Gerry Hemingway- Nagual Music News

For those of you regularly checking in with this page I am sorry the updates are far and few inbetween, however life in this time period offers few chances to attend to this page. Which in a way is relevant as that is partially due to the fact that so much is going on with efforts in music and education these days.

I want first to alert you to a number of upcoming performances (see Tours for full listings) in the NYC/Brooklyn area in March and April (08) including a trio with trombonist Wolter Weirbos and cellist Alexander Waterman at Issue Project Room (March 19) and on the next night a quintet performance of my music drawn from both my quartet and quintet books. In fact the group on this occasion is kind of a hybrid of both projects featuring Ellery Eskelin in what would normally be the trombone chair, Oscar Noriega in the multi-reed (alto, clarinet, bass clarinet), Terrence McManus on guitar who will fulfill a variety of roles principally what normally is written for cello and Kermit Driscoll on both acoustic and electric bass. The performance will be at a space I've never played at called the Tea Lounge in Park Slope of Brooklyn. It promises to be a very interesting evening. I have been performing and will soon record in a trio of Kermit Driscoll with Terrence McManus on guitar which is how I met him. You have another opportunity to hear him and I together on Friday April 4th in duo at the new Vision Club (the venue is the Living Theatre - 21 Clinton Street, between Houston and Stanton). If you have not yet heard his playing I think you will find him a unique voice. There is also a duo with Ellery Eskelin coming up at the Rhythm in the Kitchen festival in NYC on March 27th. Also in April there will be a performance of "A Touch of Noir" a project creating an improvised soundtrack to an editing of about 50 different classic noir films (April 9th- the Stone). The project is organized by Herb Robertson and will include Lotte Anker, Terrence McManus and Matt Darriau. And on April 27th a solo performance at the Safe - T Gallery in Brooklyn. Finally my large ensemble from the New School, Sound in Time will be performing at Sweet Rhythm on May 5th. The repertoire will include a number of works of mine along with compositions by Anthony Braxton, Leo Wadada Smith, James Emery, Roscoe Mitchell and others. Again have a look at Tours for more details on all these events.

Toward the end of February (08) I participated in a recording for Mode Records of an older work of Bob Ashley called Trio III. The recording features the violinist Conrad Harris and will include a number of early works by some of the well known rebel composers of the 1960s including Alvin Lucier and Robert Ashley. Trio III is a piece featuring violin and text regarding the history of the violin and two other instruments in this case myself and pianist Blue Gene Tyranny. The recording session was also taped in Surround Sound and video taped for DVD release at Systems 2 in Brooklyn.

The work on my solo video and audio recordings progresses slowly, as mentioned above there will be performances in April and in June at the Spoleto festival. Speaking of recordings....

This past summer (07) included some significant events among them an extended recording session in duo with Anthony Braxton. All the material adds up to four hour long (note the hour glass in the picture) cds recorded at Wesleyan University on August 1st and 2nd (07). Jon Rosenberg was the engineer. Anthony played his entire family of saxophones no clarinets this time, and I had marimba, vibes, steel drum, electronics and of course trap set for my pallette. Each hour for me retained a definitive character at the same time as exploring an extremely wide range of material. Other than a short encore at Ulrichsberg I have not played with Anthony since the final performance of the quartet in early 1994. I can not convey what a connection I experienced in this reunion. There is a sense of mutual understanding that runs very deep in these explorations, informed both by the many years spent together on the road and from where are paths have led us since that time. I am very grateful that this occured. I will keep you informed about the release of this material, and if you have an idea of where this 4 cd set could find a home, let me know.

I am delighted to report the release of "Clepton" on New World Records this past December (07). This project which is directed and primarily composed by synthesist Earl Howard features the title work which was refined and developed in the Sudwestfunk studios in the fall of 2006 and was in collaboration with the GRH trio (Georg Graewe, Ernst Reijseger, and yours truly). It combines Earl's synthesis and live sampling with pre-determined textures and improvisations in various orchestrations of the trio and Earl. Also included is a collectively improvised work and I am very happy to see included a duo with me and Earl that I recorded in 1987 in Rochester, NY called "Rosebud". On this work Earl is playing his first sample set up, the AKAI S-900 which was a classic sampler of the time. The work contains one of the most wonderful electro-acoustic crescendo's that I have ever hear or played.

Speaking of things I am grateful for, not enough can be said about the celebration of BassDrumBone's 30th Anniversary (now 31). Our first concert happened at the Educational Center for the Arts in the early fall of 1977. A chemisty was evident to all of us from the start, but none of us could have predicted that our music could evolve and sustain a musical partnership that remains as vital now as it was from the start. BassDrumBone is a recent grantee of Chamber Music America New Work's program. Nine new works (3 by each of us) were created reflective of our thirty year collaboration. The works were premiered at the "Sculptured Sounds" festival in February of 2007 and also at the "Discover Jazz" festival of Burlington, VT. This past fall there was an article for the Europe based ARTE TV about the trio, (here is a YouTube video from that broadcast from our performance at the Berlin Jazz Festival in Nov of 2007) featuring recent interviews and performances as well as some vintage footage. BassDrumBone's most recent release is on Clean Feed recorded in April of 2005 called "The Line Up". Samples of that release can be found on this site mp3s page. Keep your eye on the Tours page for announcements of upcoming BDB performances as we enter our 31st year.

