JAZZ REVIEW : Bromberg Puts Bass Front, Center

Brian Bromberg can get his bass to do just about anything except wash the dishes.

When he linked his instrument up to a synthesizer Tuesday at the Biltmore Hotel’s Grand Avenue Bar, Bromberg made what looked like a regular electric bass sound like a string section with brass accompaniment, a set of pan pipes, a guitar and more. At some points, he even sounded like a bass.

Like Stanley Clarke before him, Bromberg has taken the bass to a front-and-center position, using it mainly for melody and solo roles. Handling the nuts-and-bolts bass playing was Bruce Stone.

In the third set, Bromberg’s jazz/fusion quintet--the others were Marc LeBrun, keyboards, Doug Webb, reeds and Joel Taylor, drums--worked mostly from his new “Bases Loaded” (Intima) LP. Like much of contemporary music, the pieces had brief, catchy melodies, were well-orchestrated, utilized simplified harmonic bulwarks during the improvisations and tended to be too loud.

“Cheer Up” had a happy feel, and found Webb, on tenor sax, firing out charged, careening lines that sometimes ended in high squeals, all over a thumping back-beat. The leader’s steaming solo sounded as if he’d put three steel-strung violinist virtuosi out of work.

“Hear Our Cry,” curiously upbeat since its title refers to strife in South Africa, had a Caribbean lilt. Here Webb offered swirls of notes that seemed to be chasing each around in circles, while Bromberg achieved an attractive, ringing plucked tone. “Bases Loaded” was Bromberg all the way, exhibiting the two-handed technique that makes his faster-than-the-ear-can-hear lines possible.

While Bromberg’s show on paper might read like a novelty act, it isn’t; rather it’s yet another interpretation of how to blend jazz and pop elements, and in that arena he succeeds fairly well.