© -Steven
Cerra , copyright protected; all rights reserved.
Sometimes I think the
acoustic string bass is the least appreciated of all the instruments used in
the making of Jazz. One obvious reason for this might be that you have to
listen carefully to hear it as it is often overshadowed by the volume coming
from the other instruments in a Jazz band, whatever the size.
Perhaps the lack
of appreciation that bass players are subjected to is exemplified in the joke
in which one member of a couple listening to set at a jazz club turns to the
other and says: “It’s OK, we can talk now, it’s only the bass solo!”
Despite the
relative obscurity of the instrument for the general listener, there have been
a number of pioneering bassists in the history of the music who have
significantly enhanced the manner in which Jazz bass is played. Among these, Jimmy
Blanton, Oscar Pettiford and Charles Mingus come to mind almost immediately.
In the late 1950’s
and early 1960’s, Scott La Faro and Gary Peacock rose to prominence by also
appreciably adding to the technical and stylistic manner in which the
instrument is played.
Frankly, when Scotty
and Gary first came up, they were “the talk of the town.” Everyone and anyone
who heard them was impressed by what they were doing on the instrument.
Their sound was so
strong that when you first heard it, you would have sworn that additional
amplification was being used to create the huge tone that came out of their
acoustic string instruments.
I was fortunate to
hear both Scotty and Gary when they first made the scene with pianist Victor
Feldman’s and pianist Claire Fischer’s trios, respectively. Believe me, no one was talking when they
played; everyone’s mouths were agape with astonishment at the stuff these guys
were playing on a string bass.
The power and
majesty that they generated on an instrument that was often thumped, whapped
and plucked during its early years in Jazz combos was awe-inspiring.
Sadly, LaFaro was
to die in tragic circumstances in 1961 at the age of 25, but fortunately for
the Jazz world, Gary Peacock continued to play wonderfully in a variety of
settings, most notably with pianist Keith Jarrett’s trio, until his death in 2020.
In 2009, Scott’s
sister, Helene LaFaro-Fernandez authored Jade Visions: The Life and Music of Scott
LaFaro which is still in print and available through the University of
North Texas Press [Denton, TX].
Here’s what the
esteemed Jazz critic Martin Williams had to say about Scott and Gary while both
were still early in their careers in his Jazz Changes [New York: Oxford
University Press, 1992].
© -Martin Williams, Oxford University
The 1960s produced several outstanding
young bass players. It was as if Charlie Mingus had released the instrument in
the 1950s and those who followed found their ways of exploring its new role.
...
Scott LaFaro, by Way of
Introduction
It's quite a
wonderful thing to work with the Bill Evans trio," said bassist Scott
LaFaro.
"We are
really just beginning to find our way. You won't hear much of that on our first
record together, except a little on Blue
in Green where no one was playing time as such. Bill was improvising lines,
I was playing musical phrases behind him, and Paul Motian played in free
rhythmic drum phrases."
LaFaro is
dissatisfied with a great deal of what he hears in Jazz, but what he says about
it isn't mere carping. He thinks he knows what to do about it, at least in his
own playing. "My ideas are so different from what is generally acceptable
nowadays that I sometimes wonder if I am a Jazz musician. I remember that Bill
and I used to reassure each other some nights kiddingly that we really were Jazz
musicians. I have such respect for so many modern classical composers, and I
learn so much from them. Things are so contrived nowadays in Jazz, and
harmonically it has been so saccharine since Bird."
Charlie Parker was
already dead before Scott LaFaro was aware of him, even on records. In fact
Scott LaFaro was not really much aware of jazz at all until 1955.
He was born in
1936 in Newark , New Jersey Geneva , New York
LaFaro started on
clarinet at fourteen and studied music in high school. He took up bass on a
kind of dare. "My father played violin with a small 'society' trio in
town. I didn't know what I wanted to do when I had finished school, and my
father said - half-joking, I think - that if I learned bass, I could play with
them. When I did, I knew that I wanted to be a musician. It’s strange: playing
clarinet and sax didn't do it, but when I started on bass, I knew it was
music." He went to Ithaca Conservatory and then to Syracuse Syracuse Ken ny Clarke. He formed my ideas of what Jazz
was about. He, and the juke box in the place - it had Miles Davis records. And
I first heard Percy Heath and Paul Chambers on that juke box. They taught me my
first jazz bass lessons. There was also a Lee Konitz record with Stan Ken ton called Prologue."
