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. 

Jazz Note 4: Thankgiving

Here's a playlist of the current show, which debuts at 9pm Central tonight, Saturday, November 27th.  Tonight's show is a mixed bag of more accessible music from mostly less accessible albums.  Something to cut the taste of turkey and give your digestion something to work with.  You'll find roaring blues and sad romance, spiritual highs and entertaining shadows.  Give it a listen and let me know what you think. 

1. Thanksgiving Suite/John Lindberg/A Tree Frog Tonality
2. Mikuro's Blues/David S. Ware Quartet/Live In The World
3. Ghosts/Albert Ayler/Spiritual Unity
4. Red Car/David Murray/I Want To Talk About You
5. Odin/David Murray/Body and Soul
6. Crossing the Sudan/Chico Freeman/Destiny's Dance
7. Stratusphunk/George Russell/Stratusphunk
8. O'Neal's Porch/William Parker/O'Neal's Porch
9. Contemplation/Mal Waldron and Marion Brown/Songs of Love and Regret
10. Sonny's Dream/Sonny Criss/Sonny's Dream
11. The Wane/Steve Lacy Trio/The Holy La
12. Both Sides/The Vandermark Five/Airports For Light

Update: Mikuro's Blues played at half speed.  I stopped the show and replaced the track.  I hope it works this time.  Of course, with avant garde jazz you can't always tell. 

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. 

John Lindberg's Bass is the Place

What is the avant garde taste?  Imagine one of those moments when you are watching a movie and you are totally captivated even though nothing  much is happening.  A man is walking in a desert, a chef is cutting vegetables on a slick board.  What has you in its grip is the music.  The music tells you everything you need to know about what you are seeing.  Avant garde jazz tries to do that, only without the video.  

There may be something vain in that.  Can you chop and saute bits of mood and passion in the absence of any narrative?  That would be the question.  I have been listening to John Lindberg, a double bass player only a little younger than I am.  That damned Penguin Guide to Jazz.  Lindberg's Bounce is a real find.  Dave Douglas plays trumpet on the album, and what he does with that piece of brass is beyond my three dimensional brain.  Larry Ochs plays sax, and Ed Thigpen is on drums.  

The recording is crystal clear.  Here is a piece that highlights Lindberg's enormous talent, as well as Douglas' ability to enter into dialogue.  Listen to this when the ball game is over.  

John Lindberg/Common Goal/Bounce

 That album gets weirder as it goes on.  Another Lindberg recording is pretty challenging from the outset.  Here is the most accessible track:

John Lindberg/Good to Go/A Tree Frog Tonality

The album title says it all.  But it is late May.  I am sitting on my deck drinking Scotch.  A porch light is visible in the distance.  That is the narrative.