Reviews
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 Pet
Percy Heath
A Love Song [Daddy Jazz]
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]
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
More reviews
TORTOISE
It’s All Around You [Thrill Jockey]
Attention bassheads: Chicago’s instrumental art-rockers Tortoise are addicted to low frequencies. Case in point: Doug McCombs’s twangy melody lines, courtesy of a Fender Bass VI, glide across pulsating, depth-plumbing bass lines that anchor sparse, opiate-drenched tunes. While the sheer amount of bass on It’s All Around You adds a lot of weight, the sparse compositions are never bogged down in sludge. It’s All Around You is deep, pretty, and dreamy music. (GO)
SWEETBACK
Stage 2 [Epic]
After nearly eight years, the three non-eponymous members of smoky soul-pop quartet Sade reconvene for a second side-project outing as laid-back neo-soulsters Sweetback. Simultaneously understated and dominant, Paul S. Denman’s crafty low-end work moves in and around the dreamy, romantic textures glazed by such guest vocalists as Aya and Chocolate Genius. Paul’s 15-year-old son Joe Denman capably follows in Dad’s footsteps on the tight groover, “Things You’ll Never Know.” (BL)
BRAD MEHLDAU
Anything Goes [Warner Bros.]
Jazz pianist Mehldau is an intrepid explorer of song. Aptly titled, Anything Goes is a collection of standards old and new performed by Mehldau’s trio. Mehldau’s longtime bassist Larry Grenadier is a model of relaxed but inspired rhythmic support. His versatile, supple lines are as comfortable on traditional standards (Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes,” Harold Arlen’s “Get Happy”) as they are on deconstructed contemporary tunes like Radiohead’s “Everything in Its Right Place” or Paul Simon’s “Still Crazy After All These Years.” With-it jazz fans and contemplative rockers alike will appreciate this thoroughly modern interpretation of timeless classics. (JH)
Children On The Corner
Rebirth [Sonance]
Recorded live at Yoshi’s jazz club in Oakland, California in ’02, Rebirth reunites five members of Miles Davis’s funkified early-’70s electric bands, most notably Michael Henderson. Returning from a musical hiatus, Henderson steps right into peak groove form with drummer Ndugu Chancler, driving his trademark root-7th pylons deep into the foundation of the Miles-written and Miles-inspired music, while saxist Sonny Fortune and others whirl in an improvised frenzy above. Welcome back, Michael! (CJ)
BeBop &Destruction
Live at the Owl & Thistle Vol. 1 [Freetone]
This Seattle-based quartet swings hard and slightly left of center, even when interpreting a well-worn standard like “You Don’t Know What Love Is.” Geoff Harper plays upright bass with a firm stance, yet he leaves room for things to happen. His live tone is reminiscent of mid-’70s Ron Carter—a tad trebly at times but certainly present in the mix—and his staccato attack belies a debt to Eddie Gomez. (EF)
KEB’ MO’
Keep It Simple [Epic]
Like the artist himself, Keb’ Mo’s modern take on blues songs is lanky, lean, and full of down-home charm. On his latest album, the versatile singer/guitarist handles bass duties on a few tracks, while studio aces Nathan East and Willie Weeks offer simple elegance with well-placed fills and kicks. The band really shines, though, when longtime member Reggie McBride takes the chair with his acoustic and electric bass guitars. With fat downbeats, groove-perfect note lengths, and deliciously melodic fills, Reggie shows how it’s done. (BL)
DEAD KENNEDYS
Live at the Deaf Club [Manifesto]
This 1979 live recording of San Francisco’s (and perhaps America’s) most influential punk band should be required listening for modern-day punks. The Dead Kennedys’ singular combination of acerbic, politically fueled lyrics spouted by an outspoken and subversive frontman to an intellectually aggressive beat is a musical archetype of lasting impact. The DKs also proved that sucking at an instrument was not a punk prerequisite. Klaus Flouride contributed accomplished pickstyle lines with passion and navigated the DKs’ sometimes-tricky breaks and tempo changes with fluid ease. (JH)
VIKTOR KRAUSS
Far From Enough [Nonesuch]
Krauss, the longtime bassist and musical director of Lyle Lovett’s Large Band and collaborator on guitarist Bill Frisell’s rootsy Americana material, steps forward to show off his skills as a composer and player. Save for one track, a cover of Robert Plant’s “Big Log” featuring his angelic-voiced sister Allison Krauss, this overdue debut explores similar country- and jazz-inspired instrumental terrain as Frisell. Krauss’s attention to creating a groove results in minimal and interesting upright lines that offer Frisell and steel guitarist Jerry Douglas the space to play their delicately intertwining lines. (GO) 
REVIEWERS:
Bill Leigh, Chris Jisi, Ed Friedland,
Greg Olwell, Jonathan Herrera
