Carlos Henriquez – Bass

I came upon this album earlier this year. It came out in 2007 but I missed it completely and only found it by accident when I was shopping for something else by Marsalis online. The album is called ‘From The Plantation To The Penitentiary’ and features long-standing Marsalis sideman Carlos Henriquez on bass. This is not a chopsy piece (although there are a couple of moments) but the harmony is interesting and the lines doesn’t always go where you expect it to. This is deep stuff and this kind of stuff reminds me why this ridiculous technique shown by players today is often missing the point. Playing fast complicated lines is great for getting people’s attention but the stuff these guys are doing here is just deep. As Ellis Marsalis said, ‘If you play for applause, that is all you will ever get’. The album seeks to draw attention to the fact that so-called African Americans have supposedly left the slavery days behind but, instead, massive numbers of young Black Americans are in incarcerated for disproportionately long sentences for crimes that see White offenders often walk out of Court. As a former Senior Probation Officer and a member of the U.K’s Prison Reform Trust, I have been aware of this issues for a considerable time and feel it is another crime perpetuated by the USA on it’s own citizens (and this was happening long before that Trump lunatic was elected).

The tune is called ‘These Are Those Soulful Days’. The simple vocal line from Jennifer Sanon is so cleverly understated.