Bass Recognition: Cecil McBee 90

 

Strata East All-Stars - Search for the New Land

We'll resume and start the week off with a milestone Jazz birthday. Wait, you're not surprised I'm doing a milestone Jazz birthday? This is only the 10 trillionth one of the year, but you'll find it's as worthy as any potential celebrant we could name.

He's made a good few albums as a leader, but today's newly nascent nonagenarian is most legendary for the sheer number of recordings with which he has graced the space with his bass.

A veteran of a thousand sessions, I would recount everyone he's played with, but I don't wanna be here typing this until next May 19th.

I can think of 25 LPs I love where he is anchoring the low end, and that's just off the top of my head.

Sometimes with players like this, you go through a period where every beloved record you pull off the shelf has them on it. That's Cecil McBee in a recorded-as-much-as-nearly-any-living-musician nutshell.

I think the thing about him is the versatility, and the ability to adapt across all styles of the music so readily, that has his number at the top of everyone's Rolodex when it comes to making records.

He's also toured with so many luminaries in so many bands, it'd be impossible to list or even annotate them all.

He does lead groups of his own, and I've posted shows where he is the bass player countless times, but today I am going with this superstar quintet, itself almost a Mount Rushmore of musicians in its own way.

All five, Cecil McBee included, are associated with the seminal label Strata East -- which was formed 50+ years ago by Stanley Cowell and Charles Tolliver, two of the people in this concert -- and this is kind of an all-star aggregation based around that label's outstanding legacy.

Strata-East All-Stars

Internationale Jazzwoche Burghausen 2015

Wackerhalle

Burghausen

Altötting, Germany

3.19.2015

01 On the Nile

02 Voice of the 7th Angel

03 A Feeling

04 Travelin' Man

05 Search for the New Land

06 Stretch

07 Suspicion

08 Trying to Find a Way

09 Ruthie's Heart

Total time: 1:17:43

Charles Tolliver - trumpet & flugelhorn

Jean Carne - vocals

Stanley Cowell - piano, vocals & percussion

Cecil McBee - bass

Alvin Queen - drums

448/48k 5.1 surround sound audio extracted from a European digital satellite TV broadcast

converted to 16/44 stereo CD Audio, edited, tracked & remastered by EN, May 2025
464 MB FLAC/direct link

He's 90 today, and I would guess that the bulk of his recording and touring days are behind him, but as far as I know Cecil McBee still teaches at a conservatory in Boston.

Anyway I've got a couple more for May, as I try to catch up after the interruption caused by my brother's suicide last month.

But I would be bassless if I were to miss out on the big birthday of Cecil McBee, born this day in 1935 and still alive and showing the way to the players of today... and tomorrow.--J.