come far since his recordings with Bud Shank or Carmell Jones two years earlier, in an evolution that had no turning back. Gary Peacock was sure that “although you may have an idea of where you are in your work, a record will show you where you really are —you and anyone else who hears it.” Listening to this compilation of his early recordings, you may find the answer. (Fresh Sound Records) Price: £17.99


Gary Peacock: December Poems (CD: ECM) with Jan Garbarek. Price: £14.99


	Gary Peacock: Guamba (CD: ECM Touchstones) Gary Peacock’s recordings of the 1980s are production projects on which great players convened to play the bassist’s tunes. And the bass is fully a lead voice here, with title piece Guamba a Peacock solo to open the proceedings. As Paul Bley once said, “Gary is one of those rare musicians you could always count on to play better than you.” Nonetheless, there are mighty contributions from saxophone, trumpet and drums, with Jan Garbarek in particularly strong form. Jazz Forum: “Garbarek plays with magisterial power here.” Recorded 1987. (ECM Records) Price: £11.99


Gary Peacock: Voice From The Past - Paradigm (Vinyl LP: ECM) 180g vinyl with a free download code included. Price: £28.99


	Gary Peacock: Tales of Another (CD: ECM) Price: £14.99


Gary Peacock & Marilyn Crispell: Azure (CD: ECM) “Azure” features beautiful duets by two great improvisers whose compatibility was proven long ago. Gary Peacock and Marilyn Crispell made outstanding music together in Marilyn’s trio with the late Paul Motian, on ECM albums including “Nothing ever was, anyway” and “Amaryllis”, but their duo project also has an extensive history, until now undocumented on disc. With their shared sense of lyricism, their individual compositional styles and their profound background in free playing, Peacock and Crispell are exceptional musical partners. The album, recorded in upstate New York, home territory for both musicians, contains pieces written by Peacock (“Lullaby”, “The Lea”, “Puppets”) and by Crispell (“Patterns”, “Goodbye”, “Waltz after David M”), duo improvisations (“Azure”, “Blue”, “Leapfrog”) and highly inventive piano and bass solos. (ECM Records) Price: £14.99


	Gary Peacock Trio: Now This (CD: ECM) In the realm of the piano trio the bar is set high, and creative bassist Gary Peacock has helped raise it in the groups of Bill Evans, Paul Bley and Keith Jarrett. Now This is an album with the bassist’s current trio, recorded last summer in Oslo. Powerful new versions of some Peacock classics – such as “Moor”, “Vignette”, “Requiem” and “Gaya” – are interspersed with recent compositions. Marc Copland and Joey Baron each contribute tunes, and the group also tackles Scott La Faro’s “Gloria’s Step”. In this band, roles are very evenly shared, and this is an optimum context in which to appreciate the melodic invention of Peacock’s bass playing. Marc Copland always honours the needs of the compositions and Joey Baron supplies both drive and sensitive detail. (ECM Records) Price: £14.99


Gary Peacock Trio: Tangents (CD: ECM) Some of Gary Peacock’s finest music has been made in piano trios. Early in his musical life, Peacock established a fresh role for the bass as an independent melodic voice, a concept carried forward in the history-making groups he’s played with – from Paul Bley’s Bill Evans’s trios to Keith Jarrett’s. As a bandleader he has also been influential: Tangents is the second release from the great bassist’s trio with Marc Copland and Joey Baron and draws on years of shared playing in diverse contexts. All three band members contribute compositions, Peacock’s including “December Greenwings”, revisiting a piece Gary introduced on his ECM recording December Poems. Repertoire includes five tunes from Peacock, two from Baron, one from Copland, and an outstanding group improvisation, “Empty Forest”. The trio also plays Miles Davis’s “Blue In Green” and, perhaps surprisingly, Alex North’s theme for the film Spartacus, which also proves a fine vehicle for improvising. Tangents was recorded in Lugano in May 2016, and produced by Manfred Eicher. (ECM Records) Price: £14.99


	Barre Phillips: Mountainscapes (CD: ECM Touchstones) Barre Phillips’s Mountainscapes brings together strongly contrasting elements, the furious high-energy playing of the Surman/Phillips/Martin trio juxtaposed with spacious impressionistic pieces originally created for Carolyn Carlson’s ballet dancers. The integration of acoustic instruments and electronics (with three of the musicians playing synthesizers) is beautifully balanced in the production. John Abercrombie dropped by the studio to jam on the last track, raising the energy level still higher. Recorded in March 1976, Mountainscapes was described by Melody Maker as “vast, awesome and glorious” and “a starting point for the shape of jazz to come.” (ECM Records) Price: £11.99


