Every now and then, the jazz world needs a reminder that there are master musicians among us whose distinguished careers, elegant artistry, versatility, intelligence, resilience and well-honed craftsmanship are not given the recognition they so richly merit.
Such a figure is the Connecticut-based double bassist Phil Bowler, a consummate sideman and articulate advocate for jazz who, over the past four decades, has toured and recorded with a litany of jazz legends that reads like a compact version of an encyclopedia of jazz.
A gentle but groove-oriented reminder of Bowler’s legitimate claim to fame and acclaim comes to us in the form of his finely crafted, just released CD, Phil Bowler and Pocket Jungle, which historically marks the veteran bassist’s first album as a leader. Dramatically, it reunites him with original members of a once hot band he led in Connecticut in the 1990s that, quite remarkably, has been reborn after 20 years of silence.
Bowler said that the new reunion with his old bandmates has been as musically smooth as it has been emotionally satisfying.
First let’s look at the story of the recording and the moving reunion of Bowler and his buddies, his onetime protégés of yesterday who are now once again his collaborators of today. It’s especially dramatic because the resurrection of long out-of-business jazz bands has to be regarded as at least a mini-miracle of sorts. Since the end of the Big Band Era and the ascent and suffocating commercial domination of rock, jazz bands routinely have had to struggle just to survive. Many often meet untimely ends, with absolutely no hope of redemption and life after death. Rarely, if ever, are defunct, non-brand name jazz bands like Pocket Jungle brought back to life, especially 20 years after their official demise.
A most welcome exception to the merciless mortality rates for working jazz groups, Bowler’s band is happily revived and swinging once again, back in the groove or pocket, as they say.
Originally, Bowler formed the band back in the 1990s as a kind of working/teaching tool for drummer William “Beaver” Bausch, who had sought him out as his mentor in order to learn first-hand how drummers connect on a deep level with bass players in a jazz setting. Bowler, who has worked hand-in-glove with many master drummers from Jeff “Tain” Wattsto Ralph Peterson and is a natural-born, famously empathetic teacher/scholar, was, perhaps, the most ideal mentor any young drummer like Bausch could possibly wish for.
"Every time I get together with this band after whatever amount of time, it comes together almost immediately. Within a few notes, we are all together. It's an extraordinary feeling."
Phil Bowler
Luckily, Bowler had just come off the road with Wynton Marsalis and was between longtime job commitments, although, typically, this one-man industry was still working with groups led by trumpeters Jon Faddis andTerence Blanchard. At that moment, however, he had the time and the inclination to lead a band of young players in their 20s, all of whom looked up to him as a mentor figure, a globe-trotting pro who regularly toured and recorded with jazz giants they idolized.
Initially, the bass maestro formed a big ensemble version of Pocket Jungle, which rehearsed at the University of Bridgeport. These working sessions gave Bausch, Bowler’s young drummer protégé, the opportunity to work with his mentor in a large band setting. Eventually, the ensemble got whittled down to Pocket Jungle’s founding four, a quartet featuring Bowler on bass, Bausch on drums, guitarist Pete Smith and trumpeter Bill Dowling. Dowling later moved on, and has been replaced in the Pocket Jungle’s brand new incarnation by the resourceful tenor saxophonist Paul Carlon.
For its debut disc on ZOHO Music, the now rejuvenated Pocket Jungle’s lineup is beefed-up a bit with the addition of a special guest, percussionist Scott Latzky. His tablas bring an exotic flavoring to three of the album’s nine spicy tracks that groove on a variety of genres, including Latin and swinging, straight-ahead jazz. It’s all diverse, all in the pocket, tight-knit and interactive. Besides originals, the album’s song list includes compositions by Steve Coleman, Bobby Hutcherson, Harvie S and one sizzling standard, “Old Devil Moon.”
In its original quartet form, the adventurous band had a brief but good run in the ’90s, including performances in jazz festivals in Trumbull and Hartford. Schedules and commitments for band members changed, as they inevitably do, and the band, for all its early promise, closed up shop and remained quietly in limbo for two decades.
In 2013, however, Bausch, who has since forged a career all his own, decided that, as a loving tribute to Bowler, he, his colleagues and Bowler, their musical guru, friend and inspiration of many years ago, regroup and make a reunion album that would feature both old and newly written material. The whole concept of the album was sprung on Bowler as a surprise.
“It was totally unexpected,” Bowler said of when his one-time protégés confronted him with the idea of going into the studio to make a tribute album to him with a reincarnation of Pocket Jungle.
Notoriously, Bowler, for all his immodest amount of talent, is a most modest man -- someone who, over the years, has been adept at promoting jazz and the careers of fellow practitioners, while quite reluctant to ever blow his own horn about his own performing prowess.
“They offered me money, which I didn’t want, telling them, ‘I’d play with you guys anytime, anywhere for free,’” Bowler said by phone from his home in Newtown, describing how he first heard of the proposed new recording session. “They called it my album, naming me as the leader. I was in tears. Nobody ever did anything that beautiful for me.”
Recently, Pocket Jungle celebrated its new album’s release with a session at New York’s Zinc Bar, and is considering having a similar bash somewhere in a Connecticut venue.
