Joe Fonda - Eyes On The Horizon (Long Song Records, 2024)

By Stef Gijssels

This album is a tribute or a gift by bassist Joe Fonda to his master teacher, Wadada Leo Smith. They have asked their friends Satoko Fujii to join on piano and Tiziano Tononi on drums. The four have an interesting list of mutual collaborations, creating high expectations for this quartet performance. 

In 1982 Joe Fonda and Wadada Leo Smith had their first collaboration with the Creative Improvisors Orchestra – "The Sky Cries The Blues" and in 1989 with Smith on "Procession Of The Great Ancestry". Fonda performed many times with Satoko Fujii, and released the duo albums "Duet" (2016), "Mizu" (2018), "Thread of Light" (2022), and a trio on "Triad" (2018) and "Four" (2019). With Italian drummer Tiziano Tononi they perform in several bands released on the Italian Long Song label, as is this album, with some special other releases worth mentioning such as the Allman Brother's tribute "Trouble No More... All Men Are Brothers" (2017) and even more recently on "Winter Counts (We'll Still Be Here!)" (2023) on which Fonda plays electric bass on a few tracks. Also worth mentioning is the J. & F. Band's "From The Roots To The Sky" (2018), "Cajun Blue" (2020), "Me and the Devil" (2021) and "Star Motel" (2024) And to complete the list, Smith and Fujii collaborated on "Aspiration" (2017), "Hyaku, One Hundred Dreams" (2022). That's quite a list. 

Despite the line-up and the lead voice of the trumpet, this is very much a Joe Fonda album, with a prominent voice of the bass, both plucked and arco, often setting the basic theme for the other musicians to expand on. The music has an inherent openness and freedom of movement, an environment that suits all four musicians in a very natural way. They need just the slightest hints to move the music forward with strong coherence and depth. 

A good example is the "We Need Members Opus #4", on which Fonda's rock solid bass vamp is an open invitation for the quartet to have a more than twelve minutes meditative development, with thanks to Fujii some moments of more dramatic tension, and a great bass solo in the middle section. 

The most moving and beautiful piece is "My Song Opus #2", a gentle sensitive theme introduced by the piano, supported by Fonda's brilliant bowed bass, countered by an angular contrasting theme, full of dramatic effect, recreating the theme from the start, now more eery, more vulnerable, uncanny even. The rapid-fire pizzicato bass, the slow trumpet, the mysterious piano and the precise percussion create a wonderful sonic universe that requires great skills and artistic vision. A real treat. 

"Like No Other" is - unlike all other tracks - not dedicated to Wadada but to Bobby Naughton, the vibraphonist who passed away in 2022 and with whom both Fonda and Smith performed. The piece starts with a very dark and dramatic unison theme between arco bass and trumpet, that leads into a heartrending and moving duet, that is both ethereal and intimate. 

Boppish, angular themes act as jumping boards for bright and shiny improvisations. There is almost only light in this music, with a few exceptions. It's grand and intimate at the same time. 

The music is so great, tight and free that you wonder why these four artists never recorded together before.  I can only encourage Joe Fonda to keep the initiative. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp.