Am I Bothering You

text

A veteran of jazz groups led by artists as diverse and as celebrated as Tim Berne, Marty Ehrlich, Chet Baker, Joe Henderson and Tony Williams, acoustic double bassist Michael Formanek is one of the finest manipulators of his instrument currently working in contempoary jazz. Strangely, then, Am I Bothering You is his first solo album. Then again, this may not be surprising at all; solo double bass records are hardly ten-a-penny, in any genre. For while the instrument is undoubtedly one of great expression and drive, it's not necessarily one on which anyone but a total virtuoso would dare to express himself unaccompanied. When it works, though, it can really work: just think of Barre Phillips. Well here Formanek shows himself well up to the task on a set of ten improvisations recorded drily, sans-overdubs, sans-electronics. Despite the aridity and purity of his set-up, Formanek elicits and extraordinary range of sounds and colours from the instrument, from lush, arco soundscapes to skittering, niggling pizzicato passages that barely sound like double bass at all. For sure, this is hard-going at a single listen; but opportunities to hear a virtuoso on any instrument on this kind of form are few and far between.