This year’s John Coltrane Centennial has led to countless global events heralding the horn giant and his renowned sidemen. For the bass community that meant the opportunity to honor the late Jimmy Garrison, perhaps the least well-known but most pivotal member of Coltrane’s legendary quartet with drummer Elvin Jones and pianist McCoy Tyner. And who better to coordinate such a gathering than Matthew Garrison, one of the bass guitar’s leading explorers and the son of Jimmy.

Brooklyn’s renowned music and art space ShapeShifter Lab, owned by Garrison and his partner Fortuna Sung, was the setting for the three-day John Coltrane Centennial: Celebrating Jimmy Garrison, from September 15th-17th. Among the celebrants were Matthew and his siblings Joy and Maia Claire Garrison; Arturo O’Farrill and his Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra; Matthew’s trio with saxophonist Ravi Coltrane (son of John) and drummer Marcus Gilmore; trumpeter Wallace Roney Jr.; pianist Aaron Goldberg; SSL Ensemble with bassist/drummer Anthony Muthurajah; youth ensemble Fat Cats; Coltrane historian Yasuhiro “Fuji” Fujioko (who brought precious artifacts, including voice recordings of Garrison); Deen Tyner (son of McCoy); saxophonist Tomoki Sanders (son of Pharoah Sanders); trumpeter Milena Casado,;Melvin Gibbs’ Zig Zag Power Trio, with guitarist Vernon Reid and drummer Will Calhoun; and (in addition to Garrison and Gibbs) bassists Reggie Workman (who preceded Garrison in Coltrane’s band), Cameron Brown, Steve Bailey, Hadrien Feraud, James Genus, and John Patitucci. Also in attendance were bass men Tony Garnier and David Ginyard, while Stanley Clarke, Christian McBride, Victor Wooten, Peter Erskine, and Mike Watt contributed video thoughts.

In a snapshot, Jimmy Garrison was born in Americus, Georgia on March 3rd, 1934 and was raised in Miami. He moved to Philadelphia at age 10 and took up double bass as a senior In high school. Soon he became established in Philly’s thriving jazz scene, playing on his first recording with drummer Philly Joe Jones in 1958 and then joining Ornette Coleman’s band to record Ornette on Tenor in 1961. Coleman recommended Garrison to Coltrane and his background playing free jazz meshed well with Jones and Tyner. The bassist’s first of 29 official recordings with Coltrane was Live at the Village Vanguard in 1961, and includes such other fabled Impulse! sides as Ballads[1962], John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman [1963], Crescent [1964], Ascension [1965], and A Love Supreme [1964]. Jimmy recorded one album as a leader, Illumination!, in 1963, with Elvin Jones. Other pivotal platters include Sonny Rollins’ East Broadway Rundown [1966], Elvin Jones’ Puttin’ It Together [1968], and Ornette Coleman’s New York is Now [1968], Sadly, Garrison passed away on April 7th, 1976, succumbing to lung cancer.

Hallmarks of Garrison’s sound and style were his mastery at breaking up the time instead of walking four beats per bar; his patience and use of space; his ability to create inventive, melodic bass lines; his dramatic use of 5ths and 4ths as double-stops, strumming them with his thumb — a sound that Stanley Clarke said created a whole system of music for him and directly inspired his anthem “School Days”; his occasional but effective use of the bow; and his penchant for opening Coltrane Quartet shows playing solo, before the other members took the stage. On the tone side, key was Garrison’s use of gut strings on his famed over-100-year-old Czech acoustic bass. The instrument served as the connective tissue to the event, as Matthew had Vinny Fodera and Joe Lauricella get it into playing shape for the attending bassists to play.

There were numerous highlights over the three days: Matthew manned the bass chair in the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra to play a piece he wrote with conductor Winnie Dahlgren called “Memory of Emory,” which is based on a solo by his dad on the Coltrane song “Tunji” [from Coltrane, 1962]. The ensemble played five other Matthew pieces, including “Unity” and “Benjamin’s Dream” before O’Farrill took over conducting duties for two of his compositions, with Raul Reyes joining on upright and Matthew playing a second bass role. Noted Matthew, “The idea of all of these compositions is to show the extension of what Coltrane and Jimmy left us and not necessarily play quotes or replicas of their music.”

Elsewhere, Garrison further expanded the role of his 5-string Fodera via fifths, fingerstyle chordal work, and spontaneous reharms in his trio’s set each night, which included such Trane standards as “Satellite,” “Naima,” “Alabama,” “Lonnie’s Lament,” “Lazy Bird,” “After the Rain,” and “Resolution.” Reggie Workman discussed Jimmy Garrison before grabbing Garrison’s bass to play “Dear Lord” with Ravi Coltrane, Goldberg, and Muthurajah. Hadrien Feraud enlisted Goldberg and Gilmore (with whom he played in Chick Corea’s Vigil band) to play “Moment’s Notice.” And Gibbs, Reid, and Calhoun played their distinct brand of jazz-rock-funk on “King Tut Strut.”

