"When I was young, I dreamed of fame and fortune,
Walking the city, head high in the sky,
Youthful and naive, I would make believe,
I was on a stage and playing the saxophone."
- Chased Out, composed by singer Claire Martin and bassist Arnie Somogyi
They share composer credits for this excellent song, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that those are Ms. Martin's lyrics, because Mr. Somogyi's bio says he was a bassist from age 14 and bassists don't grow up dreaming of being center stage on a lead instrument. I got my first bass for my 12th birthday. My dad took me to work with him and on his lunch break we went to the music store and he bought me a black Fender Music Master short scale electric bass guitar.
My uncle Bubs' doublebass was in my grandmother's attic, he was tragically killed in a car accident when I was 2 or 3 and his bass was just up there. When I visited my grandmother, I ran up those stairs to get to that bass and tried to play it, to tune it, I had no idea what I was doing but I knew that's what I wanted to do.
Fast foward 20 years or so and I'm living in Seattle and playing jazz gigs. I was in a band or two, going to jam sessions, and taking calls from whoever was in need and going out and trying to make it happen. There were (and are) good nights and bad nights. Somewhere around 2005 I started to get the idea that a band was at least two things: a lead voice and a rhythm section. The lead voice was usually a horn or sometimes a singer, occasionally guitar or piano, but the rhythm section always consists of bass, drums, and either piano or guitar. I started to notice something else too; the band leaders were almost always the lead voice. They booked the gigs, we were usually billed as the "them" quartet and they hired the musicians to fill out the rhythm section. I also noticed that some drummers and pianists were more difficult to lock in with than others...bad nights.
I decided that I needed to find my best partners in rhythm section crime and make playing with them a regular thing. The eventual result became DeadWax with Jon Reingold on piano and Wayne Porter or drums. We began performing as a piano trio, but also started slowly convincing those lead voices that instead of hiring us as individuals and throwing us together with other rhythm section players who we may or may not lock in with, to just use us as their band.
There is ample precedence for this in jazz. My true north in the world of jazz bass is Butch Warren, who made 8 or 10 recordings with Sonny Clark on piano and Billy Higgins on drums. They were, pound for pound, the best hard bop rhythm section of the early 60s. The records were Dexter Gordon records or Kenny Dorham records or Jackie McLean records, but flip it over and there they were. Then, of course there was the Oscar Peterson trio, who made dozens of records together as a trio and dozens more as the rhythm section for Lester Young, Ben Webster, Clark Terry, Ella Fitzgerald, Anita O'Day and plenty of others. The rhythm section on Stanley Turrentine's great album "Blue Hour" was The Three Sounds. These guys (and their record labels) had figured out that the rhythm section has to be tight or the name on the front won't have a good date and that throwing good players together doesn't always get you that.
I've thought a lot about what makes a good rhythm section, it's not easy. Everyone has to be up for the date and just when you think you are, the music gets more challenging and you realize that you have more work to do. So part of it for me, has been finding partners to do that work with. It helps A LOT if you are rooted in some common recordings and corners of the jazz canon. Then it comes down to listening and communicating. Seems easy, but for some reason, not everyone does this well.
I've been really happy and excited to find myself playing in Two Eyes since we started emerging from covid isolation. You can find a link to from my Projects page. But, we've needed Jon to sit in with us for the last few gigs and it reminds me of and validates my original impetus. Jon and I hear each other and seem to know what's going to happen an instant before it does. We've been recording gigs and I can see moments where he and I make eye contact for a second and a whole conversation seems to happen instantly. Part of that is the countless gigs that we've played together over the last 17 years, we're predictable. The silent conversations go something like "Did the soloist just go to the bridge early? Are we going to follow him there or let him come back to us? Okay, got it." Or "let's do that thing where we resolve up a 1/2 step and then back down to the key center." It's different with Wayne, but a little eye contact, a head nod...and that time that he poked me in the ribs with a drum stick because I was rushing.
That is the work of the rhythm section. That and working out the changes, the time feel, and sometimes an arrangement or a hook or dynamics or a rest and just the right time for dramatic effect. That's the work and I love it. I'm thrilled for all of the trumpet players and sax players and great singers like Mariia Pozhar who I absolutely love playing with. But, give me my spot in the rhythm section any day, all day. I don't really know anything about Arnie Somogyi, but I'm betting it's the same for him and I'm sure that Claire Martin appreciates the collaboration and support.