Over a period of nearly half a century, Johnson has been a high-level player including as a creative bandleader with Bass Desires, or as a more conventional trio bassist with Bill Evans and latterly his wife Eliane Elias – who was the producer for these 43 minutes recorded in her hometown of São Paulo. The eight tracks are generally quite straight-ahead with, interestingly, only the items featuring bowed bass being also the ones with some overdubbing of pizzicato backings. Otherwise, even those that are moody rather than jazzy are played with conventional means, and the two standards manage to incorporate backing and improv simultaneously. In the case of Eddie Harris’ ‘Freedom Jazz Dance’, which opens the programme, repeated reference to a low-register rhythmic figure stays in the mind during repeated upper-register forays, while ‘Love Theme From Spartacus’ – a reference back to Bill Evans – uses the open strings of E, A and D as occasional underscoring of the melody. Though beautiful, the latter barely holds the attention till its end, and serves as a reminder that an album of unaccompanied bass is even more of a challenge (for both performer and listener) than unaccompanied saxophone.