A solo recording can be the ultimate challenge for a jazz musician used to bouncing musical ideas off his or her fellow players. Playing and improvising on your own means the only place to look is within—and not everyone can (or is willing to) go there. Long established on the scene, bassist Charnett Moffett has worked with a broad scope of musicians, ranging from Ornette Coleman to Wynton Marsalis to Dianne Reeves. Moffett brings that same inquisitive breadth to this set, covering jazz standards (“Haitian Fight Song,” “Caravan,” “All Blues," and others), contemporary material like Marsalis’s “Black Codes (From the Underground),” and pop tunes by The Beatles and Sting, plus eight original compositions. Moffett the player is perhaps his most technically dazzling on his own “Skip Hop” and the aforementioned “Caravan,” while he swings hardest on “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be.” It’s a balanced program that shows a lot of thought about tempo, technique, song length, texture, with source material that makes it all go down a whole lot easier than one might expect.
- Ron Carter
- Philippe Petit & Miroslav Vitous
- Mark Isaacs, Dave Holland & Roy Haynes
- Stanley Cowell
- Randy Weston & Billy Harper