As members of the Anthony Braxton Quartet quartet during the 1980s and early ‘90s, Marilyn Crispell and Gerry Hemingway – along with Mark Dresser – were primary conduits of the rapid evolution of Braxton’s music during this period. During their tenure, Braxton introduced collage form structures, pulse track structures, and other strategies that simultaneously promoted independent creativity on the part of each musician and new modes of interplay within the ensemble. At each concert, each musician would have upwards to 200 pages of music on their stands, and the latitude to bring any of them into the performance at any moment. (from Bill Shoemaker's liner notes of Affinities - the new duo recording on Intakt Records)
2013 European Duo Tour
April 30 - May 18 - 2013
April 30 - Off Beat / Jazzfestival Basel 2012
May 3 - Altbüron, CH (tbc)
May 4 - Ulrichsberg Kaleidophon, OS (tbc)
May 8 - Singen, DE
May 10 - AMR, Geneve
(tbc)
May 11 - Le Mans, FR (tbc)
May 15, De Singel, BE
May 16, Bim Huis, Amsterdam (tbc)
May 17-18 - Belgrade + Cerkno Festivals option
email: Gerry Hemingway for booking
Photos for publicity here
© JF Laberine (from performance in Toulouse, FR in 2010)
Excerpts from "Affinities" Marilyn Crispell & Gerry Hemingway (Intact 177) (how to purchase)
1. Shear Shift 2:41 [4 mg]
2. Axial Flows 2:28 [3.7 mg]
3. Starlings 2:48 [4.2 mg]
From the Guardian in the UK, July 14, 2011
The remarkable pianist/composer Marilyn Crispell has become a whittler of delicately detailed contemporary miniatures recently (notably on Vignettes, for ECM) after 15 years negotiating the stormy waters of Anthony Braxton's music. But this live recording, mostly from Crispell's native Baltimore in 2009, finds the pianist back in spontaneous synchronicity with former Braxton drummer Gerry Hemingway, and it's much more of a balance between her reflective and intensely full-on playing. On the 14-minute Shear Shift, Crispell fires brittle chords, clipped runs and low-end rumbles into the path of an abstractly swinging Hemingway, and the two establish a heatedly seamless flow before the final delicately resolving meditation. Axial Flows pings and gleams in a playful trance, and Starlings is at first a darting exercise in dampened piano notes and pattering percussion, turning into a powerful, Cecil Tayloresque free-jazz piano outburst. Churning train-like rhythms drive the furious Threadings, but the harmony-investigation Permeations gets close to the dancing touch of Chick Corea by the close. After a long break from each other, Crispell and Hemingway once again sound joined at the hip. John Fordham
From the NYC Jazz Record, April issue 2012
With so much shared history it should be no surprise that pianist Marilyn Crispell and percussionist Gerry Hemingway prove so well attuned to each other's moves. Both came of age as key parts of Anthony Braxton's legendary late '80s/early '90s quartet and have since confirmed themselves as masters of their craft. Over the nearly two decades since they left Braxton, reunions have happened sparingly. Assembly from two live dates has enabled creation of a program that coheres in satisfying fashion, comprising six unscripted collaborations and one cover. Crispell unites opposing facets of her expression: the Cecil Taylor-inspired piano-as-tuned-drums mode and the airy romanticism revealed on her late '90s ECM sides. While both get an airing it is the former which predominates, as the pianist at times evokes multiple voices, such is the independence she bestows upon her separate hands. Hemingway, while an equal partner, proves thoughtful and supportive, driving and commentating, not keeping to set patterns, always probing and varying textures as he expands and contracts the pulse.
At times they manifest as sides of the same coin, thrilling in their hand-in-glove syncopation, as on the powerful opener "Shear Shift", where Crispell's sparse hammered phrases find an answer in Hemingway's insistent tumbling muscularity. They explore a similar neighborhood on "Starlings", but arrive there after an opening that displays their sensitivity to texture and sound through a convocation of dampened piano strings and vibes. "Axial Flows" further accentuates the percussive aspect of the duet through the entwined chiming of the vibes and piano. Frank Kimbrough's "Air", a sobering pastel ballad, contrasts starkly with the preceding spiky "Threadings", where Crispell weaves darting piano figures around the drummer's asymmetric groove. Ultimately the pair transcend their instruments in a superb twinning where preternatural communication is allied to unfettered imagination. John Sharpe, NYC Jazz Record
below von Chrisoph Wagner NZZ (Neue Zürcher Zeitung), 22.7.2011
