My review of ECM's first-time issue on CD, Miroslav Vitous' Miroslav Vitous Group, today at All About Jazz.
With the ongoing demand for historic titles to see first-time CD issue, ECM has raised the ante even further with Re:solutions: seven classic recordings, five appearing on CD for the first time, all also being released in vinyl and high resolution digital formats. They're all important, but 1981's Miroslav Vitous Group stands out as one of the most significant, completing, as it does—and more than three decades after the fact—the Czech bassist's early '80s triptych that began with1980's First Meeting and ended with 1983's Journey's End.
First Meeting was a momentous album for the Weather Report co-founder, who left the fusion supergroup in 1973, as his two post-WR recordings for other labels were largely unfocused affairs that tried to be exactly what Vitous was not: a jazz-rock/fusion bassist—and, in particular, a credible electric bassist. That all changed with Rypdal Vitous DeJohnette (ECM, 1979), the bassist's ECM debut and the first of two exceptional collaborations with Norwegian guitarist Terje Rypdal and American drummer Jack DeJohnette. Vitous' writing had evolved significantly in the decade since his particularly fine contributions to Weather Report's eponymous 1971 Columbia Records debut; between his compositional acumen and his pliant, lyrically charged double bass playing, it seemed only a matter of time before ECM would invite the bassist to record for the label under his own name.
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