#marcus gilmore

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Jazz drummer Marcus Gilmore with the Vijay Iyer Trio in 2009. Photo by Mossburg79.

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Armando’s Rhumba by Chick Corea & The Spanish Heart Band, live at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 2019

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And Brandee Younger is no slouch herself. What I actually love about this is that there is this great pocket that's clear and firm and then vanishes a little, where it's more a suggestion than something concrete.

Also fun (for me) is Rashaan Carter. In that trio setting, I think a lot of people would be tempted to double down on that pocket. He is definitely doing a certain amount of grooving, but he then hops up near the top of the instrument's range and leaves space with these lines that wrap around what Brandee is doing. Marcus Gilmore is kind of effortlessly fantastic and they both let Brandee bring out the transcendental side of the piece.

[americanjazzmusicsociety]

Executive Producers Brandon Baker and Kwame S. Brathwaite collaborate with musicians Nicholas Payton, Marcus Gilmore and Spoken Word Artist Marc Bamuthi Joseph to change the narrative around the BLM movement. Special Guest vocalists Jasmine Mitchell, Melanie Charles and Vegas Cola complete the media

[jazzviewswithcjshearn]

In depth live review: Pat Metheny Side Eye at Sony Hall, September 13, 2019

Pat Metheny Side Eye, Sony Hall, 9/13/19

Pat Metheny: acoustic, and electric guitars, orchestrionics, guitar synth; James Francies: acoustic piano, keyboards, electronics; Marcus Gilmore: drums.

Over the past few years guitarist Pat Metheny has been extending the tradition in jazz of mentoring young musicians on the band stand the way Miles Davis, Art Blakey, and currently, the way Wallace Roney, Herbie Hancock, Gary Burton and Chick Corea have done.  It's a practice that is rarer and rarer in the music as some of the  legends who have done so have passed on, and because the music got a boost in the 70's from academia, the kind of university of the street aspect of playing on the road has been minimized.  The guitarist's Side Eye project premise is simple: play with young musicians who've grown up on his music that have caught his attention and see the ways in which they can approach his massive catalog.   It is thoroughly in the tradition, albeit his own unique tradition and spawns from his invitation of young musicians to his New York home, and spending large amounts of time with a wide cross section of his own tunes.   On the evening of September 13th at Sony Hall in New York City flanked by cameras for an NHK Japanese broadcast, the group, spurred on by an appreciative sold out audience played a continuous two and a half hours of inspired music making.

Indeed, the sort of all encompassing approach of including his entire catalog under one roof has been in play for quite a long time now. For the past several years with his current quartet featuring pianist Gwilym Simcock, bassist Linda May Han Oh, and drummer Antonio Sanchez, and on the final Japanese tour of the Pat Metheny Group with the core quartet, Metheny explored rarely played classics to the delight of audiences all over the world. Though the cast of musicians has rotated including Nate Smith, and Anwar Marshall, James Francies on keyboards and synth bass has remained a constant. With the trio of  Francies  and Marcus Gilmore on drums for the summer tour not only did he investigate gems from his book of more than 500 compositions, he expanded on them, and wrote new music that took the band's individual personalities to full effect without sacrificing the selfless whole of the superior musicianship on display.

James Francies has been rising quickly on the jazz scene with his Blue Note debut Flight. He is among a cadre of musicians helping bring younger audiences to jazz blending hip hop, R&B, soul and gospel influences along with Robert Glasper, Derrick Hodge, Chris Dave and Unity Band/Unity Group alumnus Ben Williams.  In Francies, not only has Metheny found an ideal partner that pianistically is a huge contrast to Hancock, Lyle Mays, Paul Bley, Brad Mehldau, and Simcock, but is equally fearless in presenting a borderless perspective to the music.  Marcus Gilmore the 32 year old grandson of the legendary Roy Haynes,  has logged valuable time with Chris Potter, Chick Corea's Vigil, and Vigelette trio, David Virelles, and Will Vinson. Like Francies he is deeply immersed not in only Metheny's universe but everything in the contemporary music scene.  

