A Tale of Two Bassists

For a bass player, performing on the same bill with Dave Holland would have to be a daunting proposition. Holland is a bona fide jazz legend. He has been the pre-eminent craftsman on his instrument for at least four decades. Countless musicians (including many non-bassists) have been inspired by his compositions, collaborations and his commitment to the highest musical standards. Like going one-on-one with Michael Jordan in his prime, even if you play very well chances are that you are going to be out-matched.

Last night Symphony Center in Chicago presented a double bill: virtuoso pianist Vijay Iyer's trio played the first half of the concert followed by the Overtone Quartet, a project led by Dave Holland. Iyer's band included bassist Stephan Crump and drummer Justin Brown. The Overtone Quartet featured Chris Potter on tenor and soprano saxophones (not alto, as stated in the printed program), Jason Moran on piano, and drummer Eric Harland.

So it was Stephan Crump who took on the unenviable job of playing bass opposite Dave Holland. I'd like to be able to say that Crump, who I'd not heard previously, astounded and delighted me in a way that made me forget Holland before intermission. Unfortunately, a combination of factors conspired to make this unlikely reaction impossible.

Things did not bode well when the first thing Crump discovered when he took the stage was that his G string had broken in the interim between sound check and gig time. He has his Czech-Ease bass set up with gut strings, and one of the risks of gut is that it is highly susceptible to temperature and humidity changes. To his credit, Crump pulled the string the rest of the way off his bass and gamely readied himself to make the best of the situation. Iyer cracked wise about how this would be truly "improvised" music and then led his trio through an interesting set of original compositions plus a couple of idiosyncratic arrangements of pop tunes.

Stephan Crump did quite well without 25% of his playing area. He is an excellent musician, as far as I could tell, but his sound was problematic for me. He is another one of these young bassists who has chosen to eschew an electronic pickup and bass amp combination in favor of using a small microphone mounted on his bridge and sent directly into the house PA system. That, combined with the diffuse sound of the gut strings, made it difficult to discern what pitches he was playing and exactly where he was placing his notes rhythmically. It was much better when he was playing arco, which he did more than the average jazz bassist, and he used the bow mostly to good effect.

I've written about this before, but I will re-state that I don't understand why any contemporary bass player would want to return to the bad old days of gut strings and no pickups or bass amps. Is it an ill-advised return to an allegedly "purer" tone? Is it a remnant of the Wynton Marsalis-induced indictment of all things electric in jazz music? Do some players actually NOT want to be heard?

Crump's old school "thumpy" sound contrasted wildly with the clear, focused tone that Dave Holland got out of (ironically) the same kind of instrument Crump played. Holland uses modern steel strings and a contact pickup on his Czech-Ease bass; he plays through an amp onstage and sends a signal through the house system. Amazingly, I could hear every note he played. He has ten times the chops Crump has, although who knows what the latter could accomplish with a more playable setup. Crump reminded me of the late Dennis Irwin, who I saw play a couple of times with Joe Lovano. I saw him but I couldn't hear much of what he was doing either.

Every musician has the right to make whatever artistic choices he or she wants, so I would never try to tell another musician what they "should" or "shouldn't" do. But I will be honest with what I hear, and I have yet to hear a bassist who comes across well in a live situation with gut strings and no amp. When good amplification became possible sometime in the 1970's it heralded a whole new era for bass players who no longer had to struggle mightily just to be heard in the context of instruments that can easily overpower the bass.

Not everything new is necessarily better, of course, but making a naturally soft-sounding stringed instrument audible in ensembles that almost always have drummers and horn players seems to me to be a uniformly good idea. This is called progress.

Dave Holland Track Reviews at Jazz.com

The good folks at Jazz.com have just posted a set of reviews I've written about one of my bass heroes, Dave Holland. The piece is one of their features called The Dozens, in which a reviewer picks twelve tracks that are somehow related and writes a brief essay about each one. Please check out The Dozens: Dave Holland by yours truly.

