ECM to Release New Marc Johnson Solo Album

courtesy of DL Media

This coming Friday ECM will release Overpass, consisting entirely of solo bass performances by Marc Johnson. I first became aware of Johnson around September of 2012 (making it almost a decade ago), when I learned about his duo album, Swept Away, with his partner, pianist Eliane Elias. Both of them were responsible for composing the first ten tracks on the album, and two of the tracks were joint efforts. (The final track was based on the folk song “Shenandoah.”) I wrote about Swept Away for Examiner.com, and I was glad when the opportunity arose for me to revisit Johnson’s work on my current site. As expected, Amazon.com has created a Web page to process pre-orders.

The new album has only eight tracks, five of which are Johnson originals. Two of the remaining tracks seem to be nods to Bill Evans. The second track gives an account of “Nardis,” which was composed by Miles Davis but has a richer recording history with Evans. The fourth track shifts to the love theme from Alex North’s score for the movie Spartacus, which was another Evans favorite. On the other hand the opening track is Eddie Harris’ “Freedom Jazz Dance,” which is probably best associated with the recording by the Second Great Quintet led by trumpeter Miles Davis. However, it goes without saying that the expressiveness of a solo bass occupies a decidedly different space from that of solo piano improvisations or the Davis combo.

Johnson’s own compositions explore a variety of different expressive techniques. Two of them involve overdubbing, but Johnson clearly prefers the spontaneity of solo improvisation. Both of them seem to reflect on Asian influences. “Yin and Yang” involves the natural harmonics that arise when the strings are plucked, and Johnson enhances awareness of those sonorities by allowing all four strings to reinforce each other. The results were then recorded to serve as a “ground bass” against which Johnson improvised both pizzicato and bowed effects. “Samurai Fly,” on the other hand, uses overdubbing for a “confrontation” between Eastern and Western idioms. The remaining tracks are just as rich in inventiveness, making it clear that Johnson was more in his “comfort zone” with performances that were not “technically enhanced.”