Abraham Laboriel - Open Your Eyes, You Can Fly. Gary Burton

[shirojiro]

I was going through some old cassette tapes and found this tune with Abe Laboriel on fretless bass, and he is just killing it.

This song has influenced my playing and thinking about music since the early 80s, and it still amazes me that this was Laboriel's debut recording., or at least that's what my jazz teacher told me at the time.

If you have a few minutes, give it a listen. The bass solo is incredible, but the whole tune is worth the time.

 

[FilterFunk]

I was going through some old cassette tapes and found this tune with Abe Laboriel on fretless bass, and he is just killing it.

This song has influenced my playing and thinking about music since the early 80s, and it still amazes me that this was Laboriel's debut recording., or at least that's what my jazz teacher told me at the time.

If you have a few minutes, give it a listen. The bass solo is incredible, but the whole tune is worth the time.

Man, that whole thing was great! He's doing some ultra-cool things with that solo.

 

[bassbrad]

Thanks for sharing and the heads up, Abraham is one of my favorite players.

 

[Bob_Ross]

Wow, I'd never heard this version (or, for that matter, anything else from this Burton album). Very cool bass playing from Abe.

Of course, I'm very familiar with the version of "Open Your Eyes, You Can Fly" from Flora Purim's 1976 album of the same name, which also features some very cool bass playing, in this case, by Alphonso Johnson:

 

[shirojiro]

Man, that whole thing was great! He's doing some ultra-cool things with that solo.

That solo is amazing.
Back in the 80s , I spent hours learning it, but never got all the nuances right. It has this loose, rubbery feel that’s difficult to cop.

 

[shirojiro]

Wow, I'd never heard this version (or, for that matter, anything else from this Burton album). Very cool bass playing from Abe.

Of course, I'm very familiar with the version of "Open Your Eyes, You Can Fly" from Flora Purim's 1976 album of the same name, which also features some very cool bass playing, in this case, by Alphonso Johnson:

This is the version that pops up with most searches.
It’s great!

 

[PhR75]

I was going through some old cassette tapes and found this tune with Abe Laboriel on fretless bass, and he is just killing it.

This song has influenced my playing and thinking about music since the early 80s, and it still amazes me that this was Laboriel's debut recording., or at least that's what my jazz teacher told me at the time.

If you have a few minutes, give it a listen. The bass solo is incredible, but the whole tune is worth the time.

Is it a fretless? I think he is just playing his Goya Panther short scale bass. Lots of bending the strings and heavy attack too.
Great sound.

At the same time he also played on some of the tracks from Andy Pratt's 1973 album and if I'm not terribly mistaken that and the Burton album are the first recordings he did in the US.
This track features Abe:

 

[Jeff Scott]

Listening to this now. Very good, but I prefer Flora's version.

 

[jerry]

Listening to this now. Very good, but I prefer Flora's version.

That whole album of Flora's is fantastic, one of my death bed albums for sure. Abraham's use of the Goya like Gary King's use of Guild basses gave those cats a little different sound then a lot of session cats of the day,

 

[bassbrad]

I listened to record this several times last week [while on a bit of a vacation] and really enjoyed it, I don't always enjoy Gary Burton but have much respect for his compositions, leadership and players but his often cerebral approach and vibe sound get tiring.

 

[Bob_Ross]

his often cerebral approach and vibe sound get tiring.

I've got no problem with Gary Burton's "often cerebral approach" -- and I would argue that from a purely musical perspective (i.e., the content) he is one of the most brilliantly accomplished jazz soloists ever -- but I definitely understand taking issue with the sound of his instrument. It seems to suffer from a lack of expression and variety; there just aren't a whole lot of different articulations that the vibraphone is capable of executing, the dynamic range is rather limited, and the timbre remains uniformly consistent to a fault. So I tend to appreciate his music more as an academic exercise (e.g., while following a transcription) than I do as a pure listening experience.