Cashbox : 07/19/1958

The disk is skillfully true to its title: Candoli, Levy and crew offer some hard-blowing on six of the eight sessions, and take a “summertime” blues tour on the durables, Lover Man and Flamingo. Candoli does most of the feature work here—work which contains some of the most penetrating blowing heard in a long time. Pianist Levy and the boys are around for big stints, too. Fine, driving sessions.

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HiFi / Stereo Review
Nat Hentoff : October 1958

Musical Interest: Exciting but thin
Performance: Some vivid improvising
Recording: Clean, close presence

Although this collection generates more excitement than several previous albums involving these Westerners, the set as a whole is spotty. Bill Holman plays what may be his best tenor saxophone on records so far -lean, swinging, and inventive. Conte Candoli has fire, but his tone is metallic. His conception is overly staccato; his lines strut rather than flow; and his ideas are not very individual.

The rhythm section is sturdy. Drummer Marable’s accurate timekeeping, however, might have been more enlivening through a wider use of accents and dynamics. Vinnegar is characteristically dependable, and Levy is the most original soloist in the album although he does have a tendency to be too “busy” in some of his solos. Arrangements are tight and predictable. The liner notes by Bill Russo consist of an excellent essay on the history and function of the double bass in jazz, but have nothing to do with this particular record, except for the presence thereon of a bassist.

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San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco, CA)
Ralph J. Gleason : 08/17/1958

The “Wailers” are pianist Lou Levy and trumpeter Conte Candoli and wail is exactly what they do here, in the truest jazz sense of the word. They play eight ballads and originals and Bill Holman, Leroy Vinnegar and Lawrence Marable assist them in really swinging on down. A very satisfactory album.

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White Plains Reporter Dispatch (White Plains, NY)
Ted Riedeburg : 08/24/1958

For some great modern school stuff, dig Atlantic’s West Coast Wailers, Conte Candoli and Lou Levy (Atlantic 1268). Teamed with Conte’s facile trumpet and Lou’s virile piano is Bill Holman’s romping tenor sax plus the ubiquitous Mr. Vinnegar, bass, and Lawrence Marable, drums. An added dividend and departure from the usual liner note pap is Bill Russo’s erudite essay on the history and function of the double bass in the jazz rhythm section. We’d like more of this.

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Down Beat : 10/16/1958
Martin Williams : 2 stars

I think that on this record most of these men were not functioning in the roles to which they are excellently suited, but were put into roles to which they are not. They are the kind of musicians and instrumentalists whose presence in large and medium ensembles would probably be invaluable and who, as occasional soloists flashing through such groups, would be effective. Here, however, they are heard in extended solos on a “blowing date,” with numbers opened and closed by one-chorus “heads,” mostly harmonized, some with touches of Mulliganesque counterpoint (Cheremoya), and some without ensembles (Lover Man, Flamingo).

I don’t think the question of originality as such really comes up, but Levy certainly seems to be playing more like Lou Levy than like that able reference book of pianists heard on his records of a couple of years ago. However, one device (call it an apparently Monk-inspired approach to “atonality”) shows up in several of his solos (Lover, Love, etc.) like clock-work, and with such long exposure his comping sounds with monotonous predictability.

The rhythm all has good time, but there is little real swing to it. Several numbers (Jordu, Lee) seem played on edge too fast, and there is a lot of that jerky, pit-band bounce at medium and up. Aside from an elementary agreement to use the same tempo, there is little interplay between the horns and the rhythm.

The soloists don’t seem to have been thinking much beyond eight-bars, and stretched out for two or more choruses such thinking doesn’t hold up—a man ends up rattling off the licks he knows—licks we are all likely to know very well, sometimes in a sequence we are likely to know just as well.

Holman comes off best, I think, because he has more presence and he approached his solos with a kind of relaxation that certainly dramatizes the edgy compulsion with which the others, individually and in ensemble, were playing.

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Liner Notes by Bill Russo

THE DOUBLE BASS: AN ESSAY

Early use of the double bass in the jazz rhythm section was very limited. It assisted the drums, piano, and guitar (or banjo) in maintaining a basic and quite simple pulsation. This pulsation, a stated pulsation, existed in unmistakable terms, often as a form of “compah, compah.” Also, it supplied fundamental tones of the harmonies, usually doubled by the essential tones of the more florid trombone part and by the left hand notes of the pianist. These fundamental tones were mostly without an independent melodic significance.

The function of the bass is now much different. It is still played pizzicato (plucked with the fingers) rather than arco (bowed) but its role has been expanded and it has become more truly musical.

Nowadays four notes rather than two are used in each measure at almost all times. In fact, four different notes are used; e.g., C B A D, not C C E E. These notes are played extremely smoothly. Each note is held long enough to allow only a slight separation from the preceding and following note. This legato quality has made the bass much less percussive. The instrument is not smacked or thumped or slapped; it may be insistent but it does not punch.

