Benjamin Duboc, St. James Infirmary, Solo Double-Bass

Benjamin Duboc has been a centerpiece bassist on the free jazz scene in Europe for some time now. He has been an important player but until now you never got quite the up-close-and-personal view of his bass playing. All that changes with a welcome solo bass release St. James Infirmary (Improvising Beings 22).

This is good news. (And it's also good news that the Improvising Beings label will be continuing its series of releases after all.)

It's Benjamin Duboc, his bass, the microphones and that's all. And that's all you need. He features a long improvisation based on the classic "St. James Infirmary" to start things off and it is an inspired idea. He sets out the theme and works his way around the implications and improvisations that suggest themselves to him. At times there's that deep woodiness and hard arpeggiated-or-otherwise double stops Charlie Haden first gave to us now rather long ago. But it works for Maestro Duboc as a springboard into his own territory.

The second part of this solo album features bowing, harmonics and a full universe of extended sounds for bass. It nicely complements the first part, taking us from the rooted, soulful elemental expressions to the stratospheric. They balance each other out perfectly well.

In all you get Duboc the thoughtful, full-toned, fully creative bass master at work, neither "standing pat" as the St. James lyrics would have it, nor operating in an ambiguously irresolute zone. Benjamin Duboc knew where he wanted to be in this solo recital and he went there, freely and rather brilliantly.

One of the best bass solo albums to come out this century so far, no doubt about it!

Dominic Duval, Songs for Krakow, for Solo Contrabass

Dominic Duval is one of the foremost improvisation/jazz contrabassists practicing today. His work with Cecil Taylor, Trio X, his own units and countless other associations has won him an avid following, deservedly so. And when a bassist of this caliber goes it alone to make a full album of unaccompanied solos, it is sure to be an event. Songs for Krakow (Not Two) is such an outing, and it has been garnering my enthusiastic attention for more than a week.

The solo bass outing only makes sense with the most accomplished and imaginative artists. It's just you, your bass, your ideas, and what you can make of it all. Happily Songs for Krakow makes much of it. In fact it is one of the handful of such efforts that strikes me should be of interest not only to bass players but to all lovers of the improvisational arts.

Of course Dominic's formidable technique is very much on display, in pizzicato and bowing modes. He uses the natural elementality of the instrument, its open string configuration, the open string(s) along with the simultaneous sounding of stops on adjacent strings, and other aspects of the idiomatic nature of the instrument to bring a primal directness of communication to the ears. There are figures he develops and works variations around and there are free-soaring flights into good blowing areas. And he goes far beyond fundamental string combinations and multiple stops that lay close to hand into stratospheric realms that express potently and emphatically what the solo bass can be capable of under his command.

He cuts lose here. Songs for Krakow gives you about an hour of why Dominic Duval is a bassist of enormous stature. There is structure, there is freedom and there is some wailingly down expression to be savored throughout. Grab it and let your ears travel with the sounds!

Joe Morris' Solo Bass: "Sensor"

Joe Morris has musicianship to spare. A guitarist on the frontiers of the new jazz, he is also an accomplished contrabassist. So accomplished in fact that he recently did an album of unaccompanied solo improvisations, Sensor (No Business NCLP 27). It's a vinyl LP (a trend I do not find unwelcome incidentally), so the playing time comes in around 35 minutes, and that feels just right.

I do not intend it as a slight when I say that Mr. Morris is probably the best acoustic bassist in the history of improvised music among those who take up the bass as a second instrument. These sorts of comparisons are not terribly illuminating but it gives you some idea what I think of his playing.

To tackle an unaccompanied solo bass album is nervy I suppose, but Joe comes through with a performance that is not only not uninteresting, it is technically proficient and dynamic.

Joe starts off the album with his bass sounding like a Burundian trough zither--earthy, accentuated, punctuated in a freely soulful way. He goes on to bow and pizz his way through extended, long-lengthed line construction in the Joe Morris manner. As with his guitar work, he is never at a loss when constructing a smoothly executed, harmonically extended chromatic phrase.

This is improvised bass music of depth. It is not meant to be a tour de force of pyrotechnical prowess because that's not what Joe is about. Matter-of-factly direct. Avant. This is my music, he seems to be saying. This is what I do.

If you want to hear a player who has forged his playing style out of the force of his musical will, Joe Morris is your man. And Sensor is your album. It's a most pleasant surprise for those like myself that didn't quite expect it. And it will appeal to those who revel in the sonority of the contrabass in a free mode.