Leroy Vinnegar - "Glass Of Water" (1973)

Although he's here today because of the funky rhodes and wurlitzer on this album, bassist Leroy Vinnegar has gone down in history as the person who popularised the "walking bass" style in jazz, in which the bass player plays lines of quarter notes in steady 4/4 metre, at varying degrees of distance from the underlying harmony. This enables the bassist to create a countermelody to the soloist, while still supporting harmonic progression and providing a regular pulse. Don't you wish you'd done that?

Without doing a full bio - I know, my posts are getting longer - he worked with Les McCann for much of the 60s, so just check out this fantastic live video of McCann and Eddie Harris' 1969 "Compared to What", and if you want to go a bit deeper into his prolific, three-hundred album output, you could start with this name search at Call It Anything.

But one more - you really should check out this incredibly cool 1963 track called "Paco" by the Gerald Wilson Orchestra on the album "Portraits" - Vinnegar on bass, Chuck Carter on drums (who also features on today's album), as well as Joe Pass on guitar, and Harold Land in the sax section.

Our rhodes and wurlitzer man today is Dwight Dickerson, who also played on Vinnegar's other 70s album "The Kid", which has seen something of a revival after being sampled by DJ Shadow.

Dickerson's keyboard playing is also worth checking out on these other blogged albums : Bobby Hutcherson's essential "Inner Glow" (1975), Gene Ammon's "Free Again" (1972) - great brass section; key funky cut "Jaggin" - and Henry Franklin's post-Black-Jazz-but-still-spiritual "Tribal Dance" (1977) - killer cut "Cosmos Dwellers", but it's all good.

This album's a little rootsier than "The Kid" - no synths or guitars, a little more of a bluesy touch - Vinnegar worked on Jimmy Smith's "Bluesmith" just before this one. "Glass Of Water" is a bit like an early 70s Milestone album with some spacier rhodes layering. Best track here is the wonderful "Muffin Man", which I included on Rhodes compilation #6, but the rest of it's worth checking out as well.

Vinnegar and Dickerson worked together once more, on 1979's Bev Kelly Live at the Jazz Safari, together with Rudolph "Rudy" Johnson, who you may know from his Black Jazz releases.

Anyway, "Glass Of Water" was to be Vinnegar's last release as a leader for sixteen years, until 1993's "Walkin' the Basses". Hope you enjoy it.

Rapidshare link for Bobby Hutcherson's "Inner Glow" in this post originally uploaded by Bacoso at "Orgy in Rhythm". "Glass of Water" from Soulseek. 

TRACKLIST

01 "Twila"
02 "Funny Time" - (Jimmy Heath)
03 "Glass Of Water" - (L. Vinnegar)
04 "Damn! Somebody Stole my Pants" - (L. Vinnegar)
05 "My Romance" - (Rogers and Hart)
06 "Muffin Man" - (Hampton Hawes)
07 "Hey Mon"- (L. Vinnegar)

MUSICIANS

Leroy Vinnegar - bass
Dwight Dickerson - keyboards
Chuck Carter - drums
Micel Barrere - percussion

CREDITS

Label: Legend Records (LGS-1001)
Year of Release: 1973

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