Gerry Hemingway Quintet: Outerbridge Crossing (Sound Aspects)
I can't remember where I bought this, it was so long ago.
Most of the posts recently, maybe in general, have been thoughts and responses to recent purchases. It's occurred to me, dig back into the archives.
I chose this semi-randomly. I think became familiar with it because WRCT had a copy. With the release year os 1987, that would put it for me in "summer replacement DJ era". I remember that it left an impression, and I was enthusiastic to buy a copy.
The band: Ray Anderson, trombone (and tuba); Mark Helias, bass; Gerry Hemingway, drums and steel drum: David Mott, baritone saxophone; Ernst Reijseger, cello.
Okay, where do I begin?
I saw David Mott play a work for baritone saxophone and computer-generated tape at the International Computer Music Conference in 1991. Maybe that's a story for another time. (Not regarding David, but me being there. It was in Montreal.)
Mark Helias was supposed to be best man at Lindsey Horner's wedding. He had to cancel, I guess a better gig came up. (?) Bobby Previte filled in, and he sat in with OPEK at Club Cafe later that night. I had him play on Sonny Clark's "Voodoo", knowing he had recorded it with John Zorn and Wayne Horvitz. I don't think I've ever seen Mark play, but I could be wrong.
I met Ernst Reijseger when Manny Theiner asked me to open for Clusone 3, his trio with Han Bennink and Michael Moore. Ernst was amazing to watch, he'd sometimes shift his cello onto his lap and strum it guitar-style. Ernst did the soundtrack to Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams. I sent an email to Werner's website, thanking him for the choice. The response: "You're welcome".
Ray Anderson I met when he played with the Gerry Hemingway Quartet, another Manny Theiner show. The other two players were Michael Formanek and Ellery Eskelin. My band again opened. We were enthusiastic to talk to Ellery about his father, song-poem master Rodd Keith.
And Gerry...yes, there was the gig opening for his quartet. I think earlier, I interacted with him when he was in the rhythm section for the Anthony Davis Quartet at the Three Rivers Arts Festival. The bassist was Mark Dresser, the fourth player Mark Feldman on violin. Jeez, there's a number of stories to return to there.
So what of this record?
"Outerbridge Crossing", the opener. The start of the record is popping and crackling, I think I played it a lot. Gerry has a clear love of polyrhythms, polymeters. The time shifts in the composed sections, in the middle it's free jazz blowing.
"Not Having" follows, a study in long and low tones.
It's two of the three pieces on the second side I remember most. (They can't all be hits!)
Side two: "Endorphin". It's again melodic, like "Outerbridge Crossing" but similarly disjunct. The time shifts, both compositionally and in the group improvisations. Big feature for the cello.
"Threnody for Charles Mingus": Gerry on steel drum here. Though the previous "Not Having" is slow, this is the piece closest to being a ballad. Appropriately, a big feature for Mark, and again the cello.
"Junctures": this was the piece that really set the hair on the back of my neck on edge when this was new. It's highly polymensural, multiple time signatures simultaneously. Looping figures in different meters, superimposed. And it grooves. Mark is on electric bass, holding things down with Gerry. It starts to open up. break down, it's audible. Mark sneaks in with a snap-bass vmp in ten. It still grooves. And so it blows out.
A pretty good reminder of past listening, and what I need to live up to myself.
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