Paul Brusger -A Soul Contract - Insert Notes by Steve Cerra

 © Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Paul Brusger’s A Soul Contract [Steeplechase SCCD 31953] releases next week on November 15, 2023. It is available for pre-order on Amazon.com.

As a way of introducing you to the music and the musicians on Paul’s latest, here are the insert notes I prepared for the recording.

This is Paul Brusger’s second recording for Steeplechase. As was the case with the first for the label - Waiting for the Next Trane [SCCD 33115] - Paul’s talents as a bassist and composer are once again placed in the service of both maintaining and enriching the Hardbop tradition, a style of Jazz that was pervasive from 1955-1965 and which has remained a force ever since.

There are many familiar names associated with Hardbop in Jazz lore including groups such as Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers, the Horace Silver Quintet, and the Cannonball Adderley Quintet, individual performers including Dexter Gordon, Lee Morgan and Sonny Stitt and composers who specialized in the genre such as Hank Mobley,  Sonny Clark, and Elmo Hope [each was also a fine instrumentalist].”

Paul Brusger came of age as a musician in this Hard Bop atmosphere and continues to perform as a musician and composer today with these influences as a constant source of inspiration. Scott Yanow commented in his insert notes to Paul’s CD You Oughta Know It [Brownstone BRCD 2-0002]:

“Paul Brusger will be a new name to many listeners but it is obvious, listening to his particularly strong debut, that he is not just a fine bassist in the tradition of Paul Chambers, Doug Watkins and Oscar Pettiford but an up-and-coming composer too. [His] originals have chord changes that are viable vehicles for solos in the hard bop tradition.”

In his interview with Scott, Paul shared the following by way of background:

"I played trumpet from grade school until high school but I did not quite have the chops for it. Since I always loved the woody rich and beautiful sound of the bass, I switched soon after I discovered jazz in high school. I liked fusion but acoustic music attracted me more. When I heard Charlie Parker, I fell in love with jazz. And when I heard John Coltrane, I knew that I had to be a musician!"

After graduating from high school, Paul Brusger moved to Florida where he studied sociology in college while picking up important experience playing jazz. "I am pretty much self-taught as a musician. I had the opportunity to play with the great trumpet master Idrees Sulieman, guitarist John Hart, Kenny Drew Jr. and Ira Sullivan. I worked a great deal in Florida but after a period I felt a bit stifled and knew that it was time to move ahead and relocate to New York." Since moving back to NY in 1997, Brusger has recorded with Ron Blake, played occasionally with Valery Ponomarev and guitarist Doug Raney (when he visits from Denmark), led his own groups and recorded the music for this session.

"I love all different styles but, when the music swings, for me everything comes together, which is why I love jazz. I have written a great deal during the past couple years and I hope in the future to have more of my compositions recorded by others and get better-known as a writer. In general, I want to continue getting deep within the music and communicate the joy of this music to many people."

The title of this CD - A Soul Contract - says a lot about the music contained in it and the attitude that lay behind the music.

As defined by Kenny Mathieson in his Cookin’ Hard Bop and Soul Jazz, 1954-1965 [2002]: “...deeper down this was a music which both reflected and invited a visceral, passionate response as well as a cerebral, intellectual one. The combination of earthy, driving urgency inherited from blues, gospel and rhythm and blues roots with the harmonic and polyrhythmic complexity of bebop provided the formula which ignited hard bop, and established the music as the new jazz mainstream right up to the present day. …. Jazz without creative innovation is a music in peril, but that does not mean that its history has to be discarded like so much used waste.  … 

Which brings us to the music on A Soul Contract, eight of which are originals composed in the Hard Bop tradition by Paul Brusger, along with one by trombonist Steve Davis which also fits that mold. Beautiful Love, a classic from the Great American songbook and a long-standing favorite for Jazz musicians to play on rounds things out.

In addition to trombonist Davis, Paul has engaged the services of tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander, pianist Rick Germanson and drummer Willie Jones III to join with him on these Jazz adventures through The World of Hard Bop. All of these musicians are stalwarts on the New York City Jazz scene and bring impeccable credentials as individual soloists and ensemble players.

On A Soul Contract a bevy of new tunes performed by musicians of the highest quality demonstrate that Hard Bop is still in the process of creation as a form.

A Slice of Gryce - Paul’s homage to alto saxophonist Gigi Gryce [1925-1983], one of the founding fathers of Hard Bop - sets things off with the trombone and tenor sax playing the melody in unison which creates a striking sonority for this tune which is a contrafact based on “What Is This Thing Called Love.” This medium tempo burner gives everyone a chance to loosen up and culminates in a series of trades with drummer Jones based around a rhythmic four bar vamp.

