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Gerry Hemingway

Gerry Hemingway, Composer, Percussionist, Singer-Songwriter, Visual Artist, Educator, has been a widely acknowledged contributor to the continuum of creative music for the past five decades. He was born in 1955 in New Haven, Connecticut to a family with musical interests (his grandmother had been a concert pianist and his father studied composition with Paul Hindemith). He became interested in drums around the age of ten and by the age of seventeen was supporting himself as a professional musician primarily in the jazz and bebop traditions. In the 1970's, New Haven was home for a number of interesting musicians. This was where Gerry first met and played with Anthony Davis, Wadada Leo Smith, George Lewis and Anthony Braxton. In the late 1970's, Hemingway, trombonist Ray Anderson, and bassist Mark Helias formed a collective trio which they eventually named BassDrumBone. In celebration of their 40th anniversary in 2017, the group released “The Long Road” with special guests Joe Lovano and Jason Moran.

He joined and remained a member of the Anthony Braxton quartet for eleven years from 1983 - 1994. In 2007 he and Anthony Braxton had a historic reunion as a duo resulting in a 4 CD release on Mode/Avant entitled "Old Dogs (2007)". In the late 1980's he began performing with the Reggie Workman Ensemble who at different times included Oliver Lake, Jeanne Lee, Marilyn Crispell, John Purcell and Don Byron among others. He was a core member of Anthony Davis' Episteme Ensemble, and has performed and recorded as a featured soloist on Mr. Davis' violin concerto "Maps" as well as the operas "Under the Double Moon" and "Tania" (released recently on Koch Classics). Hemingway also performed in duet with pianist Cecil Taylor in May of 1999 on the invitation of De Singel in Antwerp, Belgium.

A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Hemingway has become increasingly prominent as a composer and improviser and a leader of several long standing quintets and quartets of international acclaim (see below). In addition to receiving fellowships from both the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation on the Arts, he has also received four commissions through the Parabola Arts Foundation with funding from the New York State Council on the Arts, including a 1998 grant supporting the creation of the "The Visiting Tank", which concludes his Tzadik release of "Chamber Works". In 1993, he premiered a commission from the Kansas City Symphony with funding from Meet the Composer for a concerto for percussionist and orchestra entitled "Terrains". In June of 1998 a co-composition with the Amsterdam based composer Guus Jannsen was commissioned by the NPS radio of the Netherlands and performed at the Holland Festival. Entitled "Cycles", the work used a unique computer controlled conducting system that allowed the ensemble to play in multiple tempos.

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5
Album Review

Izumi Kimura / Barry Guy / Gerry Hemingway: Six Hands Open As One

Read "Six Hands Open As One" reviewed by John Sharpe


Although dating back to at least Aesop's fables written in 500 BC, the saying that you can know someone by the company they keep remains as true as ever. While Irish-based Japanese pianist Izumi Kimura is the nominal leader, the egalitarian trio on Six Hands Open As One finds her in illustrious company. Bassist Barry Guy and drummer Gerry Hemingway have both led storied careers which defy concise summation, but Guy's affinity for the format is worth ...

Album Review

WHO Trio: Live At Jazz Festival Willisau 2023

Read "Live At Jazz Festival Willisau 2023" reviewed by Vincenzo Roggero


Ci sono molti modi per affrontare/reinterpretare standard e songs, recitano le accurate note di copertina, ma affrontare Duke Ellington richiede uno step ulteriore, pena lo scivolare nel deja vu, nel già sentito, tra stereotipi o stravolgimenti fuori luogo. WHO Trio, formazione che da oltre venticinque anni scandaglia i meandri della libera improvvisazione e dei suoi legami con la tradizione, lo fa alla sua maniera. “ Abbiamo semplicemente cercato di suonare questo meraviglioso materiale -afferma Gerry Hemingway -con ...

33
Album Review

Terrence McManus: Music for Chamber Trio

Read "Music for Chamber Trio" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


Terrence McManus' Music for Chamber Trio is a masterclass in the art of minimalism, a testament to the power of understated composition. The album, which features an unconventional trio, challenges traditional notions of chamber music, favoring textural exploration over melodic or rhythmic dominance. From the outset, guitarist McManus makes it clear that this is no ordinary affair with acclaimed artists, saxophonist Ellery Eskelin and drummer Gerry Hemingway. His guitar provides the foundation, not through ostentatious displays of technique, ...

