Putter Smith
Acoustic Bass Solo on
These Things

About

Closing out the solo section, this acoustic bass improvisation spans two choruses of the 36-bar AABA form at an uptempo swing feel at 225 BPM. The underlying chord progression is drawn from "All The Things You Are," making this a contrafact—a new melody composed over borrowed changes. Bassist Putter Smith then takes two choruses at 225 BPM, a rare extended bass solo that speaks to Smith's stature as a musician and the egalitarian spirit of the quartet. Coming after Alan Broadbent's piano solo, this is the final improvisation before the ensemble returns to the head.

Putter Smith was 73 to 73 years old at the time.