48 BASS MAGAZINE ; ISSUE 4 ; bassmagazine.com
Avery Sharpe
O
nce heralded as a “young lion”
of jazz, Avery Sharpe is now a
savvy 65-year-old veteran of
performing, recording, com-
posing, and teaching. Perhaps
best known for his long association with pia-
nist McCoy Tyner, Sharpe has backed many
jazz greats and has led his own groups, play-
ing both upright and electric bass, and record-
ed 13 albums for his label, JKNM Records.
His latest is 400: An African American Mu-
sical Portrait, which was released earlier this
year. It is a brilliant, wide-ranging suite with
ten tunes, all but one composed by Sharpe,
that present a musical overview of the Afri-
can-American experience, from the arrival of
the first slave ship in 1619 to the present day.
In the album’s liner notes, David Ad-
ler compares 400 to Duke Ellington’s Black,Brown and Beige. It’s an apt comparison.
Just as Ellington did in 1943, Sharpe has
used the expressive power of his composi-
tions to present an historical perspective that
uses both words and music to communicate
with — and educate — his listeners. Through-
out the album, Sharpe’s bass is the central
voice, whether he is playing a melody, pro-
viding subtle support, stepping forward to
solo, or engaging in dialogue with the other
musicians. “All music starts from the bot-
tom,” he says. “Bass is second nature for me,
and I hear things from the bottom first. I go
from there.”
As he began to conceive the work, Sharpe
says, he asked himself, “How can I put 400
years into 60 minutes? I started thinking
about how I wanted to approach that compo-
sitionally. I decided to break it up into 100-CREDIT?