Ronald Atkins Jazz CDs of the week
Discussing jazz and how the free-wheeling Sixties changed the rules, the double bass is often singled out for its newly liberated role. Regarded as the workhorses of bebop, pounding the beat in the background, bassists now moved towards the front.
As a member of Ornette Coleman’s original quartet, Charlie Haden quickly secured his place in the revolutionary pantheon. But where bassists, then and now, have emphasised dexterity, Haden in comparison seems to surround his strong tone with acres of space. A natural romantic, he writes brooding, minor-key melodies. When recording as half of a duo, he lets tone and timing do the work.
It sounds easy, the string-bass equivalent of singing in the bath, though only someone totally in control of the instrument could pull it off. Haden’s previous duet album sold heavily, possibly due to the drawing power of guitarist-partner Pat Metheny. The follow-up, Night and the City (Verve), pairs him with pianist Kenny Barron and in many ways the results are even better. Recording for a live audience seems to inspire both musicians.
Another new Haden collaboration is None But the Lonely Heart (Naim),with Chris Anderson. A pianist in his seventies, admired by insiders but little known outside his native Chicago, Anderson gnaws at the harmonic contours of a tune rather like Thelonious Monk.
If he doesn’t have Barron’s polish, his deceptively diffident approach to familiar songs forces Haden to look at them afresh. Common to both albums, for instance, is Body and Soul, supremely lyrical in the Haden-Barron version, unpredictable and vaguely disquieting in the other.