Practically synonymous for many years now as a member of the Wayne Shorter Quartet, John Patitucci returns to his other life as a leader putting out his own records with Brooklyn next month.
A return to the 55-year-old Brooklyn-born bassist’s roots in terms of place for the album title, it’s Patitucci’s first album in some six years and a shift from his long time home at Concord Records a label for whom he recorded six records, the last trio album Remembrance.
This new electric guitar-focussed album features “the Electric Guitar Quartet” with Adam Rogers and Steve Cardenas, Patitucci himself wielding a semi-hollow electric bass, “with F holes like a jazz guitar,” Patitucci explains on his website is an instrument that was designed specifically for him to draw out both a bass and guitar sound. Patitucci’s long time Wayne Shorter Quartet colleague Brian Blade, who was also on Patitucci’s last solo album Remembrance, returns for this new record.
Issued by Three Faces Records, the bassist’s own label newly created, the album is to be released on 19 May. Tracks are: ‘IN9-1881/The Search’, ‘Dugu Kamalemba’, ‘Band of Brothers’ [a snippet of which is above in the video], Monk’s ‘Trinkle Tinkle’ and ‘Ugly Beauty’, ‘JLR’, ‘Do You?’, ‘Bells of Coutance’, ‘The Thumb’, ‘Go Down Moses’ (the spiritual Charles Lloyd has covered in recent years), and ‘Tesori.’
Patitucci began his career playing with Gap Mangione in the late-1970s and in the mid-80s working on the West Coast was active as a session player also chalking up credits with bandleaders Tom Scott, Robben Ford, and Stan Getz before breaking through more widely on the international scene during his tenure with Chick Corea in the maestro’s Elektric and Akoustic bands. Stephen Graham
Related: 20 jazz BASS GREAT list, Patitucci, pictured top, at no.4