Gerry Hemingway's residency @ the Stone, 7/28–8/2, 2015

[bluenoter]

 

[Steve Reynolds]

my comments on the 7/29 sets and then the 8/2 sets:

Ok - been a while since I wrote one of these accounts. Hottest day of the year - 96 degrees in NYC - hottest in 2 years and still blazing hot @ 7:30. Inside the new AC is working wonders. All set middle front row with my wife 5 feet from the drum kit with Marty Ehrlich right in front of us with the baby grand piano off to the left with Anthony Coleman facing Hemingway.

first piece 30 minutes pure improvisation with Ehrlich going from clarinet to flute to alto saxophone to a short time on harmonica and then to bass clarinet. How they got to wherever they got and how and why it was stunning speaks to these 3 musicians. Coleman is older yet new to me and was a fine foil but Hemingway and Ehrlich were why I was there.

To be blunt, Hemingway and Ehrlich are a large part of why I am at any of the music shows I attend. No need to try to explain the piece any further. I'm not capable.

Next piece based on a Hemingway composition - "Pumblum" which I was sure was "If You Like" (GH corrected me when I told him what tune it was:)).

the music was recorded and videotaped. If it's made available in any way, let's hope a few here watch and listen to at least this 15-18 minute excursion into the impossible. Mostly on clarinet (along with his voice and maybe some scorching alto saxophone), he again played that b-flat clarinet with the highest intensity of anyone who has ever played that horn. By the end with Hemingway being Hemingway when he blows it all the way out and at complete full volume, I thought my brain was going to melt down - and with a monster crash it was over.

a short softer encore and we awaited the second set

Rudresh Mahanthappa played strong lines throughout playing themes and music from a suite Gerry and Rudresh. Russ Lossing combined the inside and outside of the piano like few others as the music undulated via velocity, volume, and detail.

Mahanthappa has a fine sound and it took a whole for me to forget that I couldn't hear the great Marty Ehrlich again in this set. Rudresh is simply not the same genius level improvisor and musician that Ehrlich is so much of the energy and intrigue of this set came from the dynamic between Lossing and Hemingway. But really all anyone needs is Gerry Hemingway. His power, creativity and his simple presence is overwhelming and the fact that I was again able to experience it in the best venue possible to hear and feel his music was incredibly gratifying.

THEN when the continuous set was losing steam, something happened and the intensity was back, then a pause, they go into Monk's "Oska T", they blow the roof off, the audience is astounded, I'm stunned, we go home - not a thought to put on any music for the hour ride home.

8/2:

First set was Ellery Eskelin's NY Trio with Gary Versace on organ and GH in the rotating drum chair. I will get back to that set if I have the heart....

the main reason I was determined to be at The Stone last night was to see and hear three of my long time favorite musicians in the long standing collaborative group known as Bass Drum Bone. Having seen the band once before a few years back @ Cornelia Street Cafe and having listened to the group on record often and having listened to the three musicians in various combinations with others in ways that depending on the year or the decade as somewhere between often to obsessively (especially the drummer), I knew pretty much what the band and these veteran musicians do.

helluva sentence, aye???

that being said, I wouldn't exchange 10:10 PM through 11:20 for very much on this earth. In combination with last Wednesday , Gerry Hemingway is now my wife's favorite drummer. This band is a grooving, cranking, slamming bar band playing in a totally quiet perfect acoustic environment and we got to experience it from a few feet away. They start with scratchy improv into a classic Ray Anderson piece (from March of Dimes) and 15 minutes later we are screaming and the great man of the Bone part of the trio is grinning ear to ear!!!

on Hemingway's Dance for Edward (for Edward Blackwell) - a tune which Ed really liked according to Gerry. This thing went from downtown to Africa and back and forth. Lordy fucking Lordy!! 25 minutes later, I'm speachless.

I might have then lost my mind but I know they finished with a Mark Helias piece called Land's End. I know you all wouldn't believe it and I wouldn't have either as I had never heard of it, or heard it, but it was more outrageously phenomenal than the Dance for Edward piece. Who Knew?!?

again like Wednesday it was done and we went home with silence from the car stereo

no need to wallow too much on why EE wants to impersonate A combination of Ben Webster and Stan Getz and the second set almost eliminated the thought or question why he wants to do that odd imitation based playing in tempos that barely touch medium speed and when they do, he quickly brings his two wonderful band mates back to numbingly slow and nod inducing non tempos.






Thumbs Up and Hands Down, baby