A new collaborative trio with Rudresh Mahanthrapa and Mark Dresser went into the studio in the spring of 2007 and has completed a new recording for Clean Feed Records that will be released in early 2008. Everyone contributed new material and there are two open works as well. The recording took place at Acoustic Music in Brooklyn which has been my studio of choice for most of my recent quartet and BassDrumBone recordings.

This winter will hopefully provide enough spare hours time see the completion of number of recording projects including two seperate duo cds with Thomas Lehn, one of which we plan to release ourselves as well a duo with John Butcher which may also include some video footage from a concert given at Roulette/Location One in New York City.

I have also begun what I expect will at least be about a three year project in interviewing the musicians who were involved in CMIF pool

the very vital music scene of New Haven, Connecticut in the 1970's. I am eventually interviewing everyone I can find who is still alive about their impressions of what for me was a catalytic period of activity; a crossroads where I and many others began many musical relationships that remain active to this day. I am interested in hearing from anyone who I have lost touch with who was active in the New Haven musical scene in the 1970's or who knows someone who was involved at that time. I am doing my interviews both in video and audio anticipating that the culmination of this project may be in more than one format. I have for some time felt strongly that what occured in New Haven in this period was historically significant and deserving a more complete beg

There is another collaborative project initiated by reedist Michael Lytle (bass/contrabass clarinet) along with Nick Didkovsky (guitar and digital processing), and myself on drums with a little processing as well. It was performed at Experimental Intermedia in NYC in mid March of 06 and we succeeded in making a very nice multitrack recording of the concert which Nick has distilled into an excellent cd. It is about to be released in two formats, as limited release CD available from this site and also as a download (more info and links for this will available shortly on "Getting Recordings" page. It is called "Swim This" and its cover art is a collaboration between myself and my son Jordan Hemingway, who is rapidly becoming a very talented photographer.

School is in full swing and I have started my fourth year on the faculty of the New School in NYC this year includes teaching two different history lecture courses (World Music History in the fall and Contemporary Jazz and its Exponents in the Spring), I continue to run the adventurous process oriented ensemble, Sound in Time as well. I am also very active in my community teaching a wide range of drummers, from very complete beginners to music professionals. I have shifted, in the past few years, to a more active role as an educator. I not only enjoy teaching and feel that I have a talent for inspiring others, but I also feel more compelled in this time period to bring awareness to the next generations of the positive power of music in a world from which many of us feel politically, environmentally and culturally alienated. Where else are you free to be non linear in your experience, open to think flexibly and be able to be (at least temporarily) in real time.

My main composing and production goal for this winter is to complete a solo DVD/CD project I know I've been mentioning this for awhile on this news page. I plan to time its release to correspond to a solo performance I will be doing at the Spoleto Festival in June of 2008. Its a new medium for me and as usual I have presented myself with a substantial challenge to acheive some demanding technical goals and create content that does not fix the music's interpretation (as is my feeling about most MTV music video). I will follow up this release with some more solo appearances in 2007. This project will include some collaborations including some video camera work from my son, Jordan and also there will be some animation from my ongoing collaborator, video artist, Beth Warshafsky.

JinHiKim And Gerry

I have given a number of performances recently with Korean Komungo player and composer/improviser Jin Hi Kim. I will be performing in duo this summer (08)at the Zaragoza festival in Spain. In the fall of 2006 I performed in the Dominican Republic (from where this picture comes). Prior to that we performed together in Bridgeport, CT at the Black Rock Art Center on April 15th (06). In March of 2006 I was in Boston where I worked on the performance of Jin Hi Kim's "Eternal Rock" performed with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. I performed this concerto on a set of 5 Korean barrel drums both improvised and scored. The work was performed at Judson Hall on March 10, 2006. I have visitied Korea three times over the past few years. The first time on a project of Jin Hi Kim's and subsequently on the invitation of performance artist Sin Cha Hong. I very much look forward to a return to Korea whenever it happens as I am quite at home in their culture not to mention their cuisine.

The GRH (Graewe/Reijseger/Hemingway) trio's recording for Winter and Winter has been released in the spring of 2006. I can not recommend it enough. We had an opportunity to create this CD under ideal circumstances, a room with superb acoustics, completely silent) with a great piano, super marimba and percussion equipment (it is the rehearsal room for the Munich Opera). The technical part of the recording was equally ideal with Adrian von Ripka at the helm and Stefan Winter as our producer. We recorded three hours of music and this CD is the distillation of that effort. You will not be dissappointed. As always with Winter & Winter productions it is beautifully packaged. The trio touried briefly in the fall of 06 with performances in the UK and the aforementioned project for the SWF radio with composer/electronic musician Earl Howard.

