Oscar Pettiford

Wow, has it really been nearly a month since I've posted? Time flies when you're head down in work, which, for the record, I still am. I've just had to come for a bit of air, and ran across this YT video featuring Oscar Pettiford.The recording ban from 1942 to 1944 that was engineered by then head of the American Federation of Musicians union, and trumpeter, James Petrillo, couldn't have come at a worse time in the history of jazz. Just as be bop was in its infancy, we have this black hole that is rather difficult to penetrate when it comes to hearing how the music evolved.We do know, however, that one of the first, if not the first, be bop combos to be playing on 52nd Street was Dizzy Gillespie's band that played at the Onyx Club. Oscar Pettiford played a pivotal role in that band.And, while it would be nice to hear the parallel evolution in Oscar Pettiford's playing, we also know that his primary contribution to the instrument was to break out of the mold wherein the bass player remained confined to marking the chord changes by hitting the root note of each chord at each transition. Pettiford brought a more lyrical style to the bass, and made it more of an equal instrument in the band.Whenever I hear a bass player, whether it's Allen Woody with the Allman Brothers and Gov't Mule, or Bootsy Collins, or anyone else, playing a more active role in the development of a song's melody and harmony, I think back to what Oscar Pettiford did.You can hear some of Pettiford's style in this recording of from the 1955 album Basically Duke. You can check out the YT video link for the personnel, but Joe Wilder and Clark Terry are some names that people should recognize.