Friday, June 10, 2022

JONAS HELLBORG – The Bassic Thing (Amigo, 1981)

Instrumental
International relevance: **

Jonas Hellborg is a world renowned bassist having played with a plethora of bands and musicians as diverse as John McLaughlin, Material, Public Image Ltd. and Ginger Baker. He's best known as a jazz fusion player, and although this his debut album shows him a solo player in the strictest sense, it's still a fusion album, with fusion moods, fusion moduses and fusion methods. Stripping away every other musician to let the electric bass be all and everything doesn't change that. And if your standard fusion album is a group exercise in picking fluff out of your umbilicus, "The Bassic Thing" even more of a belly button scrutiny. I never understood the notion of the bass – or for that matter, the drums – as a solo instrument as anything but a show-off by someone who doesn't know his or her place in an ensemble setting. And a show-off this is. I'm bored to ashes before even the first track is finished, and then there's 35 more minutes to suffer by. File under 'patience flagellation'.

Full album

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