Two generations, three double bass players, two new albums։ Joe Fonda, Christian McBride, Edgar Meyer։ Videos, Photos

They even struggle to find space in the so-called summer jazz festivals precisely because they give nothing to the so-called show business, imbued as they are with rigor, coherence, creativity and, finally, the beauty that distinguishes their music.

Two Americans, a Japanese and an Italian. From this mixture comes one of the most beautiful albums of the year, tense, lucid and timeless.

This is an exceptional album, not only for the extraordinary musicians present in the recording, but also for the interaction they create.

Eyes on the Horizon by bassist and composer Joe Fonda is a tribute from a former student to his teacher, Wadada Leo Smith. It is the best possible gift a mentor could receive: it does not imitate Wadada’s work, it is entirely in the voice and strings of Joe Fonda.

“I decided that I would write a series of pieces and think about how Wadada writes music and how I write music and what I have learned from him,” Fonda writes. “I even used some of his notation systems on some of the pieces. So yeah, the music was all about Wadada.”

Most of the song titles come from Fonda’s experiences with Wadada over the years. The title track is Fonda’s representation of how Smith always keeps the big picture in mind. “He never gave up and stayed focused. And now, in his 80s, he’s more active than ever, recording, performing and composing some of the most powerful and spiritual music of our time,” Fonda says.

“We Need Members” commemorates the first time Fonda met Wadada. In the early 1980s, Fonda attended a recruitment meeting for the Creative Music Improvisors Forum (CMIF), a collective of musicians that Wadada co-founded and directed. At the meeting, vibraphonist and CMIF co-chair Bobby Naughton interviewed each candidate to see if they met the organization’s membership requirements. “Wadada was sitting by the door. He didn’t say anything,” Fonda recalls.

“When I was about to walk out, I thought, man, I’m not sure I want to be in this group, these guys are too picky. I got to the door and Wadada looked me right in the eye and all he said was, with a warm face and a smile, ‘We need members.’ And that took away all the tension that Bobby had created in me and I signed up.”

“Like No Other” is a dedication to Naughton (25, 1944 – December 3, 2022), a mutual friend and collaborator with whom both Fonda and Smith worked closely. “I wanted to do it just as a duo with Wadada,” Fonda said. “After we played the written material, we did a little jam, then each did their own improvisation dedicated to Bobby. During his solo, Wadada seemed so connected to Bobby. It was like Bobby was there.”

“Bright Lights” was inspired by a comment Wadada made during a record mixing session. “We were sitting there listening and he said, ‘I love the brightness.’ That’s when I realized, well, that’s what Wadada is after, the bright reality of vibration.”

This album is definitely for the more experienced jazz listener. The language here is raw, uncompromising. Don’t expect any aesthetics beyond the overall vision that highlights soundscapes and scenes etched by the waves of sonic creation.

The quartet does a remarkable job of capturing that “bright reality.” Fonda has assembled an ensemble of collaborators familiar with each other and Wadada’s music. Japanese pianist and composer Satoko Fujii, who has recorded five duet albums with Fonda since 2015, has also used Wadada on two of her albums. Italian drummer Tiziano Tononi has collaborated with Fonda on seven albums since 2018. Together, they perfectly capture the essence of Fonda’s visionary tribute.

“Most of the time, we play with a more collective mindset,” Fonda said. “What I’ve composed isn’t necessarily just cerebral and written. It’s more like the way Wadada injects improvisations into the composed material. I tried to orchestrate it in different ways, so that different people are bringing the themes forward at different times and different people might improvise at different times.”

Examples of Fonda’s subtle blending of composition and improvisation abound. For example, on the title track, full ensemble passages that blend written and improvised music alternate with solos and duets. The ensemble appears as a fully orchestrated piece but feels spontaneous, with a structure that emerges both from the interaction of the moment and from Fonda’s preconceived elements.

Embedded in this complex matrix of improvisation and interpretation are moments of individual brilliance. In a duet with Tononi during “Bright Light,” Wadada displays his command of the trumpet’s timbre and texture, his elliptical lyricism, his deep concentration, and his unsurpassed awareness of rhythm and balance. Fujii delivers a multifaceted performance on the album, ranging from his dark, percussive solo on “Eyes on the Horizon” to a spine-tingling duo with Fonda on “We Need Members.” That track also features a Fonda solo that is especially intimate, as if he were speaking directly to the listener. Fonda’s rhythmically powerful riffs and the elaborations and development of his lines move forward in a steady, confident flow. Tononi’s solo on “Cornell West” moves with exhilarating momentum.

Wadada Leo Smith brings something extra. As soon as he enters, our ears lock onto him, mesmerized by his inventiveness and artistry. It’s clear why a composer as talented as Joe Fonda would want to highlight him so prominently, making this one of the year’s best.

