Most bassists have to be chameleons. It’s more or less in the job description when your instrument can be played upright or electric, be bowed or plucked, and appear in settings as disparate as minimal jazz trios and full-blown symphony orchestras. But few bassists shape-shift as effortlessly and as often as Matt Ulery, a Chicago […]
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Genius bassist Richard Davis is so ubiquitous he’s almost invisible
I can’t rattle off a list of my most beloved guitarists, despite being a so-so guitar player myself, but I can quickly tell you my top ten bassists. One of my favorites has played with famous musicians across many genres, but most folks don’t even recognize his name. As far as I know, my first […]
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Johnny Pate is one of the great unsung architects of Chicago soul
This 95-year-old living legend has played jazz, written blaxploitation soundtracks, and arranged for Stan Getz, B.B. King, and most famously Curtis Mayfield—but he’s probably most widely heard via hip-hop samples.
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Jazz bassist and vocalist Katie Ernst rises like the tide
Jazz bassist and vocalist Katie Ernst hasn’t helped only herself with her talent, wit, and confidence—she’s also lifting up her peers and students.
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A Cushicle
Bands with regular engagements are easy to take for granted–until I saw A Cushicle again last month, I’d been telling myself “I’ll just catch them next week” for more than a year. But such engagements are perfect for jazz: the musicians get the time and space to develop a deep rapport. This trio of guitarist […]
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Ab Baars
Dutch reedist Ab Baars knows how to play the sly games that his country’s senior jazzmen–especially Misha Mengelberg and Han Bennink–have made a stock-in-trade. As a longtime member of Mengelberg’s ICP Orchestra he’s developed an instinctual ability to turn on a dime, and his occasionally comic decisions–like dropping a surprising snort or sourly intoned quote […]
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Adam Lane Quartet with John Tchicai
Young bicoastal bassist Adam Lane has been collaborating with his mentors since he first worked with the great Danish saxophonist John Tchicai in the latter’s California-based quartet Infinitesimal Flash two years ago. With his new album, Fo(u)r Being(s) (CIMP), Lane can put two more notches in his fiddle–trumpeter Paul Smoker and drummer Barry Altschul join […]
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Alex Blake
Over the last three decades, bassist Alex Blake has worked with musicians of all stripes–Sun Ra, Dizzy Gillespie, the Manhattan Transfer, Billy Cobham, even Jimmy Buffet. In the 90s he developed his most important musical partnership, becoming a key player in Randy Weston’s groups. In the early 70s Weston lived in Tangiers, where he explored […]
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Aaron Moore with Billy Flynn & Bob Stroger
Pianist Aaron Moore tends to stick to ambling boogies and shuffles, with simple but thoughtful solos that follow basic harmonic structures but plumb the nuances of each chord–a sound that grew out of his years on the Chicago blues club circuit in the 1950s and early ’60s. But unlike contemporaries such as Sunnyland Slim, he’s […]