Well, if you insist ...
With all due respect, I beg to disagree about Jamil Nasser.
He is one of those who have managed to mar my listening experience here and there, specifically as an accompanist to Al Haig ("Strings Attached").
What's all that droning, booming, resonating bass background that distracts from the lead voices and at times even tends to collide with Jimmy Raney's guitar lines? Not always very sympathetic IMO.
Granted that times and styles have evolved since the 50s but what's all that busybody bassing around when, as an accompanist, a somewhat more subordinate role is called for. Where are Ray Brown, Red Callender, etc. when it is all about getting a steady pulse and swing going? There is a time and place for everything and all this droning and resonating may be fine and quite appropriate in other settings, but there??
Or is it all the fault of what recording mix was fashionable in those days?
No doubt Al Haig himself felt differently as he used Jamil Nasser often, but still ...
Gary Mazzaroppi (with Tal Farlow) is another one in the very same vein (even more so, sometimes crowding out the guitarist) who makes it a bit of a displeasure searching out latter-day recordings by artists who I like immensely. No harm and insult meant, but the way they play there, those bass players just "get in the way" IMO.
BTW, talking about dropping names - no interest in Curtis Counce?
so basically different strokes for different folks
but as this thread was about specific bass player performances I was highlighting solely his stance with the Ahmad Jamal Trio, where he is IMO a perfect piece of the "whole" picture......there is a recording of subject unit
Ahmad Jamal Trio - Paris 1971
Ahmad Jamal TrioParis (France), Studio 104, Maison de la Radio June 25, 1971
"in the net" taped one week folowing their performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival (the later saw release on Impulse via "Freeflight" and "Outertimeinnerspace") released, which even more showcases the power of subject unit and Jamil Nasser`s contribution to it....
Actually I don`t own any Jamil Nasser recording following his stint with Ahmad Jamal (funny enough I don`t own any Jamal recording following the break-up with Jamil Nasser and Frank Gant) for a reason, so probably we are not that much in disagreement at all....