Barre Phillips: End To End (CD: ECM) Barre Phillips was the first musician to record an album of solo double bass, back in 1968, and he has always been an absolute master of the solo idiom. In March 2017, Barre recorded what he says will be his last solo album, the final chapter of his “Journal Violone”: it is a beautiful and moving musical statement. All the qualities we associate with Barre’s playing are here in abundance – questing adventurousness, melodic invention, textural richness, developmental logic, and deep soulfulness. End to End was recorded at Studios-La-Buissonne in the south of France, and produced by Manfred Eicher. (ECM Records) Price: £14.99


	Steve Swallow: Home - Music by Steve Swallow to poems by Robert Creeley (CD: ECM Touchstones) A recording of great charm, Home features bassist Steve Swallow’s settings of the poetry of Robert Creeley for an inspired band of friends, each of whom is also a strikingly original presence. Creeley was very supportive of the project and loved particularly Sheila Jordan’s singing. Swallow, whose feeling for verse is as profound as his understanding of jazz, gets right inside the meaning of the texts and illuminates them with his melodies. Recorded 1979. (ECM Records) Price: £11.99


Marc Johnson: Bass Desires (CD: ECM Touchstones) The bassist was the bandleader but the group’s debut, Marc Johnson insisted “was really about the two guitarists” – Bill Frisell with his swathes of sound and unexpected sonic twists and John Scofield with his grittier urban jazz-blues approach. This album is part of the ECM TOUCHSTONES series: Great music and full-dimensional sound at download price, in cardboard covers with original artwork. (ECM Records) Price: £11.99


	Marc Johnson's Bass Desires: Second Sight (CD: ECM Touchstones) Bass Desires evolves into a real group on its second showing, with all participants now contributing material. Inspirational sources include soul, blues, country and pop as well as jazz but instrumental interplay is more refined. This album is part of the ECM TOUCHSTONES series: Great music and full-dimensional sound at download price, in cardboard covers with original artwork. (ECM Records) Price: £11.99


Marc Johnson & Eliane Elias: Swept Away (CD: ECM) The quartet of double-bassist Marc Johnson, pianist Eliane Elias, drummer Joey Baron and saxophonist Joe Lovano commune over music that is engaging, sensuous, poetic, swinging. Brazilian-born Elias previously joined Baron and Lovano on Johnson’s 2005 ECM album, “Shades of Jade”, which reaped praise far and wide. The New York Times enthused over the “luminescence” created by the close partnership between Johnson and Elias, while The Village Voice said the album was “shimmering” yet “its lusciousness has all sorts of tensile strength.” The same words could apply to “Swept Away”. The album includes melody-rich Elias compositions, ranging from the easy-flowing lyricism of “B Is for Butterfly” to a gorgeous romanticism in “Moments” that seems to stop time. Her relentlessly rocking, Eastern-tinged “One Thousand and One Nights” is another highlight, as is Johnson’s evocation of after-hours atmosphere, “Midnight Blue.” The album closes with the bassist’s solo treatment of the old American folk song “Shenandoah,” a poignant remembrance of his family from the Midwest. (ECM Records) Price: £14.99


	Marc Johnson: Overpass (CD: ECM) With Overpass, Marc Johnson makes a decisive and intriguing contribution to ECM’s solo bass tradition. Johnson’s experiments with the bass and its potential as a lead voice began during his tenure with the Bill Evans Trio, where his nightly solo feature on “Nardis”, Miles Davis’s tune, inspired him to new ideas. “Nardis” is revisited on this new studio album recorded in São Paulo, Brazil, alongside Alex North’s “Love Theme from Spartacus” (another Evans Trio favourite), Eddie Harris’s “Freedom Jazz Dance” and five Johnson originals including “Samurai Fly”, a recasting of “Samurai Hee-Haw”, which Marc previously recorded for ECM with his Bass Desires band and with the John Abercrombie Trio. (ECM Records) Price: £14.99


Miroslav Vitous: The Bass (CD: BGO) Czech double bassist's Herbie Mann-produced Atlantic album from 1972 featuring Joe Henderson, John McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock, Jack DeJohnette and Joe Chambers. Price: £12.99