As the lights gradually faded up on stage, the guitarist uncharacteristically, and energetically began the evening by speaking to the audience, about how great his musical compatriots were and they wasted little time, getting into the first of a pair of Ornette Coleman compositions during the evening, the classic “Turnaround” that Metheny recorded on 80/81 (ECM, 1980).  Metheny dug right into Gilmore's medium tempo swing on the basic 12 bar blues form. Around the third or fourth guitar chorus, Francies dropped out so Metheny could stroll with Gilmore's support and with a chordal instrument like piano dropping out, there is no safety net with the harmony so things become totally open. Buoyed by Gilmore's insistent ride, the guitarist  swung harder, and harder.  When it was Francies turn to take the first of several dazzling solos, Metheny demonstrated a rarely shown aspect of his comping by playing four to the bar chords a la Freddie Green in the Count Basie band.  The only recorded evidence of Metheny applying the technique appeared on “The Moon Song” from Beyond the Missouri Sky (Verve, 1997) with Charlie Haden, and in the context of the Coleman blues, showed his deep love of the jazz guitar tradition.

Francies was transcendant on “Bright Size Life” with a turn on Rhodes that displayed some dizzying counterpoint between his left hand on synth bass, and right hand on Rhodes.  He is a very lyrical, melodic player and has chops in spades, but never overwhelms.  At 22 years old he is absolutely prodigious, not only with a thorough knowledge of the jazz traditional but equally at home in gospel and R&B. When the keyboardist moved to Hammond organ (playing a Hammond  XK-5, a digital, compact version of a B-3) for Metheny's rarely played “Timeline” from the late Michael Brecker's Time is Of the Essence (Verve, 1999) he revealed another sterling aspect of his musical personality. Boosted by Gilmore's deep pocket swing, he soloed with the right hand on the lower manual with first three drawbars out; percussion off, and went from the blues to gospel with ease, supported by his own solid left hand bass on the upper manual. The technique is the opposite of the jazz organ style and stems from Francies gospel roots.  The piece was a window into what a Metheny organ trio would have been like, entrenched in the established paradigm but pushing forward in it's own way.  Metheny  was relaxed, swinging and diving into his improvisation with fervor, mid solo, stepping on a pedal to let a note on his Slaman hollow body ring out emulating the shout, or drone pattern. The drone pattern is something  countless organists from Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff, Don Patterson and Joey DeFrancesco have used.  It involves holding down the tonic (involving only notes proper to the prevailing key without chromatic alteration constructed from a diatonic scale) , and “shouting” with the other notes around it,  a technique originated from the church.  Metheny also used this technique on “Tune Blues” from The Cuong Vu Trio Meets Pat Metheny (2015) a throwback to his days of playing in organ trios coming up in Kansas City, and this exploration of another rarely heard facet of his musical personality was a joy, and shows how his playing is entering a new phase.

Over the first hour as the guitarist examined old favorites with gusto, the most striking revamp was on “Better Days Ahead”. Though the tune has early versions in collector's circles dating back to 1981 or 2, it was first recorded in 1989 with the PMG on Letter From Home.  Taking into account a zone that Francies, and Gilmore are well acquainted with, Metheny turned the sunny Brazilian inspired melody into a dark, smoky, sexy funky R&B backbeat that framed his signature lyrical delivery in a new way with the guitarist leaning deep into Gilmore's groove. The drummer, who had a smoking feature a bit earlier on Coleman's “The Good Life” took a bit from the Steve Gadd R&B feel, playing the kick drum on 1 and 3, complemented by streaming cymbals up top adding to the funkines.  It was easily one of the most radical transformations of a classic Metheny tune, and a highlight over 2 and a half hours.

