The Sound of Summer Running (1998)

MARC JOHNSON The Sound of Summer Running (Verve) Rarely is an album title (in this case borrowed from a Ray Bradbury story) so apt. With guitarists Bill Frisell and Pat Metheny, and drummer Joey Baron, bassist-composer Johnson has created sounds so gentle, wholesome, even magical, they evoke a country summer childhood. This pastoral sweetness, rare in jazz, is beguiling. But the absence of an edge also allows for a certain monotony to creep in. Maybe that's part of summer childhood too. B-