I am speechless. It is really hard to write for a concert of these heights. The three bassists who play under the acronym SMV could easily come out as “ABC” in the bass playing. And it was far more than only bass…

Extraordinary technique, amazing cooperation, great synchrony, wonderful compositions. There is no need to continue with the epithets. Over 3000 people became witnesses to the emotional blast of the love to music, love to the instruments and love to playing on them. Because I don’t believe that the musicians we saw do not like what they do. Otherwise it wouldn’t sound so fascinating.

There – I am going round and round but I cannot reach the main part. But it could not be described, it is being absorbed. Let Hemingway or Kerouac put it into words. I can only convey the colorful explosion inside me while the 5 men showed what soul is hidden within their instruments.

Shortly after 10 PM with over 2 hours of delay caused by problems on the Romanian border, the lights got off and there scattered the introduction of the album of the trio and its title track “Thunder”. And from then on there followed two hours of non stop string cannonade, so dense and profound that the loudspeakers in the hall infirmly crackled at some times. The speed of the thirty fingers on the strings however was inversely proportional to the cozy, soft trip in the warm colours of the fusion. In Hall 1 there flowed tracks of the topical album of the star trio, supported by the wonderful Derico Watson on the drums and Federico Gonzalez Peña on the keyboards. And while both of them were taking care of the sonar picture, Stanley, Marcus and Victor pounded the bright hatches of the music. The three bass lines interweaved all the time, jumping over one another, waiting each one, outstripping or sliding side by side, tone by tone. Soft and shaded major compositions collected all the warmth of the deep, thick sound of the bass guitar, torn suddenly by insane plucking and percussion-like outrages upon the string instruments.

Each one of the three bassist demonstrated solo his skills on the thick strings but also each one of the outlined his identical style giving additional diversity to the concert. Victor Wooten was the most soloing on the bass off the three instrumentalists. Later Marcus Miller transferred his racing on the fingerboard to the profound sounds of the bass clarinet. And at the very end of the performance Stanley Clarke, the eldest of the three sat down behind an upright bass to take us to “Milano” and the most insane bass solo on an acoustic instrument I have ever seen or heard. After this followed a short break and an encore with the classic “School Days” from the early solo carrier of Clarke rearranged thus, so the three basses to exchange answers for another time and to tell their orange-brown tales, chatting like virtuoso rhetoricians.

The concert finished shortly after midnight, leaving without words the audience amongst which there presented many musicians. I could try even more to carry the kaleidoscope of motley sounds on words, I could tell about the swift eruptions of Derico behind the drums but there is no point. Who was there could hear and see. And who didn’t could only sorry.

Words: Ivaylo Alexandrov

Photos:В Victor AlexandrovВ 

More photos are available in theВ GALLERY.