Clint Houston - Watership Down 1978

An excellent bassist able to play stimulating lines and engage in close interplay in advanced jazz settings,Clint Houston has long been underrated by everyone except the musicians who play with him. He picked up important experience in the house band at Slugs in New York with George Cables, and worked regularly with Nina Simone (1969), Roy Haynes (1970), Roy Ayers (1971-1973), Charles Tolliver (1973-1975), Stan Getz (1975-1977), and Woody Shaw (1977-1979). The bassist is probably best-known for his long association with Joanne Brackeen (1978-1986), and his recordings with the great pianist. Houstonhas also played with Slide Hampton's World of Trombones, Pepper Adams, Roland Hanna, and Frank Foster, among many others, and has thus far had two opportunities to lead his own record dates, one apiece for Storyville (1978) and Timeless (1979), both of which also feature Brackeen.
This obscure effort features an unusual two-keyboard quintet with bassist Clint Houston, guitarist John Abercrombie, pianist Joanne Brackeen, Onaje Allan Gumbs on piano and synthesizer, and drummer Al Foster. Actually Gumbs, who plays long tones now and then on synthesizer, is not heard from much outside of a thoughtful duet with Houston on Dizzy Gillespie's "Con Alma." Abercrombie (who sounds surprisingly boppish) and Brackeen have plenty of strong and searching improvisations on the fourHouston originals and an obscurity. The fluent solos and driving accompaniment of Clint Houston (who takes "Afternoon Moods" unaccompanied) are excellent. Despite the short LP-length of the CD (39½ minutes), this intriguing set is worth searching for. AMG.

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