In late 1955,
LaFaro joined Buddy Morrow's band. "We toured all over the country until I
left the band in Los Angeles
LaFaro remembers
two other important experiences in California Lorraine
In September 1958
LaFaro played with Sonny Rollins in San Francisco
“I found out
playing with Bill that I have a deep respect for harmony, melodic patterns, and
form. I think a lot more imaginative work could be done within them than most
people are doing, but I can't abandon them. That's why I don't think I could
play with Ornette Coleman. I used to in California
“Bill gives the
bass harmonic freedom because of the way he voices, and he is practically the
only pianist who does. It's because of his classical studies. Many drummers
know too little rhythmically, and many pianists know too little harmonically.
In the trio we were each contributing something and really improving together, each playing melodic and
rhythmic phrases. The harmony would be improvised; we would often begin only
with something thematic and not a chord sequence.
'I don't like to
look back, because the whole point in Jazz is doing it now. (I don't even like any of my records except maybe the first
one I did with Pat Moran on Audio Fidelity.) There are too many things to learn
and too many things you can do, to keep doing the same thing over and over. My
main problem now is to get that instrument under my fingers so I can play more
music.” (1960)
…
Gary Peacock: The Beauties of
Intuition
As recently as a
year ago, few persons would have numbered Gary Peacock among the more
proficient young bassists in Jazz. Today there are few who would not.
Scott LaFaro's
unexpected death was a loss in several senses, not the least of which was regarding
his contribution to development of the future role of the bass in Jazz,
Peacock's recent spurt of development is a gain for much the same reason. His
playing has come far indeed from that heard on a Bud Shank record released
about two years ago. He is sure, incidentally, that “although you may have an
idea of where you are in your work, a record will show you where you really are
- you and anyone else who hears it."
Truly contemporary
bass playing probably can be said to begin with Charlie Mingus-and perhaps
Wilbur Ware and Red Mitchell. The most provocative young bassists do not play a
quarter-note walk, 1-2-3-4/1-2-3-4-they do not play "time" and they
do not necessarily play a harmonic part. And the horn players know that they do
not need them to keep time or provide changes, harmonic reminders. The newer
bassists do not merely “accompany" others and take an occasional solo but
participate more directly in the music.
In their various
ways, truly contemporary bass players are melodists - percussive melodists,
lyric melodists, or in LaFaro’s case and Peacock's, virtuoso melodists.
Furthermore, like the young horn men, they explore their instruments even
beyond what is supposedly their legitimate range and function.
The Peacock who
suddenly burst through on recordings with Clare Fischer and with Don Ellis and
Paul Bley is a Peacock who is learning to make his way in the most advanced
groups and among the most challenging young players in jazz.
He was born in
Burley, Idaho Washington Oregon
One of his
earliest conscious exposures to jazz came when he is sixteen. "A trumpeter
I knew played me some of those early records by Bird and Dizzy - Salt Peanuts
and those things," he said. I was really amazed, and I asked him who
the second alto player was! I could hardly believe him when he answered there
is only one."
Peacock left home
at seventeen and spent a year in Los Angeles Westlake College Germany
Suddenly things were
different: "My hands went down right almost from the beginning. The
instrument seemed to fall under my fingers. I never really tried to learn bass
- it was as if I just started playing it."
After the service,
he went back to Los Angeles
'I don't know
exactly when it happened," Peacock said. "It must have been gradual.
Before I realized it, I was there."
It definitely
happened later than one evening he remembers when he chanced to end up on the
same bandstand with Ornette Coleman. ("When he started to blow, I just
froze; I couldn’t play.") But it happened.
Then he no longer
had any trouble with groups that improvised freely and no longer had to work
only with players who go through every piece cyclically and harmonically, ever
repeating the structure.