Also, the lower tones are being used more and more. There is a general increased use of the lowest, the E string. As the bassist has increased his technique both the upper and lower tones are more frequently employed. The lower tones require a great deal of strength and precision to avoid being blurred, consequently their use may be considered a greater advance. (Besides, the use of the upper tones has been with us for ten or fifteen years.)

A tradition of adding occasional eighth-note triplets to the basic four notes of the measure has even more recently become a part of general bass usage. This began with moderate tempos, especially blues, but is now used for all tempos except the very bright.

The most important development seen in today’s bass lines is the attempt to create melodic life. This attempt has been made by not only the bassist who makes up his part but by the jazz composer. The bass line now performs a rhythmic and harmonic function while approaching a melodic independence. Often, unfortunately, the melodic flow is not sustained for long. Many melodic bits may appear, but these infrequently coalesce into a larger melodic whole. The melodic line need not be spun throughout the course of the entire piece — Baroque style; it must, though, form at least a distinct and articulated section — a chunk of music.

The outstanding problem concerning the bass line is not melodic completeness but rather the relationship to the melodies of the other instruments. If both the bassist and a soloist are improvising, for example, there is little chance that their individually valid efforts will come together, forming a larger whole. The relationship between the two improvised lines may not be offensive, and this has largely been the case, but the possibilities which joined and fitted lines offer are great: an increased beauty and a sense of “rightness” — of order.

Composer Bill Smith suggests a release from this cul de sac in a work which he recently wrote for Red Norvo. Here the bassist initiates a short and very melodic 4/4 line which is repeated and repeated throughout the remainder of the piece (somewhat like a Chaconne). Thus the solo improvisor knows not only the general harmonic outlines within which he must form a melody but also the coinciding bass line upon which he operates.

Blanton, whose ability and imagination have so stimulated the advance of the bass, approached the problem from an opposite direction. Working with the Ellington orchestra, much of what he played was against pre-established material: the written arrangement or composition (in much jazz writing the parts for instruments of the rhythm section are merely sketched); he was improvising against a known quantity. (This sometimes led him into the evolution of a distinct and definite part, which was thereafter unchanged.)

Much of the growth of the bass line has been made possible by enormously better techniques of recording and reproducing music. As is probably well-known to everyone today, “high-fidelity” is also “low-fidelity.” The high and the low frequencies of vibration are hard to record and even harder to get through the listener’s phonograph. The greatly expanded frequency range available today has brought the bass into the orchestra, taking it out of the “felt rather than heard” role it has on old phonograph records.

The obverse side, though, is that we hear the bass better on records than in actual performance. The instrument is still drowned out by obnoxious drummers who believe that strength and virility equals loudness equals art. Also, few bassists can get the lovely, rounded, full sound that the recording engineer so easily creates with his superb equipment.

The new concept of the bass is on the whole a marked improvement over the old. It possesses disadvantages, however, most of which are connected with the conformity that is enfeebling and strangling jazz today: almost no-one in the modern jazz world (East or West; hard or soft) would think to use the bass differently. The legato notes are lovely; they give the bass line a continuo quality. But the legato line cannot portray a “strut” like short, snapped notes can. Also, the use of repeated tones allows a melody to be more slowly unfolded than do non-repeated tones, which accelerate the melody’s development.

The unfortunate part of the move back to jazz roots is that it has been incomplete and indiscriminate. We have gone back for some of the worst and we have neglected a wealth of material and ideas. The past must be used with thought and imagination and vigor — as the evolution of the bass shows us.

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In presenting Bill Russo’s The Double Bass: An Essay, we are departing from the accepted norms of liner writing. Customarily, album notes are devoted to biographical outlines of the featured performers and to the writer’s opinions concerning the musical merits of the album. Both Conte Candoli and Lou Levy are extremely well-known musicians, and the same is true of Leroy Vinnegar, Bill Holman and Lawrence Marable. They have all been extensively recorded, and their respective roles in the growth of West Coast jazz has been frequently discussed in jazz publications and jazz books.

In preference to repeating what has already been stated often and well, Bill Russo has written an essay on the history and function of the double bass. Although there are no direct references to the West Coast Wailers in his notes, it seems probable that Russo’s essay was inspired, at least partly, by Leroy Vinnegar’s performance on this album.

Bill Russo, one of the leading figures in jazz today, has been active in every phase of contemporary music: as instrumentalist (trombone), arranger, composer, orchestra leader, and he is one of the best-known educators in jazz. He was an instructor at The School Of Jazz at Lenox, Mass. during Summer 1957. He can be heard, as trombonist-conductor-composer, in his album The World Of Alcina (Atlantic 1241).