	Miroslav Vitous Group (CD: ECM) Between 1979 and 1982, the Miroslav Vitous quartet was the primary outlet for the abundant improvisational skills of leader Vitous and saxophonist John Surman. They made three ECM albums: this eponymously-titled Miroslav Vitous Group - now being issued on CD for the first time - is the middle one. Vitous and Surman were well-matched in lots of ways, with roots and influences that extended beyond jazz, a love of playing freely, a commitment to using all the sound potential of their respective instruments: Surman singing at the top of the baritone sax's range to match Miroslav's fiddle-like arco flourishes on the double bass. The redoubtable Jon Christensen shared their passion for playing, as did Kenny Kirkland, just 24 at the time of this session, on his way to becoming one of modern jazz's outstanding pianists. Repertoire includes classic Miroslav pieces ("When Face Gets Pale"), collective improvising, and an early sighting of Surman's relentlessly driving "Number Six". (Proper Note) Price: £13.99


Miroslav Vitous Group (Vinyl LP: ECM) Price: £28.99
180g vinyl pressing.

Miroslav Vitous: Journey's End (CD: ECM Touchstones) This quartet was the primary context for the Czech bassist Miroslav Vitous’s creativity in the late 70s and early 80s. “Like Mingus, Vitous is a real leader from the bass, and the music is all the stronger for it” – Gramophone. With three excellent writers in the line-up (John Surman and John Taylor as well as the leader) the quartet had an abundance of material to draw upon. Journey’s End includes “U Dunaje U Prešpurka” which Miroslav had played with the Junior Trio with Jan Hammer, as well as Surman’s Thomas Hardy-inspired ballad “Tess”, and Taylor’s “Windfall”. Collective improving capacities are to the fore on “Carry On, No. 1” which builds on the template of Jon Christensen’s drum patterns. Recorded 1982. (ECM Records) Price: £11.99


	Miroslav Vitous /Jan Garbarek: Atmos (CD: ECM Touchstones) “Jan Garbarek is my favorite sax player,” Miroslav Vitous has said. “We have an incredible musical rapport and you can hear it. He understands my Slavic melodies and what I use for atmosphere because he’s European and his father was Polish, which is very close to me. I’m from Czechoslovakia. Our musical communication is astonishing: we each sense what the other is about to play.” Atmos, recorded 1992, features seven compositions by Vitous and two freely improvised pieces, yet sounds like the product of a shared mind, so well-matched are the expressive approaches of bassist and saxophonist. (ECM Records) Price: £11.99


Miroslav Vitous: Emergence (CD: ECM) Price: £14.99


	Miroslav Vitous: First Meeting (CD: ECM) Price: £14.99


Miroslav Vitous: Universal Syncopations (CD: ECM) with Jan Garbarek, Chick Corea, John McLaughlin, & Jack DeJohnette. Price: £14.99


	Miroslav Vitous: Universal Syncopations II (CD: ECM) A follow-up to the hugely successful 2003 Universal Syncopations, this new album by Czech bassist Miroslav Vitous features a stellar line-up with some of the leading modern jazz soloists of the post-‘fusion’ era: Randy Brecker, Bob Malach, Bob Mintzer, Gary Campbell – all making their ECM debuts. It explores a wider musical range than the first CD, with choirs looming out of the mix and orchestral colours swirling around the shifting cast of nine jazz musicians. (New Note) Price: £14.99


Miroslav Vitous Group w / Michel Portal: Remembering Weather Report (CD: ECM) Vitous was one of the founders of Weather Report and helped to shape its early (and revolutionary) mix of enigmatic, free-flowing compositions and high-level improvisational dialogues, in which all the instruments enjoyed parity. It is this formative period that Miroslav salutes with his all-acoustic band and some phenomenal playing. The obvious musical empathy between Vitous and drummer Gerald Cleaver is a joy, Ambrosetti and Campbell contribute inspired solos – as does guest Michel Portal, another iconic figure in the history of the music. Material, almost exclusively from Vitous’s pen, alludes to Wayne Shorter’s “Nefertiti” and to Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman” – as well as to Miles Davis and Antonín Dvorak. (ECM Records) Price: £14.99


	Miroslav Vitous: Music Of Weather Report (CD: ECM) The great Czech bassist returns once more to the music of Weather Report, the group he co-founded with Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter in 1970. It's the improvisational freedom of the early Weather Report that most interests Vitous, and he abides by their old rallying call "everyone solos and no one solos". Well-known Report repertoire re-explored includes "Birdland", "Seventh Arrow", "Scarlet Woman", "Pinocchio" and "Morning Lake" and Miroslav's group also plays "Juggler's Issue" a piece which the first Weather Report line-up played but didn't record. Interspersed along the way are three new blues tunes from Vitous's pen. The band, driven by the astounding double drumming of Gerald Cleaver and Nasheet Waits, is energetic and daring, juxtaposing fast tempos and rhythmically free pulses, with Miroslav's arco bass playing sometimes sounding like a third horn in between the two saxophones. (Proper Music) Price: £14.99


