Anthony Jackson – Bass

I have been listening to Anthony Jackson since I bought my first fusion record in the late 1970s, ‘Al Di Meola’s ‘Land Of The Midnight Sun’. AJ was on several tracks (Jaco was on one of them which, if I recall correctly, was what drew me to the album in the first place – I was living in rural Wales in the pre-internet days and you got what you could when you could as the choice of non-mainstream music was VERY limited). I didn’t fall in love with AJ’s playing until much later (I think it was Camilo’s Suntan trio recording that started that) but AJ has been on probably hundreds of recordings that I own simply because he was the first call for so many artists (still is, I suspect) and he was everywhere.

For a long time, I thought of the Hiromi Trio Project as a poor man’s (woman’s) Michel Camilo Trio but have since come to recognise that this wasn’t fair – you can’t criticise a player for not being someone else. The pairing of Jackson with drummer Simon Phillips is something I struggled with for a long time. Phillips was a favourite going back to his early work with the likes of Jon Anderson, Michael Schenker, Gary Moore, Mike Rutherford etc) but I wasn’t comfortable with the Jackson/Phillips pairing, preferring AJ with players like Weckl, Brechtlein, Hernandez etc. I got there in the end, though.

This is a monster transcription and has some great opportunities to work with a 5:8 time signature – very challenging in terms of hearing it but also reading the ever moving note groupings – stick with it, though, as there is a knack that comes with practice. The tune is 11:49 p.m. from the 2012 Hiromi Trio Project album, ‘Move’. A stunning performance from all involved.