Walking on water
I'd heard several West Coast LPs with Scottie LaFaro on bass before this one. Not only is he equal (at least) to the very best walkers of all time, but the sound of his acoustic bass--especially as captured by engineer Roy DuNann at Contemporary Records--is more true and authentic than any I've heard on state-of-the-art 2011 digital equipment. Van Gelder always made you aware of the presence of the bass; DuNann made you respond to the sounds of gut strings created by fleshly fingers and amplified by wooden cabinetry. Before putting on some reissues of of LaFaro recordings, I had condemned my car's JBL speakers as inadequate to the task. Now I realize the problems of hyper-pumped, boomy, indistinct bass tones begin with the engineering.
