1. 1. Coming: live episodes
2. 2. Cut and Paste: 18 studio short episodes which can be listened at random
3. 3. Going: live episodes
   
  Total time: 51:53
   

J.C. Jones (electro acoustic bass, live electronics)

This solo bass album is a distillation of my language, the articulation of my voice on my instrument. It is free improvised music, focused on energy and the moment.
This project incorporates electro-acoustic sounds and noises, groovy rhythmical games and sporadic forays into melody.
There are no overdubs. My Lexicon machine is an inseparable companion, allowing me to freely experiment with electronic delays ranging from 0.5 second to 30 seconds.

 

Track 1 and 3 were recorded live in Jerusalem on June 28 2006 with dancer Julyen Hamilton, friend and "artiste toutes categories”. More attentive ears may notice Julyen's brief vocalizing at the beginning of the last episode of track 2.
This 19 minute performance was later edited in the studio and divided into two nine minutes segments.
On track 1, my bass tuning (G, D, A and E flat) precipitates a spontaneous interaction with the 5 note theme from the Steven Spielberg's “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”.
Track 2 is composed of 18 shorter episodes, ranging from 40 seconds to two and a half minutes, all selected excerpts from previously recorded projects (August 2005 to August 2006). These events were cut and paste in the studio .
Track 3 begins with the identical episode we hear at the end of track 1.

 

Dedicated to:
Joëlle Léandre, la superbe sauvage, and Mark Dresser for their ongoing support and formidable inspiration.
The magnificent Italian bassist Stefano Scodannibio. To quote Dresser, one of the "baadest" bassists on the planet.
Ma muse Judy, who always reminds me that there is more to life than music.
Pianist/ composer Ariel Lanyi Swedenson for his contagious enthusiasm and his supportive dad, Gabi.
My dear Kadima Collective colleagues and the other talented musicians and performance artists with whom I have collaborated, thus enabling me to find my own sound.
JC Jones
Jerusalem, October 2006

 

Front cover photo by Ronen Hirsch. JC Jones at the White Night Musical Marathon, Einav Center, Tel Aviv, June 29, 2006
Bass photo by Shelly Ben Shachar
Drawing by Keren Asaf

 

“Your solo cd is great. Musically it hangs together nicely.”, Mark Dresser

 

By KARL A.D. EVANGELISTA
March 7, 2007 in Italian Removed

Outline and mien peg J.C. Jones as the prototypal improvising bassist—long and lanky, slumped into his instrument with a sort of focal intensity, like a surgeon—or a butcher—teasing at thick guts. The cover photo of Hosting Myself has all the bearings of an ancient iconology, and there are surely mystical undertones to that title—as if Jones's music were an act of self-sacrifice, a sonic communion.
As a bassist in the solo idiom, Jones engages among the holiest of practices; the ecclesiastics of Charles Mingus and Jimmy Garrison's ceremonial airs root a tradition steeped in mythology, in physical and spiritual force. Fitly, and somewhat uncannily, Jones's music comes from the holy hub of Jersualem, and its power is encompassing and universal.
Jones' Kadima Collective touts the phrase "more than music, and there is a sense of the transcendental in Hosting Myself. What is "more, though, is both surpassing and remarkably grounded - like all truly fine solo improvisation - an abstract sense that there is more to the performance than the spectacle of percussion, wires and vibrating strings. Jones's most immediate precedent, the solo bass pioneer Barre Phillips, has that "sense, too; Jones and Phillips share a knowledge of the bass's penetrating force, its intrinsic soulfulness. Jones's bristling, terpsichorean lines, echoing to the point of mantra, owe a clear debt to Phillips' resonant solo work.
A second, somewhat more oblique reference point is Derek Bailey. Jones gravitates toward a "purer sonic improvisation that leans on timbral, often toneless rhythms as "motivic centers. The use of electronics on Hosting Myself multiplies the density of Jones' sonic architecture, coaxing a visceral quality from the strings. The deadly focus of these pieces, and their commitment to the tiniest report, recall Bailey's shamanistic character; there is spirituality here, in the sheer act of improvising, summoning - and not merely playing - sounds. As with Bailey's music, there is no explicit spirituality to these recordings. Doubtless, though, there is something magical, almost holy, about improvisation of this nature; Jones touches on all the right levels and degrees, convening a fine offering.