10
Album Review

Izumi Kimura, Barry Guy, Gerry Hemingway: Six Hands Open As One

Read "Six Hands Open As One" reviewed by Ian Patterson


It should come as no surprise that three of contemporary music's great improvisers should obliterate the boundaries between composed and improvised music. This is the second collaboration between pianist Izumi Kimura, double bassist Barry Guy and drummer/percussionist Gerry Hemingway following Illuminated Silence (Fundacja Sluchaj, 2019), a visceral live document where improvisation played out within conceptual compositional frameworks. Six Hands As One charts a similar course, the trio responding to a range of stimuli including the natural elements, poetry and war. ...

10
Album Review

WHO Trio: Live At Jazz Festival Willisau 2023

Read "Live At Jazz Festival Willisau 2023" reviewed by Chris May


This jewel of an album was released just too late for inclusion in AAJ's Best Jazz Albums of 2024: All-Star Break Edition, where contributors were invited to name their three best albums released during the first half of the year (the article can be read here). But five gets you ten that it will be included in at least one end-of-year best-albums list. And that is not the only headline. Live At Jazz Festival Willisau 2023 is that rarer than ...

8
Album Review

Rodrigo Amado The Bridge: Beyond The Margins

Read "Beyond The Margins" reviewed by John Sharpe


The Bridge may be one of the most potent all round units assembled by Portuguese tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado. That is saying something considering his previous alliances with collaborators as varied as multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee, trumpeter Peter Evans, trombonist Jeb Bishop and drummer Chris Corsano. This time out his partners read like an extract from an international free jazz who's who: German pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, American drummer Gerry Hemingway and Norwegian bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten. Beyond ...

10
Album Review

Rodrigo Amado: Beyond The Margins

Read "Beyond The Margins" reviewed by Troy Dostert


The aptly titled Beyond the Margins is just the latest entry in tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado's burgeoning catalog, and it is certainly further proof that Amado is among the most exciting and accomplished practitioners of free music in the jazz world. Each new release seems to allow him to hone his craft with ever-greater precision, and with an even wider range of emotional resonances. And with a line-up of free jazz veterans that includes pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, bassist Ingebrigt ...

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63

Recording

Gerry Hemingway Quintet, Riptide

Gerry Hemingway Quintet, Riptide

Source: Gapplegate Music Review by Grego Edwards

Gerry Hemingway has been deftly mixing it up on drums with some of the most accomplished new jazz artists for years. He has a new album out with his quintet, Riptide (Clean Feed 227), and it shows how he is a jazz composer and bandleader of note as well. First, the quintet itself: along with Gerry on drums are a formidable two-reed tandem of Oscar Noriega and Ellery Eskelin, the electric guitar smarts of Terrence McManus, and the acoustic and ...

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Recording

Gerry Hemingway Quintet: "Demon Chaser" on Hatology 673

Gerry Hemingway Quintet: "Demon Chaser" on Hatology 673

Source: All About Jazz


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Performance / Tour

Terrence McManus/Mark Helias/Gerry Hemingway at The Stone (NYC) on January 1

Terrence McManus/Mark Helias/Gerry Hemingway at The Stone (NYC) on January 1

Source: All About Jazz


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Performance / Tour

Terrence McManus/Ellery Eskelin/Gerry Hemingway at Stain Bar on December 16

Terrence McManus/Ellery Eskelin/Gerry Hemingway at Stain Bar on December 16

Source: All About Jazz


258

Recording

Georg Graewe, Ernst Reijseger & Gerry Hemingway: Sonic Fiction on Hatology 638

Georg Graewe, Ernst Reijseger & Gerry Hemingway: Sonic Fiction on Hatology 638

Source: All About Jazz

Georg Graewe -piano, Ernst Reijseger -cello & Gerry Hemingway -percussion This trio's music is easier characterized than described, since the wealth of colors, moods, textures, and melodies is fluid enough to shift not only from piece to piece, but moment to moment. There is, for me, a European aesthetic at work here, a blend of modern and historic sources with the added bittersweet spice of folk elements from the soil. It's a delicate, demanding juggling act, drawing on past experiences ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Six Hands Open As One

Fundacja Sluchaj,
2024

buy

Music for Chamber Trio

Rowhouse Music
2024

buy

Live in Baden

Clean Feed Records
2023

buy

Kairos

Fundacja Sluchaj
2023

buy

Beyond The Margins

Trost Records
2023

buy

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