Before making this album, Fonda hadn’t worked with Wadada since the mid-’80s, but they’ve stayed in touch over the decades, and Wadada’s example has always been there. Fonda titled “Inspiration” to reflect Wadada’s impact on his life and music. “Over the years, I’ve found Wadada to be a real inspiration,” he says. “But then at the recording session, Wadada gave it back to me. When the session was over, he said, ‘Joe, I’m proud of you, man. I’m proud of the music you wrote.’ So, I mean, everything started to roll back around.”

Since his recording debut in 1981, bassist-composer Joe Fonda has released more than a dozen recordings under his own name. Among them are albums by From the Source, a unique sextet that includes four jazz musicians, a tap dancer, and a healing singer-artist. His multinational Off Road Quartet features musicians from four different countries: Ux Fengia from China, Carlos Zingaro from Portugal, Lucas Niggle from Switzerland, and Fonda from the United States. As co-leader of the Fonda-Stevens Group, with pianist Michael Jefry Stevens, he recorded 13 albums between 1990 and 2010. More recently, he and pianist Fujii have performed and recorded as a duo.

Many of Fonda’s most enduring associations are with collective ensembles, including the Nu Band, which originally included trumpeter Roy Campbell, saxophonist Mark Whitecage, and drummer Lou Grassi. He was also the bassist for the FAB Trio with drummer Barry Altschul and violinist Billy Bang. One of his most recent projects is Remedy with trumpeter Thomas Heberer and drummer Joe Hertenstein.

As a session musician, Fonda has recorded and performed with some of the most important musicians of our time, including Anthony Braxton from 1984 to 1999. He was also a key member of German saxophonist Gebhard Ullman’s Conference Call and guitarist Michael Musillami’s trio with George Schuller.

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Two double basses, in perfect solitude. A gamble not to be underestimated, and one that has been attempted sporadically in the discographic field, especially in the advanced-experimental field, for example with Joëlle Léandre and Barre Philips who worked on improvisations for two and published works together and with colleagues in the area, such as William Paker, Peter Kowald and others.

We also fondly remember a forgotten album by Rufus Reid with the English bassist Peter Ind (“Alone Togheter”) that was much more than a divertissement, but at the moment we can’t think of anything else…

Of course there are McBride’s meetings with his myth Ray Brown, and “The Bass Mentor Suite” with the WDR Big Band and with the addition of John Clayton, but we are talking about composite formations, even if always with the double basses in the foreground. In this case, we have instead the meeting on the instrument of the current “number One” in the jazz field and a champion who expresses himself mainly in the classical/chamber field even if he does not disdain forays into the folk-bluegrass field.

And then nothing else, just a piano played alternately by the two bassists in two short interludes of a handful of minutes. The two did not meet yesterday, they come from a long and mutual acquaintance, in 2015 and 2016 they also faced a long tour together, as can be appreciated in the clip below with their reinterpretation of the Davisian “Solar”.

Years later we find ourselves with this substantial work for MackAvenue in our hands which is made up of four LP sides (!) for an hour and ten minutes of music with double doublebass and with the ironic question of the title that hovers over Chris McBride’s smile. I approach this album, which therefore announces itself as rather risky, with the spirit of an early twentieth-century diver: reclining armchair, semi-dark room, headphones at high volume, two fingers of Vov (ah, autumn) and a cup of instant coffee in case of signs of drowsiness. In truth, the trust that the writer places in McBride is amply repaid from the very first bars, from the first steps into the depths here are the two relaunching, digging, playing hide and seek like enthusiastic boys around beloved themes, the CD booklet doesn’t help us but I would say that McBride works on the left channel while Edgar Meyer on the right. We reveal that “But who’s gonna play the melody?” is the textual quote of a comment on Facebook arrived by the saxophonist Joshua Redman on the friend’s page that announced this collaboration, a joke that later became the title of the album and perhaps also a stimulus to the two who develop long and intertwined phrases, moving sinuously like deep-sea fish and alternating roles in a composite repertoire, among vibrant originals among which we point out “Barnyard Disturbance” a blues with country influences recorded by Meyer years ago, with the two also alternating on the bow.

We then have, after the ballad “Lullaby for a LadyBug”, two songs dedicated to the areas of origin of the two with “Philly Slop”, to underline the proud belonging of McBride to his luxuriant Philadelphia, which has given so much to the history of jazz, and an elegant “Tennessee Blues” for Meyer while in the other original by McBride, significantly entitled “Bebop, Of Course” the imposing figure of Ray Brown reappears in backlight…

In the playlist could not miss the inevitable reinterpretation of delicious standards from the American songbook, the two choose “Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered” and “Days Of Wine And Roses”.

A well-crafted milieu, the vov is finished and the coffee is getting cold, this doubled ancestral sound has its own reason and comes to us with great clarity, it touches the belly first and then the heart, the common ground on which to work is so broad and varied, as well as fertile and luxuriant, that this first deboning could only be the beginning of a long series of works and a resumption of concerts together, the fruits are sweet and fragrant.