"They called it my album, naming me as the leader. I was in tears. Nobody ever did anything that beautiful for me." - Phil Bowler
Although he’s traveled far, Connecticut is where Bowler grew up, went to school, and first established himself, working his way through Hartt School by frequently playing jobs in Hartford. As an undergrad who had come to love classical music as well as jazz, he did his polished arco and pizzicato thing everywhere and anywhere from dance dates to jazz gigs. Industrious even then, he loved jamming with such bandleaders as the jazz saxophonist Norman Gage and with the nationally noted drummer and Hartford native, Walter Bolden, on occasions when Bolden returned to play in his hometown.
A classically trained jazz bassist with a degree from The Hartt School (one of his teachers at Hartt was the world-famous double bassist/pedagogue/composer Bertram Turetzky), Bowler has toured and/or recorded with Wynton Marsalis (including the Grammy Award-winning Think of One), Jackie McLean, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Horace Silver, Terence Blanchard, and Donald Harrison, Max Roach, Slide Hampton, and Roy Haynes.
That’s merely a small sampling of the legion of famous employers for whom Bowler was the first-call bassist of choice for numerous reasons. Among these are his big tone, unerring sense of time, soulful expressiveness, flexibility, and originality. These are just a few of the signature marks of the bassist’s musical persona that embraces both the coolness of rational order, knowledge, precision, and gravitas with the sheer heat of bold, risk-taking adventurousness.
Not one to dwell on past achievements, Bowler said that the new reunion with his old bandmates has been as musically smooth as it has been emotionally satisfying. “Every time I get together with this band after whatever amount of time, it comes together almost immediately. Within a few notes, we are all together. It’s an extraordinary feeling,” he said.
Back in the day when the band was first formed, Bowler recalled, he was the bandleader but a democratic spirit prevailed among all members. “The way I like to run the band is that everyone is invested as opposed to the traditional relationship with the bandleader as boss,” he said. “I was gloriously a sideman in my own band at the same time that I was the leader. It was the greatest feeling in the world.”
As for the band’s name, Pocket Jungle, Bowler explained that the two words are metaphors for his philosophy of music. Jungle, he said, refers to the sense of challenge, adventure, and surprise that improvisers must feel and then convey to the listener with their art of the moment. Pocket refers not to just a groove -- say like a soulful Eddie Harris or Horace Silver groove -- but to a certain spot in the music where the listener feels at home.
“You’re out in the elements of nature,” he said, “and whatever happens can happen, beyond your immediate thinking. Your senses are heightened.” At the same time, Bowler hopes not to lose the audience, no matter how exploratory the music gets as it stretches out taking chances.
What first set Bowler on his own personal jazz journey occurred as a teenager when he first heard his father’s recordings of the original classic Miles Davis Quintet featuring Miles on trumpet and John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, powered by the rhythm section of pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers (one of Bowler’s early superheroes), and drummer Philly Joe Jones. “Back when I was a youngster, I loved Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, and Elvis Presley, and all the doo-wop groups,” he said. “Rock and roll was my thing. I loved it.”
But then came that life-shaping turning point when Bowler first heard Miles, an event whose enormous impact was facilitated by a succinct, yet enormously effective psychological ploy that his jazz-loving father played on him back then. “I said to my dad, ‘Who’s that?’ And he said to me, knowing full well what direction he was sending me in: ‘Oh, no son, that’s too heavy for you. You stick with the rock and roll stuff.’ …Miles was my first hero. Then I fell in love with Ray Brown’s playing: the Bach of the bass, and of course, the playing of Paul Chambers (Bowler’s touch, tone and phrasing have often been favorably compared with Chambers’) and Charles Mingus. I have to pay tribute to my dad for using that psychological tactic on me, knowing full well what path he was sending me down with that comment.”
It’s an ongoing path that may well open up in yet another surprising direction thanks to the rebirth of Pocket Jungle and the release of its new CD.
Depending on its reception, of course, the new album comes with an implicit promise of more explorations to be made, more adventures to be had. All tempered, of course, by Bowler’s simultaneous creation of that magical core groove, the pocket, that primal, soulful sense of home always being there for us no matter how far we travel or how deep we go into the jungle.
Celebrating Three Kings Day
Pianist David “Goya” Gonzalez and The Latin Jazz Experience celebrate Three Kings Day at 7:00 pm on January 9 in the auditorium of First Church of Christ Congregational at 12 South Main Street in West Hartford.
A Hartford native, Gonzalez has performed with Orquesta Pueblo and Los Hermanos Moreno and artists ranging from saxophonist Jimmy Greene to guitarist Daniel Salazar. The band director is joined by two seasoned performers and fellow musical wise men, drummer/percussionist Idalberto Perdomo and Edilio Bermudez, a composer, arranger, teacher, violinist and bassist.
A native of Cuba, Perdomo has appeared with such celebrated musicians as Karl Perazzo from the Carlos Santana Band, and percussionist Armando Peraza. A native of Venezuela, Bermudez has toured with singer Julio Iglesias and performed with many renowned figures including singer Celia Cruz and pianist Danilo Perez.
Gonzalez has described his band’s vibrant style as “a union of musical forces that delivers an exploration of Latin jazz by fusing the indigenous music of Puerto Rico, salsa and a unique and fresh approach that flirts with fusion.”
A $10.00 donation is suggested. Tickets: (860) 965-0635 or email mdeg_pastor@yahoo.com. Order and payment for tickets may be sent to 12 South Main Street in care of Manantial de Gracia.
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