James Genus tabbed Gilmore and hopped on Garrison’s upright for a show-stopping duo version of Garrison’s tune, “Ascendant,” recorded on the Elvin Jones album The Ultimate (with Garrison and saxophonist Joe Farrell). Steve Bailey spoke about first encountering A Love Supreme at a student listening party at The University of North Texas and not understanding it. Until his classmate, saxophonist Tim Reis (Rolling Stones, Jack DeJohnette) told him, “Just listen to the bass.” And sure enough, said Steve, the forms started to make sense. He then improvised a Garrison-inspired solo piece on his Sadowsky fretless 6-string.

John Patitucci took the stage on the final night with his upright and a composition he put together with Jimmy in mind. In remarks after his soulful solo performance he discussed the influence Garrison had on him. “He had a presence, he was like a spiritual force. When you’re listening to Jimmy it’s pure; there’s no contrivance. It’s like direct communication.” He continued, “The way he and Elvin were accessing the music was folkloric. It felt very true to the African tradition. And you can hear the blues in their playing, as well. Even though the whole band was operating at an almost mystical level, on a higher plane, it’s very grounded. You can feel the earth. And that was largely because of Jimmy.”

After the event we had a chance to catch up with Matthew to learn more about his father’s impact on his life and music, and get his reflections on the festival:

What impact did your father have on your bass playing?

I think the first thing that really captured my attention was the way he would play his walking lines. There was something about the rhythmic displacements he would use that fascinated me. I had listened to other greats of the era, like Paul Chambers, Ray Brown, and even Ron Carter, who was moving things around and being more experimental. But when I contrasted that to what Jimmy was doing there was a clear difference in how he was placing bass lines around the pulse. He would delay or push a note, or anticipate a chord, or there would be silence. It was never straight boom, boom, boom, quarter-notes. If you listen to bass playing before him and after him it becomes clear what he brought to the art form.

How about his influence on your soloing?

What I didn’t realize until I was told by players that knew him, like Reggie Workman, or were inspired by him, like Stanley Clarke, was that my dad was one of the first jazz bassists to start the concept of playing alone. The stories about him starting off Coltrane Quartet sets playing by himself gets romanticized a bit because I’ve learned from people who were there that it was often because the rest of the guys were late to the gig! But I think what happened is Trane, McCoy, and Elvin saw that he took it upon himself to get audiences ready for the arrival of the band, so they honored that solo space he had and made it a part of their process.

And then regarding his solos in time, within the band, I always wondered why he didn’t do what bassists like Paul Chambers and Scott LaFaro had done previously, which was to play through the changes, spelling out the chords and creating horn-like bebop phrases. Did studying that approach just not interest him? Wouldn’t Trane want somebody who did that, like his previous bassists? But in talking to my stepdad, Jack DeJohnette, frequently about this, he would say, “No man, he played what was needed.” What he did was necessary for the moment because that’s where Trane and Ornette and Sonny Rollins were going. That let me know that my dad was onto something with his unique way of soloing. He was pretty confident and clear about the things he wanted to do, so it was obviously deliberate to forge his own path in the music. Which leads me to realize how important his approach was in that he moved on from both the classic way of soloing through changes and playing walking support lines.

The result of it all is that I’ve tried to apply those principles to my own playing. Like, how can I do something that is unique to what I’m trying to say, while at the same time staying viable as a working bass player? I love playing the bass; the simplicity and power of one perfectly placed root note. At the same time, I’ve developed my own style and a four-finger plucking technique, inspired by people like Stanley Clarke, Anthony Jackson, John Patitucci, Gary Willis, Dominique DiPiazza, and Victor Wooten, and I love to explore. So the question is how can I get to that rarified air my dad was in, where he had to make the conscious decision that this is what I’m doing, come hell or high water. To have that conviction and sense of clarity, that to me is the goal.

What can you share about your dad’s life away from music?

Obviously being so young at the time, my own memories are fleeting. I can remember a day spent flying a kite together, or his deep voice telling me to pick up my toys, which were scattered all over. Towards the end of his life he had kind of gone into obscurity and he was dealing with substance abuse, and he was able to find his way out of it. One of the ways he did that was by becoming a social worker who helped people find their own path out of addiction. I think he also recognized he wanted to be close to his family. So he made ammends with my mother and they remarried, and he came back to live with us. In that last month of his life I got a much stronger sense of who he was. He was very sweet with us and it was a beautiful redemption.

How do you reflect on the event?
Going into it, I felt like people had pretty much forgotten Jimmy Garrison altogether, and I wanted to change that. In actuality the event was a testament to this having never occurred. You could see how he lives on in the minds and playing of people like John Patitucci and James Genus every day, and how much he affected all of the musicians and fans of his music in attendance. Not to mention the joy of having my family reflect on my dad and hearing some of his spoken recordings. So I would say it was mission accomplished, and I’d like to make it a recurring event.