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Gerry Hemingway
Live at Bau 4
ezz-thetics 1070
Gerry Hemingway leads a band of globe-trotters: German multi-reedist Frank Gratkowski whose recorded in the US often; pianist Izumi Kimura based in Ireland; Swiss bassist Christian Weber who’s recorded on three continents, crossing paths along the way with Yanks Oliver Lake, Ellery Eskelin, Nate Wooley, and Russ Johnson; Gerry himself, based in Lucerne since 2009.
In many ways Hemingway’s contemporary music mines his time in Anthony Braxton’s wondrous 1985-1993 quartet. The leaping staccato melody with asymmetrical phrases near the top of the 36-minute “Bau 4 Assembly” is one marker; another, the way that loose suite and the 23-minute “Slivers” use long improvised sections to tie together occasional scored episodes – not that Braxton was alone in that. And Braxton’s quartet prompted Hemingway’s duo with bandmate Marilyn Crispell, prefiguring his duo with Kimura in recent years.
On the CD, a six-minute Hemingway-Kimura improvisation is sandwiched between the long pieces, but I tend to cue up that “Third Story Variation” first, for its unbeatable interplay. The pianist and drummer catch and ride the same pulse, leaving plenty of air but also knowing how to fill various spaces along the way. Their timbral senses are fully compatible: her under-the-hood preparations tilt her sound drumward. They’ll set up a slow groove together, then she’ll use her other hand to play against it. It’s all very attentive and effective.
Gerry Hemingway © 2026 Dragan Tasic
The longer pieces credited to Hemingway unfold like narratives, with discreet episodes, varied pacing, subgroup subplots, ways to build and dispel tension. “Slivers” is for trio, minus piano, Gratkowski leading off on squawky bass clarinet, tracked by Weber’s bass; the time feel is notably looser than the duo’s. A few minutes in, bass clarinet exits, and Frank’s re-entrance on disembodied wispy alto is placed just right: an instant orchestrator’s decision. Later there’s a section for low bass clarinet and arco bass in frictive unison under free drum rustle – suggesting Braxton’s love of the sub-basement, and the flexible trio dynamic of Gerry’s early/longtime vehicle BassDrumBone. But “Slivers” does slack off a bit between the scored tentpoles. There are times you wish the drummer would apply a firmer hand in a what-would-Billy-Higgins-do kind of way. One of Gerry’s signatures at the traps is a free-swinging–arms sense of relaxation, hitting the skins as if on the rebound, with some hits maybe dropped or delayed in transit. In the closing minutes, and on the closing theme, he can come off like someone who thinks he’s swinging harder than he is.
All four assemble for “Bau 4 Assembly” which makes up the bulk of the program. The venue Bau 4 in Altbüron, Switzerland was founded by folks in the timber business, and is located in their commercial compound. In tribute, Gerry and company play or use as beaters wood scraps retrieved from the workshop, notably heard around 10 minutes in, on a fast irregular clacky and texturally light colloquy which develops into something like pointillism with a groove (no small achievement) before flute and pedal-down piano soften things up. But not for long; in very short order, a scrapwood and piano gamelan. Midway, there’s a long-tone chapter with clarinet, and Gerry singing wavery lines into his cymbals or (says here) through metal objects, an odd effect he just about pulls off. (There’s a little Robert Wyatt in his vocal wah-wahs.) The composer and the quartet cover much ground. Elsewhere, a slow line’s melodic contours are subtly mirrored by the drums.
We won’t catalog every change-up or chapter, but near the end there’s a free-jazz blowout whose presence feels like checking a box – which is not to overlook Frank’s rapid multiphonic growls. (He’s got a great command of altissimo and pressurized reed textures.) Then they break into a loose brisk tempo, to frame that free-jazz energy. It arrives just where a non-drummer’s band would place a climactic the drum solo. Then a feint toward the Braxtonian head from half an hour earlier. A few staccato hits end things without a big fuss.
–Kevin Whitehead
