Bass Man Walk Downtown

Lately, I have had zero to no interest in finding new music. I know there are many new artists I have run across on the wonderful World Wide Web, but I’m not interested. I recently went thru a period of buying/acquiring, re-acquiring fists full of recordings, completing catalogs of my favorite artists – you know, just to have. I would listen to them once or twice and then shelve them. So, now, I have all these un-scrutinized recordings. The other day while sitting around in the midst of the collection, I found myself digging around in and wanting to listen too some of the past acquisitions.
Enter Lonnie Plaxico.

I first became aware of bassist Plaxico some years back thru his work with Cassandra Wilson, who happens to be my favorite singer – and one of whose catalog I was completing. It was Wilson’s ‘Blue Light ‘til Dawn’ recording that really captured my attention. There was something very haunting about the way his bass sounded on the opening cut – ‘You Don’t Know What Love Is’. It was this beautiful tone that seemed to strike at you every time he strummed a note. His strumming matched the mood of the song perfectly. Some years later, I ran across his MySpace page, which hipped me to his work as a composer/bandleader.

On his MySpace page, he was hawking the title tune called ‘Melange’ from, what I understand, his fifth document as a bandleader, ‘Melange’. What caught me from the beginning was the metering and phrasing of the keyboards and horn players. I began to think of the music as being part of the “avant-garde” period of jazz. The rhythms, patterns and the time signatures change throughout most of the songs. And I absolutely love the way the music continues to move. A four and a half minute piece will play like a ten minute fugue. The music is frantic but it never losses its direction, focus or sound. The music is challenging in the sense that if forces you to pay attention to the constant movement, however it stays very fluid.

The ballad ‘Darkness’ reminded me of what a good composer would write following the blueprint set by Miles’ Modal Jazz period, down to the muted lead trumpet. I guess it’s both accolades to Plaxico that he has the virtuosity to stand up to a Miles joint and Miles too, because imitation is flattery.

Track 4, ‘Short Take’ – The B Section grooves feel good, but some of the trumpet improv work leaves something to be desired. However the saxophone solos in these sections fit in nicely. Very cool!

The tribute to Miles plays like the rest of the album, a very solid blending of bebop and fusion.

Plaxico’s playing is flawless. As the original Liner notes states, “as a bassist, he switches from acoustic to electric bass as needed, without sacrificing either tone or speed.” And also, unlike a Stanley Clarke record, although Lonnie is a bass man, he doesn’t spend much if anytime featuring his bass work. In ‘Paella’, he does show his deftness in a soli section with his tenor man, by playing the opening run with him.

In short, this is a very cool document. All the be-bop to avant-garde to modal to fusion enthusiasts alike will enjoy the variety and virtuosity of this recording.

It is highly recommended and I’m certainly glad that I unearthed this from my collection.

HeadHunters

While digging in my crates, I ran across a recording from a wicked clan from my college days, the Digable Planets. Their debut record, Reachin – A New Refutation of Time & Space, brought back many memories of a time of emerging Black pride in Hip Hop, restless experimentation and interpolation of jazz infused with Hip Hop Beats by groups like A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul . These groups and their sonic experimentation gave music heads who love Jazz and Hip Hop another kind of Fusion to love.

Two of the bes joints on "Reachin" contain samples from Herbie Hancock's - "HeadHunters" document.

As I remember over the years while reading different reviews about ‘Headhunters’ and Herbie Hancock, I believe it is one of, if not the best selling Jazz album of all time. This wouldn’t shock me at all.

My first experience with ‘Headhunters’ was the song ‘The Chameleon’. My middle school jazz band teacher introduced us to the song as a contest piece. It was the Maynard Ferguson big band version. Fortunately, my teacher was from the old, creative school and didn’t believe in playing pieces as written. There was always added flavoring that highlighted the strengths in the band. He also used the song to teach about the art of the groove. There is no bass line like the one from ‘The Chameleon’! It’s infectious and funky!

The long form musical composition is a lost art form in music - even Jazz. I blame TV and the “instant generation”. Seems the attention spans have gotten short over the years…and continue to get shorter. I bring up this point because the opening piece of this document clocks in at 15:41 seconds. The beauty of the length is it never gets boring and as the grooves change, you feel there is no end to the song. In fact, the song doesn’t end traditionally; it just fades away and sounds as if there was more going on.

Hancock and Reed man Bennie Maupin went to great lengths at texturing this document - matching the sounds of the synths with the horns. The texture and layering of Herbie’s ‘Headhunters’ is to Fusion Jazz what Miles’ ‘Kind of Blue’ has been to Modal Jazz – the standard. There’s not one Jazz Fusion document released afterwards that didn’t use the recording as a blueprint.

The reason the record came to remembrance from listening to "Reachin", was its sampling of ‘Watermelon Man’, which to me, is an ode to lazy day on the beach on some West Indian island. The groove that is this record seems to warm me up like a hot sunny day laying in the shade sipping mad amounts of rum punch - every sip in rhythm.

Percussionist Bill Summers used every trick in his bag to insure a tropical feeling came over the record. For examples of ‘Headhunters’ being the blueprint to Fusion, check for Bill Summers’ ‘Call It What You Want’, record featuring an oft sampled tune, including by the Digable Planets, ‘Summer Fun’.

Herbie himself remarked that, “after ‘Headhunters’ and ‘Thrust’, the Quintet kind of lost their fire”. Subsequent recordings, never reached the level of the first two. I guess that is the peril of creating a classic standard as the debut. I guess this might be another “similarity”, loosely speaking, to his mentor Miles.

For me, musically and sonically, ‘Headhunters’ is one of my most favorite records. When I listen to the tunes, I’m always amazed at how the pure groove keeps me interested and never takes a background. From the bass line on the Chameleon to Vein Meters’ slow infectiousness, there’s not a time when I don’t stop to enjoy this sound.

Jazz

Jazz is different things to different people. It has birthed many styles within the genre and from those styles all other forms of Western music have developed. For me, when Jazz is played at its highest levels, it invokes certain spiritual sensabilities. Jazz is a dialogue; Jazz is stylish; Jazz is intellectual; Jazz is ghetto; Jazz is inspiration; Jazz is walking in the rain with someone you love; Jazz is every shade of blue; Jazz is a storyteller; Jazz is a healer...

I am a purist of sorts. My listening tastes tend to lean toward the likes of Miles, Monk and Mingus - not necessarily in this order, I just dig the alliterative, rhymthic value of the names together - I'm always swingin! But my first jazz musical hero was David Sanborn. When jazz, true to its nature, was searching for new directions, he along with Ronnie Laws and the great Grover Washington, Jr. with his infamous ‘Mr. Magic’ captured my attention and my love for the music and its history. Even Miles stepped into the contemporary arena. If you’ve never heard ‘Tutu’ or ‘Amandla’ then you need to hit the record store immediately.

While I choose to listen mostly to swing, I’m not beyond listening to and enjoying some contemporar-ians with what I call traditionalist vibes. My love for Sanborn et al. encouraged me to search for their predecesors. There, I discovered a new love for Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea fresh out of their stints with Miles and discovering what synthisizers could do for Jazz sonically.

Here is where I'll write about the music I love. Dialogue with the people who too love the music. And share...That is what Jazz was meant to do.