Listeners don’t usually think of bass players as the stars of jazz, their typically soft-spoken music often overshadowed by saxophonists, trumpeters, pianists and drummers.
Yet any number of bassists have earned a measure of recognition, so long as they could yield the seemingly effortless virtuosity of a Ray Brown, the imposing compositional technique of a Charles Mingus or the precocious musicianship of a Christian McBride (to name only a few universally admired bass players).
Recently a Chicago bassist who happens to be one of the busiest and most versatile in town made his bid for solo status with an exceptional debut recording, “Solo + Quartet,” on the Chicago-based Criterion label. To mark this release, bassist Larry Gray fronted his own group Sunday night at FitzGerald’s in Berwyn.
Like the album itself, Gray’s first set proved musically adventurous, technically sleek and sonically imaginative from start to finish
Though Gray did not overindulge in solo passages, the ones he played were eminently worth hearing. The fleet lines, impeccable pitch and complex chord changes he brought to “More Than a Few” made this solo a virtually free-standing composition. And the rhapsodic, bowed solo with which Gray opened a ballad called “Sorrow” gave his instrument the flexibility and suppleness of a cello, without sacrificing the darker, grittier sound of the stand-up bass.
In accompanying passages, Gray interacted elegantly with the intense pianism of Willie Pickens, the fiercely driven lines of tenor saxophonist Ed Petersen and the consistently inventive work of drummer Joel Spencer.
Among Gray’s collaborators, Petersen was especially striking, his sound more polished and refined than in years past, yet with all the old fire and lightning still intact.
Beyond this group’s fine ensemble work and beyond Gray’s obvious solo capabilities, the evening’s other pleasure owed to Gray’s original compositions.
The aforementioned “Sorrow,” for instance, is built on a theme as eloquent and haunting as anything being written today in a lyrical jazz vein.
So, too, the set’s concluding number, “Baby Cynthia’s Waltz,” a faintly nostalgic jazz waltz evoking the impressionistic harmonic palette of the late Bill Evans.
Though Gray spends most of his time accompanying other soloists, he clearly has developed a musical and compositional voice all his own.
And though listeners are only now learning about Gray’s compositional vocabulary through his new recording and through performances such as the one at FitzGerald’s, he arrives on the scene not as a rookie composer but as one who already knows what he wants to say.
