Programme Notes
For its barrel-chested bulk, its dislike of being hurried even in the sometimes manic idiom of jazz, its inaudibility in earlier eras of approximate electronics, and the anonymity of most of its practitioners to the average listener, the double-bass has often been a butt for muso's gags. But from years of World War Two onward, things significantly changed in the hitherto modest world of jazz bass.
Bebop, with its mobile melodic lines and its more conversational role for the rhythm section, generated a new breed of virtuoso bassists - like Duke Ellington's shortlived Jimmy Blanton, and like Oscar Pettiford and the enduringly majestic Ray Brown, still going sonorously strong at 75. And with the rise of the propulsive and liquid-toned Brown in the 1950s, the jazz band with a bassist as the boss became, if not commonplace, certainly no longer an oddity.
Ray Brown, the pioneering bass-bandleader, is the elder statesman and headliner of this performance alongside a gifted young musician whose career - and that of many other contemporary bassists • has been founded on breakthroughs Brown made long before he was born. For Ray Brown and Christian McBride to be appearing on the same bill is, of course, an exhilarating luxury for anyone who loves the rich potential of the acoustic bass, from its earth-shaking, cathedral-organ undertow to its cello-like delicacy in the hands of such practitioners as these. But it's also a privelege for music-lovers of all kinds. Brown and McBride are not just bass virtuosi, though that would be achievement enough. Both men have taken an original angle on the development of jazz, have led bands of distinctive sound and character, and featured some of the most original players of their respective generations. Christian McBride brings a group including Ron Black, Camille Gainer and Geoffrey Keezer. Ray Brown is partnered by a long-time associate, the great Jamaican pianist Monty Alexander, and by Diana Krall's imaginative and subtly-swinging guitarist Russell Malone.
Brown was born in Pittsburgh in October 1926, and after performing with local bands, joined Dizzy Gillespie in 1945, when he was just 19. After two years with the trumpeter, he formed his own trio as an accompanying ensemble to Ella Fitzgerald - and then from 1951 for the next 15 years, the bassist worked in his most celebrated and technically taxing context, with the whirlwind virtuoso pianist Oscar Peterson. In 1974, Brown became a founder member of the successful LA4, and began his association with Monty Alexander in that decade. Illustrious subsequent piano partners have also included the late Gene Harris and the postbop virtuoso Benny Green. Brown has also provided jazz with some striking themes, including a bop classic, Two Bass Hit, and been a sympathetic and insightful adviser and manager to others. Russell Malone's presence and the Diana Krall connection reveals this aspect of Ray Brown's alertness and musicality, because in 1983, when the young Krall and the great bassist were introduced, Brown heard in Krall something of the combination of veiled star-quality and reflexive improvisational musicianship he had once heard in his former wife and musical partner Ella Fitzgerald. Brown sketched out a path for the young singer's education that profoundly influenced her career. But it was just the latest in a series of creative interventions that had previously affected the careers of Ouincy Jones, Milt Jackson, and the early Modern Jazz Quartet.
Ray Brown entered a jazz scene in the 1940s that Duke Ellington's Jimmy Blanton was soon to leave tragically early, but Blanton's speed of articulation, melodic imagination and forceful swing had already transformed jazz bass-playing and - alongside his contemporary Oscar Pettiford - Brown was to become the most exceptional inheritor of the method. With his luxurious sound, crystal-clarity of intonation and irresistably insistent swing, Ray Brown was the new standard by which bassists would judge their achievements. That he remains so today, in a jazz world seething with technically exceptional practitioners on the instrument to which he helped impart such dignity and exciting new potential, is a measure of his immense impact.
Ray Brown's opposite number on this concert, Christian McBride, the 28 year-old Philadelphian, is one of the most popular bassist-leaders on the contemporary jazz scene. McBride is a brilliant virtuoso, but also an unashamed populist who likes the feel both of the bluesy bop bands of the early 1960s (a reflection of his easy pragmatism and the r & b and soul roots of his hometown) and the rhythmic and textural developments of contemporary funk and hip-hop. McBride's father and great-uncle were both bassists, the former an r & b session player, and the young Christian attended the Juilliard School of Music as a classical player originally whilst simultaneously playing the jazz clubs with fellow-student Ray Hargrove and altoist Bobby Watson. In 1991 McBride met Ray Brown, who demonstrated his admiration for the newcomer by inviting him as a duet partner on Pittsburgh's 'Ray Brown Day'. In both his status with new jazz audiences and a sense of showbiz theatricality, McBride has much in common with his contemporary and sometime playing-partner Joshua Redman (Chick Corea, Kenny Barron and Jack DeJohnette also feature in that list) and his repertoire is as likely to include an adaptation of Sly Stone's Family Affair or a burst of sermonising, holy roller dialogue with the crowd as it is an evergreen of the bop idiom that is still his enduring love.
Christian McBride's popularity springs from his youth, an ease with the materials and an enthusiasm for hauling classic pop and classic jazz together, but his more reflective bass virtuosity is the underpinning of it, and still astonishes jazz audiences of all ages wherever he plays. His is a music performed with the affection and eagerness of players discovering a respected tradition for themselves, but adding glosses of their own that refresh its present and its future.
2001 John Fordham
