JOHN
ABERCROMBIE
Selected Recordings: rarum XIV
ECM
ECM Records has more than its share of unique
guitarists—Pat Metheny, Ralph Towner, Steve Tibbetts,
Terje Rypdal, and Bill Frissell spring instantly to mind.
That list is most certainly incomplete without the name
of John Abercrombie, whose musical output is the subject
of the label’s :rarum XIV.
Selected by Abercrombie himself, the tracks
on this disc move chronologically through Abercrombie’s
career at ECM, including tracks from his career as a leader,
as a collaborator and session musician, and as a member
of the collective trio Gateway. “Timeless,”
the opener, comes from the album of the same name, Abercrombie’s
first as leader. Working in a trio format with Jan Hammer
on synthesizer and organ and Jack DeJohnette at the drums,
Abercrombie produces a meditative track with a lengthy opening
section that builds on a deep synth drone before morphing
into a bubbling gothic riff that grows ever more insistent
with repetition. This track ably demonstrates that in pure
form, both jazz fusion and progressive rock shared many
elements and created a promising area of investigation for
musicians of both genres. The difference between what prog
rock could have been and what it became is the difference
between the grandiose ambitions of bands like Yes and ELP
and the infinitely more musical statements made by musicians
of the caliber of Abercrombie, Hammer, and DeJohnette.
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“Sorcery I” is from the first
Gateway album, released in 1975. With Dave Holland
on bass and DeJohnette again playing drums, Abercrombie
sounds like Hendrix with a metal edge. With a rhythm section
that can follow and challenge him, Abercrombie turns in
a classic electric guitar performance that makes one wonder
why he didn’t get as much press as John McLaughlin.
The CD’s penultimate track, “Homecoming”
is by the same trio in 1994, after they had not played together
in many years. Abercrombie utilizes a different electric
guitar sound, but the overall interplay between these accomplished
musicians is as delicate and pleasing as ever.
Abercrombie’s acoustic work is featured
on both the duet with Ralph Towner “Avenue”
and on “Memoir,” on which Abercrombie overdubs
himself on acoustic guitar. On the duet, Abercrombie and
Towner fit together perfectly, and the album from which
it comes, Sargasso Sea, has proven itself as a
classic guitar duet album. “Memoir” is reflective,
and Abercrombie manages to leave a great deal of open space
in his playing, even with the overdubbing.
The next group of tracks feature Abercrombie
with groups of varying sizes. On “Stray” he
plays mandolin guitar with a quartet comprised of pianist
Richard Beirach, bassist George Mraz, and drummer Peter
Donald. This group is perhaps the most traditional sounding
jazz group on the CD, which is strange considering that
it still sounds very much like Abercrombie and maintains
its identity as an ECM recording quite well. Beirach is
well known for his work with saxophonist Dave Liebman, particularly
as part of Liebman’s Lookout Farm, and he and Abercrombie
also worked with Liebman on his Drum Ode album.
Here he is the perfect accompanist and foil to Abercrombie’s
angular guitar lines. “Big Music” finds Abercrombie
playing Pat Metheny-sounding electric guitar with bassist
Marc Johnson (with whom he has continued to work) and drummer
Peter Erskine. This cut comes from the album November,
one of Abercrombie’s essential recordings. Even though
Abercrombie has mellowed a bit from his early days, he still
brings a lot of energy to bear on this track.
The final track on this middle section of
Abercrombie’s selected recordings is “Ma Belle
Helene” from tumpeter Kenny Wheeler’s album
The Widow In the Window, recorded in 1990. The
ensemble is a stellar one: Wheeler and Abercrombie are joined
by pianist John Taylor, bassist Dave Holland and Erskine
on drums. The lyrical Wheeler gains a nice edge from Abercrombie’s
guitar work, and the rhythm section is one that fits together
by virtue of having worked together in various combinations
a great deal.
The final tracks or this :rarum edition show
how Abercrombie has continued to revisit his past even as
he grows as a musician and finds new ways of communicating
with listeners. “Carol’s Carol” goes back
to the electric guitar-organ-drums format heard on Timeless,
except this time the organist is Dan Wall and the drummer
Adam Nussbaum. The style has changed a bit, edging further
toward organ-trio jazz while retaining a modern sound, but
the same inspiration with the format is there. “Homecoming”
is from the 1994 Gateway reuinion of the same name. The
collection’s final track, “Convolution”
comes from Abercrombie’s 2000 release Cat ‘n’
Mouse on which he added violinist Marc Feldman to his
already excellent combo of bassist Marc Johnson and drummer
Joey Baron. The piece bristles with free jazz energy, but
in many ways it also harkens back to the early fusion days
of Mahavishnu Orchestra.
For anyone interested in the guitar’s
movement from the modern jazz aesthetic into high-energy
progressive rock and freely improvised music, John Abercrombie
is an artist whose work must be explored, and this entry
in the ECM :rarum series enables listeners to do just that.
