Guitarist leads all-star quartet
PREVIEW
John Abercrombie Quartet Where: Yardbird Suite, 102nd Street and 86th Avenue When: Thursday at 8 p.m. Tickets: $24 members, $28 for guests through Ticketmaster or at the door
Have you ever considered the humble origins of some of the greatest recordings?
In a recent interview with jazz guitar master John Abercrombie, I wondered what he could recall about making his 1974 debut release, the aptly named album Timeless.
A landmark in the thenexperimental sub-genre known as jazz-rock, Timeless alternated between burning power trio tracks and some of the most sublime acoustic balladry ever, capped by a long, hypnotic, modal title track that started off in the vein of an Indian raga.
Nearly 40 years later, master guitarist Abercrombie remembers that long-ago studio date mostly for the thrill of working with Jan Hammer, then keyboardist with Mahavishnu Orchestra, and drummer Jack Dejohnette, who was a recent alumni of the Miles Davis Band.
“They were both in the same kind of place, in between jazz and rock, that I was in.”
Abercrombie, then 29, was no slouch. The musician from Portchester, N.Y. had put in five years at Boston’s Berklee College, played for Dreams, a seminal fusion band, and was also working for the Gil Evans Orchestra. It was a heady time of transition in music as a new young audience tuned into jazz-rock sounds.
He recalls the session came off quickly as the trio worked from rough sketches he had jotted down beforehand, in keeping with the jazz esthetic of spontaneous invention. “It was amazing but I remember thinking ‘I hope the next one will be better’.”
And there was one other factor that kept the trio from lingering.
“It was in a tiny little studio in Soho (Lower Manhattan) and the couple that owned it must have had a lot of cats. You could tell that because the whole place smelled of cat urine. So I guess we didn’t want to stick around too long.”
If the man had retired a week later, those sessions would still warrant him a spot in jazz history. But at 69, his name evokes a string of memorable works and collaborations, including the guitar duo with friend Ralph Towner that first brought him to Edmonton in the mid-1980s, and the guitar-organ trio that he headed up for Edmonton’s Jazz Fest in 2009. He played a role in forging the influential ECM sound and the label has issued 30 albums under his name.
In jazz there’s no substitute for shared experience and the guitarist has found another timeless combo in the all-star quartet of leaders he brings to the Yardbird on Thursday, with pianist Marc Copland, bassist Drew Gress anddrummerJoeyBaron.For the second time in his career, he’s leading a quartet that includes the tricky combination of guitar and piano.
“That’s the old story, that guitar and piano clash and that you should never have them in a band together because they get in each other’s way. The critical factor is that you listen to each other and it helps if you have a similar sense of harmony.”
Their recent ECM release 39 Steps shows just how good it gets when old friends work together. About half of the titles were inspired by his love of old movies, Hitchcock in particular, but their postbop mix of moods and lyrical beauty is striking.
Abercrombie loves the quartet’s chemistry and allows that Joey Baron seems to be “everybody’s favourite” for his imaginative, sensitive use of the drums.
“He can make anything work. He makes everything feel natural. You feel he’s really playing with you. It’s the same with Drew Gress — he knows how to play a supportive role and when the music needs more.
“Marc Copland and I just float off and blend because we’ve been playing together so long.”