BassDrumBone – “Line Up, The ” – [Clean Feed]

ArtCrimes   1/31/2007   CD, Jazz

BassDrumBone ???The Line Up??? Jazz

Three-piece with bassist Mark Helias, drummer Gerry Hemingway and trombonist Ray Anderson. Not a complete improv job, most tunes have heads of a sort. The trombone has to carry a lot of the melodic drive here, and Anderson is up to that challenge, with great tone and finesse. A good mixture of slow and fast grooves, and some ride one or two tempo changes before they run their course. Track #3 ponders a blues-ish strategy. The mixing here forces the instruments into their respective corners so that the individual playing gets lots of sonic detail, with the rhythm section often split at opposite sides of the stereo field. The trombone and drums sound very rich but I would have preferred a little more meat on the acoustic bass, as it seems a bit thin in comparison (until he switches to an electric on a couple of tracks).