Phil Bowler & Pocket Jungle

Phil Bowler & Pocket Jungle 

Release Date: November 11, 2014 
Selection #: ZM 201411
UPC Code: 880956141121

This album presents a band charging back into the pocket, back into the groove, after an extended time out. A band that burned brightly, and sadly, all too briefly, some 20 years ago. Pocket Jungle was the solo project of bassist Phil Bowler, a Grammy winning veteran sideman of the bands of Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Horace Silver, Jackie McLean, Wynton Marsalis, Toninho Horta, Mario Rivera, Hilton Ruiz, and Steve Turre, to name just a few.

When drummer William “Beaver” Bausch decided to record a new Pocket Jungle album in the summer of 2013, intended by the band's members to pay tribute to their mentor, my excitement rose up like a shot of adrenaline. It was the same rush of anticipation I felt so many years ago. Because I was there back then, through good times and bad, as the band's manager, rehearsal host, de facto "5th Beatle" and all around champion for the cause.

This music comes from a place of deep love for Phil from his acolytes, but it's so much more. Together for the first time in over 10 years, playing freshly minted tunes and a couple of numbers from the old band book, their sensitivity to one another, telepathic communication, and compulsive need to push through conventions continues the work they started long ago. A decade apart and not a single beat missed!

Back in the 90s, when I was first introduced to Phil Bowler, without having heard him play, I thought I'd met just another journeyman bassist. What I found instead was a hyper-articulate spokesman for the music that I was so deeply immersed in at the time. We developed a friendship through late night hang sessions at a local diner, and I discovered how much I really didn't know about this music that had become my religion.

Eventually I got the chance to see him play live in New York City with drummer Ralph Peterson. What struck me from the first note I heard (once I picked my jaw up off the floor), was his sound. This tone coming from the bass! Big, woolly, and dark, but with a light touch and articulation at the same time. And a driving beat, married to something much more unusual in a bassist: an emphatic lyricism.


Not long after, I began to hear Phil talk about starting his own group, with me as its manager. Excited and flattered, I wondered why Phil hadn't had his own group before, but it was clear he had been waiting for the right time and the right players. He soon gathered around him the original lineup of Pocket Jungle, young musicians all--trumpeter Bill Dowling, guitarist Pete Smith, and Bausch on drums. The name we came up with for the band summed up Phil's musical vision and philosophy: staying true to the pocket, the groove, while retaining your individual voice and being willing to take risks, to stay wild. Phil understood that these young players were still developing their own sounds, but through his experience, guidance and example, they worked towards developing a group sound, something much more powerful than any one individual contribution.

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