Miroslav Vitous: Ziljabu Nights (CD: Intuition) Price: £14.99


	Björn Meyer: Provenance (CD: ECM) There is a distinguished tradition of solo bass albums on ECM, but Provenance is the first to be devoted to the electric bass guitar. Björn Meyer, Swedish-born and Swiss-based, has shaped a unique voice for his instrument inside the most diverse contexts, working alongside Persian harpist and singer Asita Hamidi, Swedish nyckelharpa player Johan Hedin, and Tunisian oud master Anouar Brahem. For a decade he was a member of Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin, in which his bass guitar was frequently the lead instrument. His solo work is concerned with the experience of sound in acoustic spaces: “Even though the instrument is technically non-acoustic, the music is deeply influenced by the properties of the space where it is played. The many different ways in which acoustics affect my compositions and improvisations have always been sources of surprise and inspiration. There is definitely a second member in this solo project – the room!” The participating room on Provenance is the highly responsive Auditorio Stello Molo RSI in Lugano, its rich acoustics helping to bring out all the fine detail in Meyer’s subtle playing. (ECM Records) Price: £14.99


Mats Eilertsen: Rubicon (CD: ECM) Norwegian bassist Mats Eilertsen has been a strong and supportive presence on a dozen ECM sessions to date. With Rubicon he steps forward to present his own music, with an international cast. The album features compositions originally written in response to a commission from the Vossajazz Festival. All About Jazz reviewed the premiere performance: "Rubicon proved to be a very dynamic work. Eilertsen ensured that each of the instrumentalists took their share of the spotlight, brought together combinations of players that emphasized tonal variation, and created ensemble sections bursting with life." After fine-tuning the material on tour, Mats brought his septet to Oslo's Rainbow Studio, where Manfred Eicher produced this definitive version of Rubicon in May 2015. (Proper Music) Price: £14.99


	Arild Andersen: Green In Blue- Early Quartets (CD: ECM, 3 CDs) Box set in ECM’s acclaimed Old & New Masters series reintroduces Arild Andersen’s first three leader dates for the label – “Clouds In My Head”, “Shimri”, and “Green Shading Into Blue”. Recorded between 1975 and 1978, none of these albums has previously been issued on compact disc, and this edition is eagerly awaited. The music traces Andersen’s personal evolution from ‘free’-inclined bassist to bandleader-composer and introduces some players who would prove important for the future of the music – amongst them an 18-year-old Jon Balke on the “Clouds” session. (ECM Records) Price: £26.99


Arild Andersen, Vassilis Tsabropoulos & John Marshall: Achirana (CD: ECM) 2022 reissue of this 2000 album by Arild Andersen who introduced his new trio with the highly gifted Greek pianist Vassilis Tsabropoulos, who makes his ECM debut with 'Achirana'. They are joined by veteran British drummer John Marshall, previously a member of Eberhard Weber's 'Colours' band. Their programme of all original material casts new light on the post-Bill Evans idiom. (Proper Music) Price: £14.99


	Arild Andersen: The Triangle (CD: ECM Touchstones) Arild Andersen's trio emphasises the writing and playing of Greek pianist Vassilis Tsabropoulos, whose melodic improvising and sense of form are influenced by his background as a classical musician. Tsabropoulos's tunes, and his arrangement of Ravel here, cast the jazz ‘piano trio’ genre in another light – as do his contributions to Andersen’s pieces and the collective improvisation “European Triangle'. Arild Andersen's driving bass and John Marshall's inventive drums give the music its sense of propulsion. Recorded 2003. (ECM Records) Price: £11.99


Arild Anderson Group: Electra (CD: ECM) The great contemporary bass player, Arild Andersen has lined up some starry names in the 10-strong group on his new album featuring his poignant music for a recent Greek production of Sophocles’ revenge tragedy, Electra – among them, extraordinary Greek singer Savina Yannatou, and fellow Norwegians Arve Henriksen, Eivind Aarset and Nils Petter Molvær. (New Note) Price: £14.99


