John Lindberg

I have had admired bassist John Lindberg's work for some time, but I haven't listened to it recently.  What a pleasure!  Lindberg recorded three albums in the early 90's with Albert Mangelsdorff on trombone and Eric Watson on piano: Dodging Bullets, Quartet Afterstorm, and Resurrection of a Dormant Soul.  The latter two included Ed Thigpen on drums.  Together, the three make for a very fine document of a brilliant jazz leader and bass player.  Sitting down and listening to the three together will be one powerful jazz experience. 

Lindberg's sentimentality certainly tilts to the avant garde.  These albums keep close, however, to the hard bop taste.  I can't think that any jazz fan will not find something here to treasure.

I am playing the title cuts from the first two albums and 'E.t.p.' from the last.  I would note that Eric Watson's playing on the last album is channeling Thelonious Monk.  Listen to it, if you are a Monk fan and tell me you don't wonder if master's ghost is in the keys. 

This is wonderful music. 

John Lindberg's Bass 2

Tonight, while a line of thunder storms rolled across the prairie, I listened again to John Lindberg's A Tree Frog Tonality.  I liked the music a lot more the second time around, and the title a lot less.  The title may be some kind of joke that goes over my musically uneducated head, but if I hadn't heard samples and read the review in the Penguin Guide I never would have bought it.  Surely someone with no additional clues would expect a lot of wierd animal noises.  In fact, it is pretty accessible avant garde.  

The musical line is not at all hard to follow.  Lindberg is magnificent.  Trumpeter Leo Smith, sax man Larry Ochs, and Percussionist Andrew Cyrille likewise.  Go back and listen to the sample from the last post again.  I think I hear two distinct echoes here.  One is to the "bird" compositions of Dave Holland and Thomas Chapin.  It's safer to name jazz albums after birds.  People like to hear birds sing more than they like to hear frogs croak.  Listen to Holland's 'Conference of the Birds' and Chapin's 'Night Bird Song', and then ATFT.  I think you will agree the three make a set.  

Another echo, more likely due to my own over active imagination, is to Chico Freeman's marvelous recording, Destiny's Dance.  Listen especially to 'Crossing the Sudan.'  At any rate, A Tree Frog Tonality is a superb document.  Don't let it. 

I am now listening to a third Lindberg recording, Dodging Bullets.  This is a trio recording, with Albert Mangelsdorff on trombone and Eric Watson on piano.  I won't comment on the album as a whole yet, except to point out that it got four stars in the PG.  Here is a sample:

John Lindberg/Horn is a Lady/Dodging Bullets

What the world needs now is more trombones in trios.