After a tender “Message To A Friend” which debuted on John Scofield's I Can See Your House From Here (Blue Note, 1994) the center piece of the set was a suite of three new pieces composed for the band.  Metheny explained to the audience that the flexibility of Francies and Gilmore gave him free reign to go into the area that interests him humorously quipping “I can write a piece with 49 pages of written material”.  Francies set the tone with glittering sequenced synths, that served as an extension of the electronics heard on the title track of the Unity Group's Kin (<->) as some trademark Metheny harmonies from synths, wafted into the atmosphere.  The guitarist began with a descending melody line doubled by bass that transitioned into different sections aided by a baby version of the large Orchestrion, the acoustic mechanical instrument ensemble a part of his arsenal now for a decade.  Metheny took two solos on the venerable Roland GR300 guitar synthesizer, with the second in heightened intensity guided by the heavy African flavor of the Orchestrion in tandem with Gilmore's cymbals.  Gilmore demonstrated his fluency in Metheny's distinct bebop based camouflaged ride cymbal approach here, but was still infused with a looseness from his constant interaction with the guitarist.  Throughout, Francies punctuation with gorgeously ambient analog like synth, and organ provided colors not heard in the music since Lyle Mays' tenure in the Metheny orbit, but his use of these electronica spiced colors added something found in the Houston based pianists own music, that is new an fresh in Metheny's oeuvre.  After Metheny reprised the initial melody, the enthralling, cinematic new piece faded into the ether.

From there, Carolyn Chrzan, Metheny's long time guitar tech handed him a solid body electric that has been  rarely seen (though it is spotted in the Orchestrion World Tour 2010 poster) and the trio launched into a moody, blues-rock ballad.  Metheny started alone, playing a melody that at first vaguely seemed to suggest “Travels” but as it turned out was something completely new.  Fans who have seen Side Eye have reported the tune as sounding seemingly un Metheny like, more in line with Eric Clapton or Eric Johnson. While they are correct the tune is somewhat reminiscent of music from them, and improvisation wise took him to less traveled roads, the melody was pure Metheny.   He built into a distorted solo of raging intensity, Gilmore's rock beat and Francies' organ unyielding behind him.  From the shouts in the audience, and heads bopping, the tune was completely satisfying and would be a winner on a recording as would the first new piece. Metheny returned to the GR300 for the final new tune, starting with a Coltrane like meditation, and once more, building up to a slow tension and release, utilizing his favorite double time device with drums and Orchestrion.  His guitar synth playing this night was vibrant, energized, and he played more GR300 than perhaps any time I've seen him.  With the GR300 he can get into the range of an alto or soprano saxophonist and in small group settings, as with the closing, much faster than usual “When We Were Free”  (featuring a gorgeous Pikasso guitar intro) he can really channel the mid to late period Coltrane vibe, mixed with Ornette Coleman harmolodic asides. On both hollow body and guitar synth, the trumpet like aspect of his playing was on display more than ever as well.  The show closed with an evolved acoustic medley of favorites that has been played as a closer since the Kin (↔) tour.

Pat Metheny, like Miles Davis, has been constantly evolving as a musician.  His playing has been arguably better than ever and Side Eye is a wonderful forum to house all his instincts in one place, perhaps moreso than the Unity Group band and tour.  As great as that band and resulting albums were and are, Side Eye offers something undeniably vital.  Jazz is a music that thrives on adding to it's rich traditions and history. At it's best the music reveres it's tradition while moving things ahead into the possibilities of the present and looks towards the future.  While there are a segment of fans who pine for the return of the Pat Metheny Group, which dissolved in 2010 after more than 30 years, Metheny is giving younger generations who grew up completely familiar in his unique musical universe, the chance to make their mark in their voice, opening new vistas.  The thing that everyone loves about him is still there, Metheny can play densely or lyrically-- it's just expanded to greater capacity, eschewing the fat for more concise solos and tunes.  He's doing what every great jazz musician should do and that's move forward.  Side Eye very well may be the finest group he’s lead in years.

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Skippy

Gilad Hekselman’s “Hex” Trio

Gilad Hekselman – guitar Joe Martin – bass Marcus Gilmore – drums

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Antidote by Chick Corea & The Spanish Heart Band, live at Montreux Jazz Festival

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Listen/purchase: Unreal Light by Craig Taborn, Nels Cline, Marcus Gilmore