"Only for
about six months in 1959 did I put in any extra practicing and exploring my
instrument. I had begun to try things I couldn't execute properly and had to
find a way to play them. The rest of the time I learned on the job, just by
playing and listening. I grew quite unsatisfied with just playing time. It
became redundant, a strait jacket. Along with several people, I found that if a
tempo is simply allowed to exist, you don’t need to play it - it's even
redundant to play it.”
"But it is a
personal thing. If it's right for a given player time, okay. But if it isn't,
it won't feel right to him or sound to his listeners. "
This latter
observation reflects an attitude that several young players seem to have: an
awareness that what is right for them to play or to search for is not
necessarily right for everyone. Peacock,
for instance, talks readily of his great admiration for Al Cohn and Zoot Sims
and for the Modern Jazz Quartet. But the MJQ holds still another lesson for
him, for theirs is truly a group music, and future Jazz will be truly group
music.
"You know the
title of that LP of Ornette Coleman’s,” he asked, This Is Our Music? I
think that tells the story. I think in the future, we will hear a group music
by equal participants. Each member is
going to have to be a leader to some extent.”
"It will have
to be that way, In my own experience, we work now with a kind of psychic
communication. We just know when a drummer has finished a phrase and when he
has finished a solo. We know when a horn player has finished developing his
ideas.”
"Perhaps this
is only the first stage, and we will have different ideas later on. Perhaps we
will have more conscious reasons for what we do, but for now, things are
evolving this intuitive way.”
Peacock has
thought about the dangers, delusions, an, contradictions in a freer music,
however.
"The pitfall
in the concept of freedom is that total musical freedom invites chaos," he
said. "And I think we should also remember that freedom isn't necessarily
valid unless it produces something. Also, so-called self-expression is not
necessarily musical or artistic. I think we should keep those things in mind
when we play. And most of all, we have to know when to stop. We must know when
we have said it all, or when it isn't happening.”
"But for
myself at this stage, I know that generally my best playing comes when I don't
think too consciously about what I'm doing, and frankly that doesn't bother me
too much. You can be specific about logical causes and about emotional causes,
but about intuition there are no reasons. You just do what the intuition says.
Incidentally, I think Ornette Coleman plays by intuition, too, not just
feeling, as some people say. Anyway, I think that now we just have to play out
the intuitions and see what happens. After all, if you go so far wrong, you'll
eventually get back to what's right. And the only way to find out about some of
the things we're working on is just plunge in and do them."
About the attitude
that it is up to each player to explore the possibilities of his instrument,
Peacock said, "Musicians tend not to regard their instruments as a whole.
They take only a section of what can be done. The bass has two worlds. At the
bottom, it affects everyone, especially in rhythm. At the top, you are into the
piano's range and are more of a horn. There you can't upset the time and
rhythm.”
"The thing to
do is ask, 'What can I do with texture? Dynamics? Timbre? What can I do with
one note? What can I do with the whole range? And can I extend it?' These ideas
are reaching a lot of players, and particularly bass players - especially, I
should name Steve Swallow in this. They are asking these questions, and asking
how the answers affect the group music. But a player should work these things
out at practice, not on the job. A job is a place to play, not experiment.”
"Take Ornette
Coleman. He takes a note, bends it, twists it, even spits it out. It's
beautiful; it gives the instrument a new life. Jimmy Giuffre is doing the same
sort of thing with the clarinet."
Peacock has
substituted for Steve Swallow in Giuffre's current trio on a couple of
occasions and considers the experience among the most musically exciting he has
had, "Jimmy and Paul [Bley] don't need anyone keeping time - in fact, it
would get in their way. But playing with them is very exacting. They have
really broken through recently. Their new Columbia
If Bley is not
working with Giuffre, he and Gary Peacock can probably be found together. They
worked recently at a Sunday session at New York City New York
Nevertheless, it
is very important to Peacock to be in New York Los Angeles New York
This audio track features bassist Gary
Peacock’s original composition “Liddledabllduya” [i.e.: ‘a little dab will do
you’] on which he is joined by Carmell Jones, trumpet, Bud Shank on alto
saxophone, Dennis Budimir on guitar and Mel Lewis on drums.