Jazz Bassist/Composers

My extensive research into the area of influential and prolific jazz composers who happen to be bass players has been something of a bust. Much as I wanted to shill for my fellow low note creators, the sad truth is that there are not enough outstanding musicians who fit the description to warrant a full length article. I had hoped to write something for the new and quite good online journal Bass Musician Magazine, but there is barely enough material for a decent blog post. So, here goes:

It will come as no surprise that the first and most outstanding jazz bassist/composer was, of course, Charles Mingus. He really has no peer in terms of output, passion, skill, stylistic advancement and influence. A quick glance at his catalog of compositions will give you a good overview of the breadth of this man's work. From simple blues based compositions like Haitian Fight Song and Better Git Hit In Your Soul to the massive and flawed Epitaph, his oeuvre is impressive - almost overwhelming.

Mingus aspired to be the Duke Ellington of his generation, though he also venerated Thelonius Monk and Charlie Parker. I'm guessing that his most played composition is the memorial he wrote for Lester Young, Goodbye Pork Pie Hat, which is essentially a re-harmonized blues melody. The tune is rightfully well known and often recorded; it is hauntingly beautiful.

Next I have to go with the man who put the fretless bass guitar on the map and wrote a handful of great and often performed tunes, Jaco Pastorius. Jaco's output as a composer doesn't come close to the scope and influence of Mingus but some of his tunes have become fusion (for lack of a more appropriate term) icons. Such compositions as Three Views of A Secret, Teen Town, Havona, Punk Jazz, River People, Barbary Coast, Continuum and Portrait of Tracy leave no doubt as to the writing talent Jaco possessed. Unfortunately he did not live long enough to see that talent fully realized.

Dave Holland has produced a great deal of music, primarily suiting his purpose to have the tunes serve as springboards for improvisation. He has written a number of compositions arising from his interest in odd meters and has also stretched the limits of harmony, often juxtaposing "tunes" and free improvisation. A friend of mine said that his historic early recording Conference of The Birds sounded like TV themes interspersed with free blowing. That's awfully dismissive, but some of the tunes do sound a little immature. Fortunately, he had the likes of Sam Rivers and Anthony Braxton there to push the improvisational envelope. Many of his recordings have been without chording instruments, which reminds me of Mingus's piano-less quartet recordings of the early 1960's. [The presence of Eric Dolphy on the seminal recordings of Fables of Faubus and What Love, among other tunes, certainly helped make those sessions as close to masterpieces as there are in jazz.]

Holland has garnered many accolades in the past couple of decades for his work as a bassist and bandleader. Some of the inherent value of his groups is due to the quality of his writing, which has greatly matured over the years. He has borrowed a strategy from the Ellington (and Mingus) play book, namely, writing compositions specifically for the individual players in his groups. Like his early mentor Miles Davis, Holland has fostered the careers of many younger players, providing them a movable workshop not only for their playing but for their tunes as well.

The only other bassist/composer I have found to be a potential rival for these masters will come as a surprise to many of you. I first heard Ben Allison's music in connection with the NPR show On The Media. After doing some investigating I discovered that Allison had been writing, performing and generating considerable buzz with his semi-cooperative band Medicine Wheel for a number of years. His writing is eclectic and fresh sounding, incorporating a lot of non-jazz elements like pop and world music textures. I can't give you a good thumbnail description of his compositions - there are a lot of them, spanning a good half dozen or so CDs. What I've heard I think is well worth checking out.

I realize that this list may be somewhat controversial. I've left out a lot of the usual (and some unusual) suspects. Many bass players have written some good tunes. My short list of these players includes Steve Swallow, Gary Willis, Gary Peacock, Charlie Haden, Ron Carter, George Mraz, Miroslav Vitous, Michael Manring, Oscar Pettiford, Scott LaFaro, Eddie Gomez, John Patitucci, Eberhard Weber, David Friesen, William Parker, Avishai Cohen, Drew Gress. I'm sure I've left out some worthy names, including your personal favorite...

But none of these players' work as yet comes up to the standard set by Mingus, Pastorius and Holland. Perhaps several of them will emerge as truly seminal, outstanding composers. That remains to be seen, or, rather, heard.

As always, your comments are welcome.