Full Review

Marc Johnson, Overpass Review

Marc Johnson is a jazz bass player that was a member of the great jazz pianist Bill Evans’ last great trio. When he was only nineteen, Johnson was already working professionally with the Fort Worth Symphony. At North Texas State University, he played and recorded with fellow student Lyle Mays. Upon graduating, Johnson toured and recorded with Woody Herman before becoming, at the age of 25, the bassist with the Bill Evans Trio, following in the footsteps of masterful bassists including Scott La Faro, Gary Peacock, and Eddie Gomez. With Overpass, recorded in Brazil in 2018, Johnson makes a decisive and intriguing contribution to ECM’s solo bass recording series. Johnson has said that Dave Holland’s ECM Emerald Tears was among the solo recordings that fired his imagination almost half a century ago and builds upon that inspiration in Overpass in a unique and inventive way.

Bottom Line: Overpass was recorded in January and February 2018 at Nacena Studios in São Paulo and was produced by Johnson and pianist Eliane Elias. The album is eight songs, five of which are Johnson originals, and only features Johnson on the acoustic bass. The album opens with Eddie Harris’s “Freedom Jazz Dance.” Johnson’s bass tone is warm, clear, and the recording captures all the idiomatic percussive sounds of the acoustic bass. He uses a pedal tone to establish the groove, after which he begins to include fragments of the melody. This is the theme for the duration of the track and one that is effective in keeping fluidity and integrity of the groove and improvised ideas. As a member of Bill Evans’ last trio, Evans liked to use “Nardis” as an opportunity for breakthroughs in the bass’ potential as a lead voice. The Miles Davis tune, long associated with Evans, is revisited here. As Johnson points out, “‘Nardis’ is where solo bass explorations all started for me, and this performance distills much of the conception and vocabulary I am using throughout this album.” Alex North’s “Love Theme from Spartacus” is another song that Evans liked to play and is an investigation and arrangement that honors the form of the composition. “Samurai Fly” is a Johnson original that features his agile bowing and brings Eastern and Western sonorities together delightfully. “Samurai Fly” is based on “Samurai Hee-Haw,” a tune that Johnson previously recorded for ECM with his Bass Desires band – the highly influential quartet featuring guitarists Bill Frisell and John Scofield and Peter Erskine on drums- and with the John Abercrombie Trio. Johnson’s music is open to many influences from multiple sources, and “And Strike Each Tuneful String” is a fine example of his organic style. Johnson says,” In the early 80s, I made a conscious choice to try to bring something primal to my sound and conception of playing. I discovered a field recording made in the late 60s of musicians from Burundi. One or two tracks in particular from that recording caught my attention. The music was played on an instrument called an Inanga, which is a hollowed-out log strung with ox tendons for strings. The strings were plucked in various patterns, and the earthy sound and repetitiveness was quite hypnotic. With a nod towards that reference, this piece is an improvisation and short reprise of ‘Prayer Beads,’ which appeared on the second Bass Desires album.” Overall, Overpass is an inventive solo bass album that shows the many sides of Johnson’s diverse playing and musical experiences. That’s the short of it!