The Silent Life

At the time he recorded this album, in 1990, bass titan Jonas Hellborg was co-owner (with fellow bass legend Bill Laswell) of Greenpoint Studios in Brooklyn. He was also the relatively recent recipient of a custom-made Wechter acoustic bass guitar, on which he had been working intensively for some time. The Silent Life is a program of solo pieces played on that instrument and recorded at Greenpoint. With this music it’s a bit difficult to tell where composition ends and improvisation begins, though clearly both are involved; Hellborg’s playing is virtuosic but not ostentatious, and it’s frequently gorgeous, particularly on the discursive and sinuous “When Ambition Ends” and the funk/chordal workout “Wounded Knee” (on which, okay, he’s maybe a bit ostentatious in his virtuosity).