Bassist Weiss, heard most frequently in the company of Houston Person and Etta Jones, set himself a labor of love for this recording: all but one of the pieces were composed by bassists. The list is impressive: Paul Chambers (twice), Steve Swallow, Charles Mingus, Oscar Pettiford, Ron Carter, Sam Jones, Ray Brown, and Scott LaFaro. Weiss gives each piece its due, leaving his stamp on them in the process. Weiss himself brings rock-solid intonation and time to the session, playing the leader’s role without ever pushing. His featured guest is Frank Wess on tenor saxophone and flute, who always plays more than the notes: he finds the feel and inflection that serves each piece. Jane Hastay accompanies on piano, and Kenny Washington is in his element behind the drum kit. Dwayne “Cook” Broadnax sits in on drums on the CD’s final track.
Originally PublishedRelated Posts
Sonny Terry/Brownie McGhee: Backwater Blues
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading
Become a JazzTimes member to explore our complete archive of interviews, profiles, columns, and reviews written by music’s best journalists and critics.
Jonathan Butler: The Simple Life
Jonathan Butler’s optimistic music belies a dirt-poor childhood growing up in a South Africa segregated by apartheid. Live in South Africa, a new CD and DVD package, presents a sense of the resulting inner turmoil, mixed with dogged resolve, that paved the way to his status as an icon in his country and successful musician outside of it. Looking back, the 46-year-old Butler says today, the driving forces that led to his overcoming apartheid-the formal policy of racial separation and economic discrimination finally dismantled in 1993-were family, faith and abundant talent.
“When we were kids, our parents never talked about the ANC [African National Congress] or Nelson Mandela,” he says. Butler was raised as the youngest child in a large family. They lived in a house patched together by corrugated tin and cardboard, in the “coloreds only” township of Athlone near Cape Town. “They never talked about struggles so we never knew what was happening.”
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading
Become a JazzTimes member to explore our complete archive of interviews, profiles, columns, and reviews written by music’s best journalists and critics.
Harry Connick, Jr.: Direct Hits
Two decades after his commercial breakthrough, Harry Connick Jr. taps legendary producer Clive Davis for an album of crooner roots and beloved tunes
Scott LaFaro
Previously unavailable recordings and a new bio illuminate the legend of bassist Scott LaFaro