So the other night I listened to this entire concert, Allan Holdsworth and Allan Pasqua live at Yoshi's with Chad Wackerman and Jimmy Haslip.
Killer concert, excellent performances all around.
But it's really the first time I've listened closely to much Jimmy Haslip. I'm semi-aware of his work with The Yellowjackets, but never paid close attention to their music.
Conversely, I'm very aware of the music of Allan Holdsworth, and after listening closely to many of the phenomenal musicians who've held down the bass chair in his bands -- Jeff Berlin, Dave Carpenter, Jimmy Johnson, etc. -- I was looking forward to hearing how Mr. Haslip fit in.
So two things really struck me about Jimmy's playing (well, three if you count the cognitive dissonance of watching a left-handed player on a right-handed instrument upside-down)
1) Jimmy clearly knows how to solo over changes, and in a way that deftly helps the listener know what the changes are...which, in an Allan Holdsworth composition, can be an especially diffficult task! Kudos to Jimmy's big ears and musical chops.
2) When he's soloing, especially on the higher strings, his forceful attack often comes across as a liability: It's like he's striking the string too hard, and/or that the action on his bass is too low, so that the string is bottoming out against the fretboard and making a lot of "spank/clank" sounds rather than developing a full round tone. Is that typical of his playing elsewhere, or just something particular about this concert? Seems like an odd foible or artifact for a musician of otherwise irreproachable caliber.
Anyhow, highly recommended show for fans of contemporary fusion or fans of old-school fusion circa 1975 ...e.g., The New Tony Williams Lifetime, of which both Holdsworth and Pasqua were members. (This concert includes three numbers from the Believe It album.)
Killer concert, excellent performances all around.
But it's really the first time I've listened closely to much Jimmy Haslip. I'm semi-aware of his work with The Yellowjackets, but never paid close attention to their music.
Conversely, I'm very aware of the music of Allan Holdsworth, and after listening closely to many of the phenomenal musicians who've held down the bass chair in his bands -- Jeff Berlin, Dave Carpenter, Jimmy Johnson, etc. -- I was looking forward to hearing how Mr. Haslip fit in.
So two things really struck me about Jimmy's playing (well, three if you count the cognitive dissonance of watching a left-handed player on a right-handed instrument upside-down)
1) Jimmy clearly knows how to solo over changes, and in a way that deftly helps the listener know what the changes are...which, in an Allan Holdsworth composition, can be an especially diffficult task! Kudos to Jimmy's big ears and musical chops.
2) When he's soloing, especially on the higher strings, his forceful attack often comes across as a liability: It's like he's striking the string too hard, and/or that the action on his bass is too low, so that the string is bottoming out against the fretboard and making a lot of "spank/clank" sounds rather than developing a full round tone. Is that typical of his playing elsewhere, or just something particular about this concert? Seems like an odd foible or artifact for a musician of otherwise irreproachable caliber.
Anyhow, highly recommended show for fans of contemporary fusion or fans of old-school fusion circa 1975 ...e.g., The New Tony Williams Lifetime, of which both Holdsworth and Pasqua were members. (This concert includes three numbers from the Believe It album.)
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