Francisco Centeno, Hansford Rowe and Neil Jason

My older brother is a massive Mike Oldfield fan and, consequently, I made it my business NOT to like him (not heavy enough for me when was a kid). Nevertheless, I have grown to love a few of his albums as much for the production as the material. The reason I loved this album was the bass SOUNDS. It wasn’t until I looked the album up on Wikipedia that I learned who the bass players were (if I recall correctly, the musicians were not listed on the LP cover – I may be wrong). Turns out it was these three, only one of whom I had heard of (Jason). Centeno performed and recorded with Ashford and Simpson, Michael Franks, Odyssey and a host of other well known artist. whilst Rowe was the bass player with Gong (not a band I have heard, if I am honest). Neil Jason was one of those ubiquitous session guys and he played with The Brecker Brothers, Hall and Oates, Paul Simon, David Sanborn and Ted Nugent among a host of others. There is no means that I can see of telling which player played which part (or even if any or all of them were on these tracks – Oldfield plays bass himself although bass is not listed as one of the instruments he played on this album). The track ‘Platinum’ makes up all of Side One of the original vinyl LP (19 minutes 12 seconds) but is listed on the CD/mp3 as four tracks that are segued together. I have done all four of them and am posting them all together on here as they belong together.

The playing on Platinum 2 is exceptional and challenging to write down as there are a few dramatic slides and tremelo effects. The 4th section is almost entirely bass free all bar a few semibreves. Lost of root note 8th and a bit of 12:8. Its a great bit of playing and, as I said above, the sound of the bass(es) is just great.