Tom & Gerry, the duo with Thomas Lehn is coalescing the material for two more CDs. We have amassed over 10 full concerts of high quality multitrack material from performances mostly in the US but also in Europe. Perhaps we will consider making available for free a few extra tracks on the download page. Shortly I will also distill duo material with myself and John Butcher recorded in the US in 2005. This new production should have some video of the duo as well. I will keep you posted but I would expect these productions will become available in early 2007.

There are a number of articles about the two recent quartet and quintet releases in AllAboutJazz. There are two related articles by Kurt Gottschalk who did a feature article in April 2005 which is available online (check it out), he also reviewed this recording and the new quartet recording (recent review AAJ-NYC). There was a flurry of touring, cd releases and performances in the spring of 2005. My quintet with guests, Peggy Lee on cello and Mark Helias on bass as well as Frank Gratkowski and Wolter Wierbos performed at the 20th Vancouver Jazz Festival in June (2005). In Europe the new quintet cd entitled "Double Blues Crossing" on Between the Lines, was released in the beginning of May, it is distributed by Allegro in the States starting late this summer. My quartet had a successful two and half week tour in Europe in May with many performances in Paris, as well as appearing on the Ulrichsberg Kaleidophon. "The Whimbler" was released mid-May 2005 on Clean Feed Records from Portugal (see below for more details - hear some excerpts).

You can now (Oct 2006) download some of my earliar LPs as mp3s at the JazzLoft site. I will provide a direct link to these items from my How to Get Recordings page. A CDR release of my solo recording of 1988,

"Tubworks" is now available from this site. The LP has long been out of print, and the label that released it (Sound Aspects) has all but disappeared (anyone of news of the label or its producer Pedro de Freitas please contact me). If you have not already checked out Graewe/Reijseger/Hemingway 10th anniversary tour release, "Counterfactuals" on Nuscope Recordings I highly recommend you do. For more info see the page devoted to the trio (GRH Trio). The GRH trio is now in its 17th year of existence and continues to reinvent its approach and content to pure improvised music.

I am working on a multimedia page featuring my collaboration with video artist Beth Warshafsky. It will be a page we jointly develop. Meanwhile I highly encourage you to visit her web site B-Sky which has some samples of our work.

There is a recent release on Mutable Music that I am performing on with composer/saxophonist and sampling virtuoso, Earl Howard. The CD which features an extended work performed live at Merkin Hall in 2000 performed by a quintet that includes Anne LeBaron-harp, Ernst Reijseger-cello and Anthony Davis on piano. Entitled "Strong Force" the work is orchestrated around the unique, detailed and magnificient sampling work of Earl Howard.

My second orchestral work,"Sideband", a Concerto for Three Improvisors and Orchestra was given it's world premiere at Cal Arts on March 8th of 2003. Anne LeBaron and David Rosenboom joined me as the concerto soloists along with the Cal Arts New Millenium Ochestra under the baton of Marc Lowenstein. This piece was created with funding from the Paul Simon Guggenheim Foundation. I am hunting for future opportunities to perform this work and will keep you posted.

Songs may be re-released in 2008. I am working with the new distributor of Between the Lines, Blue Moon Records. I will keep you updated. The first live performance of Songs at Joe's Pub happened on in late March 30th of 2003 with a seven piece lineup including Lisa Sokolov-vocal, Marvin Sewell & Brad Shepik-guitars, Kermit Driscoll-bs, Ellery Eskelin-tn sx, & Herb Robertson on trpt. Doing it live was completely different from the recording project which kept me in hibernation for a good deal of 2001 and '02. The project is inspired in part by my diverse taste in songwriters from the R & B, Afro-Cuban, Art Rock, African Pop, C & W, Gospel Music traditions amongst others. I created twelve original songs, lyrics and all and have involved a number of musicians in the production with whom I have been performing and collaborating with in other projects. A more recent live adaption of this project took place at the Opera de Lyon in March of 2004, done as trio with John DiMartino, Lisa Sokolov anmd myself. The vocalist on ths recording is also Lisa Sokolov, whom I have performed and recorded with for several years now (most recently at at Sweet Rhythm in NY 2with Cameron Brown-bs and John DeMartino-pn). Check out her last release on Laughing Horse Records entitled "Presence". You can hear and download a short piece "Whatever Is" that is not on the release on the Mp3 page.

Other musicians featured on "Songs" include James Emery-ac/el guitar, Kermit Driscoll-ac/el bass, Ellery Eskelin-tn sax, Herb Robertson-trpt, John Butcher-tn sax, Wolter Wierbos-trb and Thomas Lehn-analogue synth. This recording is currently out of print but contact me by email if you are looking for a copy email me. You can see a pdf of an article with Laurence Svirchev on Songs which was published in the fall of 2004 in Coda (also posted on the internet).