Terje Gewelt - Spindrift (2012)

Bass player Terje Gewelt will be a familiar name for those fans of Nordic Jazz. Terje has been a sideman and band leader on many albums and is a product of the same Berklee College that launched Scottish tenor man Tommy Smith and pianist Danilo Perez. He has also worked with Billy Cobham and Mark Isham and has also appeared on over 100 recordings.
Spindrift is Gewelt’s 10th album as a leader and marks his return to the electric bass guitar. He studied electric fretless bass guitar with Jaco Pastorius in the eighties and this album acknowledges the 25th anniversary of Jaco’s untimely death and the undoubted influence on his writing and performing.
Those with a passing familiarity of Pastorius’ repertoire may well expect funky tracks like The Chicken or shows of bravura technique like Teen Town. That Gewelt understands the deeper musicality of Pastorius is the triumph of this recording. This CD is a showcase of compositions at times wistful, at others edgy all with the kind of bass playing that is always there and is so much more than just low notes, never dominating the texture.
The opening track Ohio-ho is a welter of sounds that shows the Pastorius-Zawinul influence with world music vocals, latin beats, Scofield-esque fills and a bass line that is also the melody. Aftermath also references Weather Report but this time in its earlier phase of free rhythmic exploration of a haunting theme.
Pastorius had a fruitful association with guitarist Bireli Lagrene and several tracks feature the wonderfully sensitive Bjørn Klakegg who weaves his magic in and around Gewelt’s bass lines. Bosporos Strait and Citified are excellent examples of this interaction.
The tasteful playing of percussionist Erik Smith is worth mentioning here as his energy on Spin and his reserve elsewhere on the album are so tastefully deployed that he feels like another limb rather than a separate body.
Trumpeter Elvin Lønning completes the line-up playing a crystal clear lead that is so well phrased in the final track Drift.
Terje Gewelt leads a group of voices all blended together to form a distillation of the spirit of Jaco and lets us wonder what might have been had Pastorius not been so cruelly snatched from us. This album is a journey both mystical and listenable and is fine way to lose yourself for a time.