Blues for Another Time rekindles memories of the great ‘bone and tenor sax Hard Bop recordings fashioned around trombonist Bennie Green and tenor saxophonist Gene Ammons, trombonist Curtis Fuller and tenor saxophonist Benny Golson, and trombonist J.J. Johnson and tenor saxophonist Bobby Jaspar. Everyone has a chance to stretch out on this medium-slow Blues which provides Paul with his first solo opportunity and more interesting four bar exchanges with drummer Jones.

Circumstantial Evidence is also a 12-bar Blues, this time in a medium uptempo with the horns harmonizing the line. After launching the head, the horns back off and allow pianist Rick Germanson to step forward and establish the groove for the track. The horns follow with some wonderful “muscle Jazz” improvising that segues into a walking bass solo by Paul. A unison shout chorus that launches two chorus of Willie’s crisp and flowing drumming to complete the soloing before the horns return to take the track out.

Jazz a Tadd More Please, Paul’s tribute to the revered composer-arranger Tadd Dameron [1917-1965], continues the tradition by Bop and Hard Bop musicians of superimposing new melodies [referred to as contrafacts] over the chord progressions of tunes from the great American Songbook, in this case, Johnny Green and Edward Heyman’s I Cover The Waterfront. 

Taken at a slow-medium tempo, Paul has the first solo which establishes a mood for the piece in which all of the soloists demonstrate that it is still possible to play softly and expressively and still burn.

Do Dreams Really Matter? Is a beautiful ballad with the opening theme stated by Eric’s rich tone on tenor with Steve joining in on the bridge and both executing the closing portion of the melody with a sensitivity that prevails throughout the piece. Rick Germanson’s solo offers some enticing chordal embellishments of the melody and confirms this as one of the prettiest tunes in the Jazz repertoire. It seems that Jazz is rarely played these days at slower tempos, but this foray brings back memories of some of the nicer ‘bone and big horn sonorities associated with the music of the late bassist, Charles Mingus [1922-1979].

Beautiful Love. This song has been around since 1931 and over the years has become a Jazz standard performed by the likes of vocalists Anita O’Day and Helen Merrill and instrumentalists Joe Pass and Bill Evans. Paul’s rubato arco rendering of the melody opens this version of the song which then transitions into a medium tempo restatement of the theme on which Steve Davis demonstrates the full tone and rich textures he can achieve on trombone. After a short solo by Rick, Paul returns this time in pizzicato to make this lovely standard a feature for Jazz bass.

An Untold Prophecy is a vehicle for the group’s excursion into 3/4 time and after an opening solo by Steve, Eric’s harmonic substitutions inject and atmospheric illusion of free Jazz over an ostinato emphasized by the piano and bass that creates an overall somber mood for this piece. One is aware that the prophecy in the title is “untold,” but given the funereal effects of the tune, perhaps it’s best left that way?

You Oughta Know It By Now is the title tune from Paul’s first recording dating back to 1997. In the accompanying notes he described it “as a tricky tune a little reminiscent of Woody Shaw and Joe Henderson. This challenging and driving piece gives each of the musicians an opportunity to stretch out.” It would seem that not much has changed in the intervening 30 years, except the musicians, as Eric, Steve and Rick really get into this bright uptempo tune.

I Found You is a Steve Davis composition from his 2014 Posi-Tone CD For Real based on a counter melody that is sensitively harmonized between trombone and tenor laid over an engaging Bossa Nova rhythm. Steve and Rick each build lilting and lyrical solos with Eric’s poignant presence strongly supporting the tune’s ending.

The Sugar Glider. I have no idea what a “Sugar Glider” is but if it produces anything like the joyous music found on this track, I want one! Set to Willie’s rockin’ shuffle beat, this blues shout’s out from the opening chorus with a brilliant solos by Eric Alexander, who is channeling his inner Hank Crawford with a rousing solo on alto sax. Steve’s turn puts forth some licks that are very reminiscent of J.J. Johnson, with Rick doing something similar with Red Garland styled block chords. And just to keep things interesting, the horns trade sixes with Wllie before returning for a rousing finish.

In his fine book, Kenny goes on to note:

“[Today] Hard bop (or its so-called neo-bop descendants) as a repertory music in the current era is a very different beast ….In the second half of the 1950s, hard bop was still in the process of creation as a form, and reflected the urgent, urban, often troubled lives of the musicians who played it. 

[... But] jazz, it should always be remembered, is in any case a multi-layered genre at almost any point in its history. Even in these years, hard bop already existed alongside, and interacted with, several shades of traditional jazz, blues, rhythm and blues, gospel, both big and small group swing, bebop, the so-called cool school, and ultimately modal jazz and free jazz, rather than in a stylistic vacuum.”

On this recording, Paul Brusger and his quintet have produced a soulful contract that connects the best aspects of the Hard Bop tradition to the best stylistic qualities that Jazz has to offer today. With his artfully constructed original compositions along with the talents of Steve Davis, Eric Alexander, Rick Germanson and Willie Jones III, Paul has assured that this transitional covenant is in good hands.

• Steve Cerra, www.jazzprofiles.blogspot.com