Peter Warren - Bass Is

Original cover

In the late 1990s I lived in Portland, Oregon for a year and met an electric bass player named Jamie Faunt at Ron Steen's jam sessions.  He was visiting from Los Angeles and told me about a bass quartet album he did a while back with Dave Holland, Glen Moore, and someone else I didn't recognize.  He told me they just went in and played free.  I had never heard of it and was excited to hear it.  But I couldn't find it and since then, this album has been my holy grail.  I found a few duo things with Holland and Barre Phillips, but nothing for bass quartet.  Then in Hudson Valley Vinyl this summer, I finally found it: Peter Warren's Bass Is from 1970.  

Background

Peter Warren was that elusive fourth bassist and it turns out this album also includes John Surman on baritone sax, Chick Corea on piano, Barry Altschul on tabla and drums, and Steve Hauss and Stu Martin, both on drums.  The back of the album has a note from Warren explaining the album:

"My original conception was a bass quartet with percussion.  John and Stu were visiting New York and Chick, Barry, and Dave (who later formed 'Circle') were at the downtown loft where I picked up Barry.  Everybody came by and brought their horns.  The music took care of itself, a happy day for all of us.  I thank my friends for helping make this musical experience possible."

Those were the old days, when you could just improvise a record.  Sounds awfully loose by any standard, but fusion hadn't taken off---it was about to as Miles Davis' Bitches Brew was released two months prior to the recording date--- and with the counterculture on the rise, such attitudes were probably more common.  It's also indicative of a pureness in approach to music.

Peter Warren

Peter Warren (b. 1935) has had an interesting career rooted in new music and the avant-garde.  He was a cellist first, making his debut at Carnegie Hall and later attended Julliard.  At some point, he switched to double bass and studied with Chuck Israels.  With David Izenzon he was a part of the New York Bass Revolution, a ten-bass ensemble which I assume was the forerunner to the New York Bass Choir.  He was active in the early 1970s, performing and living in Europe and recording with Rolf Kuhn, Don Cherry, Terumasa Hino, Jean-Luc Ponty, Albert Mangelsdorff, Anthony Braxton, and Tomas Stanko.  Through the early 1980s, he worked on and off with Jack DeJohnette's Special Edition (on cello), Carla Bley, and in 1976 won an National Endowment of Arts grant for cello composition and performance.  In the early 1980s he played with Mike Stern and John Scofield, but seems to have been less visible since, though he's still been active leading ensembles and playing with different groups.  

Top: Anthony Braxton, Dave Holland
bottom: Barry Altschul, Chick Corea

The other musicians are a particularly forward-looking bunch and would maintain long careers in creative improvisation.  Chick Corea would alter his direction towards fusion in a few short years, but at the time he was exploring free jazz.  Him and Dave Holland played with Miles Davis on his earliest experiments in fusion, In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew.  They were also part of his "Lost Quintet" that toured in 1969 and 1970.  Both have maintained a high degree of visibility since these recordings and together with drummer Barry Altschul formed Circle and would record for Blue Note in August 1970.   Altschul got his career started with Paul Bley and was a member of the Jazz Composers Guild and the Jazz Composer's Orchestra Association from 1964 to 1968 appearing on Communication from 1965.  Besides recording with free jazz bassist Alan Silva, Altschul was adept enough to perform in more conventional formats playing with Carmell Jones, Leo Wright, and Johnny Griffin in Europe in the late 1960s.

Another important faction is the inclusion of English soprano and baritone saxophonist John Surman and drummer Stu Martin who were playing in a trio with bassist Barre Phillips.  A virtuoso baritone saxophonist, Surman has had a remarkably productive career recording.  His long relationship with ECM enabled him to explore solo settings often including multi-track techniques, synthesizers, and incorporating other reed instruments.  He's been active in duo settings (with vocalist Karin Krog or drummer Jack DeJohnette), small group, and various orchestras.  Recordings of free jazz in England pre-date Ornette Coleman's 1962 album and there is a long standing tradition there that has been influential on Surman and others of his generation.  American-born Martin got his start in big band playing with Count Basie, Billy May, Jimmy Dorsey, and recording with Maynard Ferguson and Quincy Jones.  He also had stints with Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock, and Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross.  He moved to Europe in 1965 continuing to play in a group with Larry Coryell and Steve Swallow, both in a trio and with Gary Burton's group in the U.S, and signaling a change towards creative improvisation.  By 1968 he was co-leading an ensemble with Atilla Zoller, Lee Konitz and Albert Mangelsdorff before joining Surman and Phillips in 1969. 

