Journey's End

Artist: Miroslav Vitous Label: Ecm Records Category: Music Average customer rating: Media: Audio CD UPC: 781182124226 EAN: 0781182124226 ASIN: B0000031RZ Release Date: 1994-10-25

Listmania:

1. My favourite jazz acoustic bass players

Tracks:

1. U Dunaje U Prespurka
2. Tess
3. Carry On, No.1
4. Paragraph Jay
5. Only One
6. Windfall

Customer Reviews:

A gem in an otherwise erratic solo career.......2001-06-10

Since leaving after the marvellous 'Sweetnighter' album, Vitous's post-Weather Report career has been patchy. 'Magical Shepherd' was fairly dire, and it's one the few LPs I own where I am not looking forward to a CD re-master. (Looking for direction, Vitous had even started playing guitar, which Rolling Stone rated 'a big mistake'.)

But suddenly, almost out of the blue in 1983, came this marvellous ECM album. In terms of instrumentation, the line-up is the same as Keith Jarrett's Nordic Quartet -- piano, sax, drums and bass -- and indeed Jon Christensen is the drummer here. But there the similarities end. For sax and piano, Vitous looked to Britain, and the highly distinctive playing of John Surman and John Taylor. Taylor is excellent, and unlike Jarrett, he never forces himself into the foreground. Surman is a one-off, and I really should have many more of his CDs. I particularly like the low notes he gets on baritone sax and bass clarinet. (If you like this album, you should also like 'Road to St Ives', and it is worth experimenting with 'John Dowland -- In Darkness Let me Dwell'.)

Very few of the pieces here have the conventional structure of a song -- I get little or no sense of verse, chorus, bridge, solo and climax. Rather, most of the tracks are built around an idea, maybe a riff, and the band develop and explore it in a very sensitive and tasteful way. When the end of a track comes, it can be a surprise -- the lack of structure means that on first listen you don't know where you are. But on this album, that is not a failing. (Charlie Haden has a very acute sense of song structure, and that may be one of the keys for a bassist to have a successful solo career.)

The meandering nature of the composition is part of what I love about this album. It's definitely in my Top 50, and one that I could never bear to lose.

Music CD:

1. New York Dances ~ Hamiet Bluiett
2. Original Rags
3. Back Beats ~ Lucky Millinder
4. Straight Ahead ~ Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers
5. The Concord Jazz Guitar Collection, Vols. 1 & 2 ~ Laurindo Almeida
6. Take a Good Look at Mine ~ West Jemond Rhythm Kings
7. Art Tatum Trio ~ Art Tatum
8. All Aboard, Vol. 1 ~ Capt John Handy & His New Orleans Stompers
9. On Tour in England ~ Black Eagle Jazz Band
10. 117 Ditmas Avenue ~ Kasper Villaume Trio

Music CD

Music CD

Music CD

Hot Ones ~ Callacoe

Just as I Am ~ Guy Sebastian

When Squirrels Play Chicken EP ~ Perfect

Big Band Classics the War Years: Stardust ~ Various Artists

Schizophonia, Vol. 1 ~ David Benton

Unreleased Cutz and Live Jamz 1994-2002 ~ The Moldy Peaches

All Because of You ~ Kim Waters

White Lines & Other Rap Classics ~ Various Artists

Swisha House Mix ~ Street Military

Big Ballin' ~ The Cellmates