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Review title: Virtuosity for its own sake.
Product review: Jazz musicians have a hard enough time as it is, so I hesitate to be negative. I wasn't familiar with Bromberg, so I bought the disc on the recommendation of the sticker on the front. A number of superficial things about it put me in mind of vanity projects - the cheesy photos of Bromberg peering wistfully over the bass, the platitude about the music being from the heart, and the address for his fan club. As far as the music goes, I think Bromberg is an expert player, but to me the songs are overwrought with technique, and the bass is oppressively up front in the mix. I have other recordings where the bass player is the "leader," (Paul Chambers comes to mind), but I think they're richer for their understatedness.On a final note, I have to ask one thing. Why do a lot of players like Bromberg invest in an antique bass that has taken hundreds of years to develop a mature, woody tone, and then bury that tone in that awful, rubber-bandy, pickup sound?
