Percy Heath
A Love Song [Daddy Jazz]
Percy Heath’s first album as a leader is a fitting summation of his 50-plus years as a jazz pro. A Love Song finds the 80-year-old bassist/cellist heading a quartet with brother Albert “Tootie” Heath on drums, young phenom Jeb Patton on piano, and Art Blakey alum Peter Washington assuming backup bass duties. Heath wrote most of the material, including the title track, a wistful solo-cello ballad he plays with an ebony-hard pizzicato attack, burnished tone, and a nuanced phrasing any bassist would be happy to claim. (Heath tunes his Ray Brown–designed cello EADG, up an octave from bass.)
Opening with a wry quote from “Ol’ Man River,” “Watergate Blues” allows Heath to delve into the deep blues current that runs through his playing, with tough yet expressive phrasing and voice-like vibrato in his cello solo. Beneath Heath, Washington creates intelligent counterpoint that judiciously breaches the cello’s register at key points. Heath held the bass chair in the Modern Jazz Quartet for more than 40 years, and his reading of the MJQ staple “Django” proves his profound understanding of that much-recorded gem. Percy bookends the arrangement with a pensive opening melody on his 300-year-old Rogeri upright and a culminating bass solo that mixes blues and bop elements. Written by Patton’s teacher, Sir Roland Hanna, “Century Rag” lets the pianist create a variety of moods within a ragtime framework. Percy’s comfortably authoritative tone anchors the fanciful major/minor mood, and he navigates a droll duet passage with aplomb. Percy switches to a gospel feel for “No More Weary Blues,” indulging in loose and funky New Orleans–style interplay with Washington and MJQ/Heath Brothers section-mate Albert. Behind the piano solo Percy proffers a tasteful, toneful cello obbligato. The disc’s keynote is “Suite for Pop,” dedicated to the Heath brothers’ father. The four-movement work ranges through a variety of emotions and features well-conceived two-bass writing, especially on “Lament,” in which the double-barreled low-register commentary underscores the somber mood. On the CD’s closer, “Hanna’s Mood,” Heath provides Patton with fatherly support on the pianist’s tribute to his late mentor.
Like Heath’s playing, A Love Song radiates understated elegance and the confidence of a master placing his instrumental voice in service of his musical vision. Here’s hoping Percy’s follow-up is on the way. —Richard Johnston
HARALD WEINKUM
Bass Talk 8: A Bass Bolero [Hotwire, www.abassbolero.com]
Before Germany’s ebullient Bert Gerecht became known for his Hotwire J-style basses, his bass-centric Hotwire record label compiled mult-bassist discs under the Bass Talk name. His eighth such release is no compilation; rather, it’s the hard-fought realization of Austria-to-Arizona transplant
Harald Weinkum’s dream: an all-star bass version of composer Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero,” with its slowly intensifying melody and 3/4 bounce, accompanied by more bass-focused pieces in 3/4. If the idea of a bunch of bass waltzes makes you immediately want to skip to turn the page, hold tight: Harald goes to great, greasy lengths to show just how naturally funky three can be. Along with Victor Jugovic’s masterful drumming, Harald’s groove work definitely raises three to the funk power: Check out his interpretations of Jaco Pastorius’s “Teentown,” the clever phone-tone-based arrangement of his adopted country’s national anthem—“The Star Spangled Touchtone,” and Pee Wee Ellis’s “The Chicken”—featuring the JB’s reedman himself and famed funk trombonist Fred Wesley.
For the pièce de résistance, Harald trotted the globe gathering tracks from top players. In the first five minutes of Ravel’s masterpiece, Harald handles the mesmerizing rhythm-section ostinato under melody and solo statements by
Dave Carpenter, Alain Caron, Steve Bailey, Victor Wooten, Dominik Hauser, Ernest Tibbs, James Genus, and
Alexis Sklarevski. After an intense interlude with Dave Carpenter holding it down as
Gary Willis shreds, Tower Of Power’s
Rocco Prestia takes over rhythm duties under solos by
Jimmy Haslip, Carpenter,
Bill Dickens, Marco Mendoza, Abraham Laboriel, and Weinkum, with one section held down by Wooten as
Jimmy Earl blows. The album features a detailed, engaging booklet that helps you keep track of who’s playing when.
A Bass Bolero is a fun record for bass players and a laudable accomplishment, but it’s also great music. —Bill Leigh