Jeff Johnson Trio - Free (1999)

Is bassist Jeff Johnson the best-kept secret in American music? Could be. Toward a definitive answer, we submit Free, his startlingly original first CD as a leader.

Free, a live recording with a noirish, not-one-note-wasted aesthetic, takes jazz to a very deep place. Some musicians' work transcends music, exploring the underground river of emotions far at the back of imagination and desire, and it is in that sense that Jeff Johnson's creativity hearkens to Miles Davis. Listening to this CD is all but akin to a drug experience, as Jeff and two longtime bandmates, saxophonist Hans Teuber and drummer Billy Mintz, make time stand still with music which is more question than statement.

Johnson's trio swings hard, but let's call it a subterranean swing. Johnson, a "musician's musician" with a cavernously rich bass sound from the center of the universe, has a perfect foil in Teuber's puckish, quizzical alto sax, with drummer Mintz coloring their every feint. Or not. This music is all about flexibility and freedom. (Pianist Hal Galper, who has employed Jeff for years, nicknamed him "Free," both for style and philosophy.) For those wondering where the next great migration of jazz will take us after atonality and ethnic amalgamations, Jeff Johnson's music of soulful inner exploration may well open a few necessary, if invisible, doors.

Hans Teuber - saxophone
Jeff Johnson - bass
Billy Mintz - drums