Calming Jazz Rhetoric for Disturbing Times

from the Amazon.com Web page for this album

This past June Summit Records released an album of duo performances planned by bassist Jason Foureman working with pianist Stephen Anderson. The title of the album is simply Duo, and two of the eleven tracks are Foureman originals. There is no indication of when any of the tracks were recorded, but it would not surprise me if the sessions took place following the imposition of shelter-in-place. With only a few exceptions the overall rhetoric on this album is one of introspective quietude, likely to facilitate (if not induce) calm when too much of the current news tends to provoke agitation.

Foureman is active in the Triangle area of North Carolina, not only as a performer but also as an educator at two of the campuses in that region, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University. He is the bassist for the North Carolina Jazz Repertory Orchestra, which has performed music composed by Anderson. This appears to be their first duo album. The relatively skimpy booklet notes say nothing about whether they have performed before an audience as a duo; but Foureman notes that all of the tracks were in-the-moment recordings without any post-processing.

Since “exceptions to the rule” tend to distinguish themselves, it is worth observing that the liveliest track on the album is Jay Livingston’s “To Each His Own.” Given that I tend to associate this tune with the calm crooning of Johnny Hartman, I reacted to Anderson’s piano introduction (which takes its time in revealing the theme) with more than a bit of a jolt; but, in the context of the overall album, that jolt was not unwelcome! Indeed, about the only other track with any perkiness is the duo’s take on Phil Woods’ “Reet’s Net.”

Nevertheless, things being what they are, it is hard to criticize the overall rhetoric. If my own patience was strained from time to time, it had less to do with repertoire and more to do with the fact that I felt I was not hearing enough of Foureman. The only time the bass takes an extended lead is on the track for João Gilberto’s “Caminhos Cruzados” (crossed roads). For that matter, in the interest of diversity, I found myself wishing that Foureman would take up his bow in the interest of the prevailing quietude.

The bottom line is that I would probably enjoy listening to this duo in a gig at the Red Poppy Art House, but I doubt that I shall spend much future time with the Duo album itself.