	Arild Andersen, Tommy Smith & Paolo Vinaccia: Live At Belleville (CD: ECM) Live recording of Arild Andersen’s exciting new trio, playing in Oslo’s Belleville club and at the Drammen Theatre, spurred on by an enthusiastic crowd. Apart from Duke Ellington’s “Prelude To A Kiss”, played with much feeling by Tommy Smith, the music is all written by Andersen, and it burns. “Live At Belleville” may be Arild’s most powerful trio recording since “Triptykon” with Garbarek and Vesala, back in 1972. (ECM Records) Price: £14.99


Arild Andersen: Celebration (CD: ECM) Bassist Arild Andersen shines as the principal soloist in a celebration of music from ECM with specially-commissioned new big-band arrangements of well-known pieces by Dave Holland, Chick Corea, Trygve Seim, Jan Garbarek, and Keith Jarrett. The resourceful Tommy Smith adds powerful tenor solos, arranges Garbarek’s “Molde Canticle”, and directs the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra. Andersen’s composition “Independency” is a 16-minute highlight, in a sensitive and powerful arrangement by Mike Gibbs. Other contributing arrangers are Makoto Ozone, Christian Jacob, Geoff Keezer and Trygve Seim/Øyvind Bræke: all of them contribute sterling work, and their arrangements are likely to enter modern jazz’s big band repertory book. Recorded live at Glasgow’s Royal Conservatory, “Celebration” is a highly attractive album for a broad listenership, and as a statement about music introduced by ECM will be of special interest to long-time followers of the label. (ECM Records) Price: £14.99


	Arild Andersen, Paolo Vinaccia & Tommy Smith: Mira (CD: ECM) After the eruptive excitement of their Live At Belleville album, which was widely praised around the world (and secured for leader Arild Andersen the Prix du Musicien Européen 2008 from the Academie du Jazz in France), the trio now delivers a studio album. In Oslo’s Rainbow, bassist Andersen, tenorist Tommy Smith and Paolo Vinaccia rechanneled their music’s energies into a programme of soulful ballads and mid-tempo free-floating sound explorations. The pairing of Anderson’s muscular bass and Smith’s vaulting tenor is exceptionally compelling (as the recent “Celebration” album also confirmed). Most of the tunes on “Mira” are from Arild’s pen, though his cohorts also contribute material, and there is an unexpected interpretation of Burt Bacharach’s “Alfie”, beautifully played by Tommy Smith here. (ECM Records) Price: £14.99


Arild Andersen: The Rose Window (CD: Intuition) Price: £14.99


	Arild Andersen: In-House Science (CD: ECM) Norwegian master bassist Arild Andersen’s trio with big-toned tenorist Tommy Smith and powerhouse drummer Paolo Vinaccia is one of the most viscerally exciting jazz small groups of the present moment. Its energies are arguably best captured in a live context, and here the three musicians deliver a characteristically smoking performance at the Villa Rothstein in Bad Ischl, Austria, recorded in September 2016. Their earlier concert recording Live At Belleville, was issued a decade ago to rave reviews and a shower of awards. “Absolutely and unreservedly marvellous” said the BBC Music Magazine. “How often do just three musicians produce music as vast and panoramic in its scale and vision?” asked Jazzwise, amazed. (ECM Records) Price: £14.99


Arild Andersen Group: Affirmation (CD: ECM) Norwegian bassist Arild Andersen, an ECM musician for more than fifty years, is a masterful player who has always welcomed a challenge. His first recording with his new quartet – including rising stars Marius Neset and Helge Lien (both bandleaders in their own right)– is almost entirely improvised. The players make the leap of faith together and find and develop forms in the moment, an object lesson in spontaneous group creativity. Affirmation was recorded in November 2021 at Oslo’s Rainbow Studio. (ECM Records) Price: £14.99


	John Patitucci: Line By Line (CD: Universal) Price: £13.99


John Patitucci Trio: Remembrance (CD: Concord) Given that jazz bass players are typically cast as part of the rhythm support team, only a handful of them have become leaders in their own right. Taking the lead from such jazz masters as Charles Mingus, Ray Brown, Ron Carter and Dave Holland who pioneered the advance of the bass, the next generation of acoustic and electric bassists have been crafting musical statements in leadership roles. At the top of that class is acoustic and electric bassist John Patitucci, who delivers his latest Concord Jazz project, Remembrance, a remarkable outing of 11 straight-ahead-to-funky-to-classical-tinged originals featuring an astounding trio comprising saxophone maestro Joe Lovano and brilliant drummer Brian Blade. Almost every tune is dedicated to a musician, hence the title. The CD is the bassist's 13th as a leader and seventh for Concord. (Concord Music Group) Price: £13.99