Bassist Glen Moore is best known for his association with the group Oregon, whose improvisations derived from classical, jazz, and folk traditions---this ideology is heard on Bass Is.  The founding members, including Moore, were a part of the Paul Winter Consort and that same year in 1970, they recorded their first album.  When I met Jamie Faunt in the late 1990s, he was playing a custom five-string electric, but he's on acoustic on this record.  His visibility has been limited but he has appeared on a range of recordings through the 1970s and 1980s including an appearance on Corea's Mad Hatter album. Steve Hauss is even more obscure as this appears to be his only recording.

Italian issue, year unknown

Bass Is

With such a large group, it is inevitable that different ideologies would come together, but combining the philosophies of three bands, two of whom were about to take off, speaks to the energy surrounding the musicians.  It doesn't appear that everyone plays on the same track.  Side one features some smaller combinations of musicians and side two features the entire group minus Faunt. 

The composition "Bass Is" and features the bass quartet.  I say composition because the piece seems to be split into two halves and are filled with various motives that come and go.  Many of them are ostinatos, either a pulsating middle register eighth note vamp or an upper register one-note pad played by at least one bassist.  I should mention that most of the playing is Arco.  The first part gravitates from idea to idea and while there might not necessarily be a lot of parts written out, there is enough unity among the musicians that it sounds like they're following a chart with some kind of instructions.  The second part is slow and one of the bassists (Faunt?) is playing a modal solo.  There is an upper register note being held and is reminiscent of the tanpura (the drone instrument in Indian music)which makes sense since the improvisational style is reminiscent of Indian music.  The texture of four basses is never constant and there seems to be a concerted effort to vary this aspect of the music.   Throughout the piece, the mood often changes sometimes being very tense and aggressive and other times being very thoughtful and careful.  

"Interlude" features only Warren.  Some of the themes from the previous piece are repeated including the pulsating eighth notes.  HIs bowing is very strong and gets very aggressive sometimes, especially with the chords.  "Subra Har" adds Altschul on tabla (or some percussion instrument).  It starts off in free time with the tanpura sound again with a pizzicato bass solo (Faunt again?  There are indications who is soloing, but it's hard to tell sometimes).  It is modal ---at first slowly exposing the mixolydian mode with gestures I associated with Indian sitar playing.  The piece shifts to major with the major seventh and there are some pitches that are favored.  Warren takes over Arco and Altschul shimmies in before falling into a strong pulse.  Again, the mood shifts through the performance with soloists from the other bassists.  I'm familiar with Holland's playing, but I don't recognize his sound on this album or amongst the solo spots.  

Side two features two performances and I find them very similar in nature.  On "Welcome to New York" begins with the group playing delicately.  Corea and Surman especially are dominating  mostly because they are so much louder, even with bowed basses.  It's noticeable when Surman drops out and it feels like time for the basses to be featured.  The drummers play various percussion (bells) and stick to brushes for the most part.  Corea is a terrific accompanist and in this setting, he manages to assert himself without dominating the group, he is still a part of the overall texture.  Only at one point does he play something which completely changes the direction of the piece.  This may be because there are points on side two and parts of the other pieces where the music appears directionless.  When an idea comes on, the other musicians jump in and the mood quickly changes.  While the bassists and drummers drop in and out, the texture doesn't change that widely and Warren seems to prefer group improvisation.  "Instrumental no.2" features more of the same and seems to be an extension of what the group on the other piece.

2014 Japanese issue

1960s was a good decade for the acoustic bass.  Classical bassist Gary Karr ascended to the national scene in 1962 as the first bassist to present solo concerts in decades.  Bertram Turetzky pioneered new music for double music introducing a range of new techniques for solo double bass and performing works written by himself or others in concert.  His 1964 album Recital of New Music featured a program of all new music.  In jazz, Scott LaFaro with the Bill Evans trio pioneered new pizzicato techniques (reliance on two fingers, lowered action) to revolutionize the possibilities of jazz bass accompaniment.  In 1968, Barre Phillips utilized new extended techniques on Journal Violone,  the first solo bass album dedicated to solo improvisation.   All of this activity would greatly raise the bar for the instrument and perhaps inspired the players on this album.  

I guess this is the equivalent of a free jazz jam session.  The lack of individual solo features I feel brings down the quality of the music as the sound of the large group becomes predictable.  Even features for two to three soloists would have changed things and allowed for greater interaction.  In this way, the experiment for four basses could have been more thoroughly explored and a reason perhaps why this album is not better known.  The moments of fire are pretty intense, but the sitar-imitations on the side one date the album rather badly.  I'll assume that the bass quartet album is a descendant of the New York Bass Revolution, I would have liked to hear more of that.  It's a pity the idea wasn't further explored, it feels like a good start.