Gerald Veasley - Your Move (2008)

On Your Move, bassist Gerald Veasley uses his musical vocabulary in a creative and personal manner to deliver inviting harmonic rhythms, extended phrases, and flexibility. This follow-up to Gerald Veasley at the Jazz Base!, a live set recorded at Veasley's club in Pennsylvania, is a richly textured recording that finds Veasley collaborating with the award-winning contemporary jazz guitarist Chuck Loeb on four songs including the title track. The sterling set opens with "Hear Now," a high-energy, funky, riff-laden tune that spotlights Veasley's exemplary execution of the melody and his solos on four- and six-string basses. "Slip 'N' Slide" features Loeb's great chops on a variety of instruments and is the kind of head-boppin' song that keeps your feet moving, but by contrast, the cool beauty of "So Close to the Sun" showcases trumpeter John Swana in a melancholy mood and is yet another indication of the rich textures on this great CD. Continuing with the feel-good feeling of the opening track, "Your Move" grooves with an easygoing mellowness that is built on a solid ground beat. The passing of a longtime friend provided the inspiration for "Three Tears," a hopeful tribute which features mournful EWI phrases played by Chris Farr. This particular composition also features Farr on saxophone using slower harmonic rhythms to give the listener a sense of peace and serenity. Veasley continues to share his compositional integrity on "Roxanne's Dance," an emotional ballad that displays Veasley's superb flexibility on five-string acoustic bass guitar and six-string bass guitar. It's quite clear that Gerald Veasley and his masterful collaborators emphasized a higher level of excellence, and the results reveal how well the different ensembles performed as unified interpreters of his musical vision. ~ Paula Edelstein