American jazz guitarist John Abercrombie has spent most of his 40-plus-year career playing various styles of contemporary jazz with some of the best-known musicians around. After attending the Berklee College of Music and playing in Boston, he moved to New York in the late 1960s and was a well-regarded session player. His first date as a leader was on ECM, 1974’s critically acclaimed Timeless, and he has mostly recorded for the label since then. This three-disc set, part of ECM’s Old & New Masters series, returns to the catalog three important releases from 1978 to 1980 with his first quartet comprising Richie Beirach on piano, George Mraz on double bass and Peter Donald on drums, with Abercrombie on guitars and mandolin.
The three albums — Arcade from 1978, Abercrombie Quartet in 1979 and M in 1980 — featured the group in which Abercrombie defined the style that has remained his ever since. It was a move away from the jazz-rock fusion of the late ’60s and into a music that blends a rather straight-ahead style from the rhythm section with a more impressionistic, “spacious” style of guitar, mostly electric. It also mostly features a guitar tone that’s more common in fusion – clean, open and with a bit of an airy, echoing effect. It’s a specialty of ECM label chief and producer Manfred Eicher, and it really perks up the ears when juxtaposed with the solid, straight-ahead sound of the rhythm section.
You notice that contrast in sound from the first track, the classic title piece on Arcade and also how sympathetic Abercrombie and pianist Beirach are, each playing off the other’s phrases in ways that remind you that this was first a touring band. It’s not just Abercrombie and Beirach, though. Czech bassist Mraz shadows and complements Beirach’s energetic improvisation on this first piece as well, and the entire rhythm section does much to showcase Abercrombie’s leads.
The other great piece on this first of the three is the closer, the 11:30-length “Alchemy,” which eases slowly into what becomes a superb, gently swinging groove with deep explorations by Abercrombie and impressive stick-work from Donald. Mraz plays some beautiful arco bass in that languid intro section. And he has a fine solo stretch in the lovely ballad “Paramour,” the best of the three more pensive pieces between those two stalwart bookends “Arcade” and “Alchemy.”
The other two albums also are a mix of exploratory (sometimes a bit shapeless, to be frank) pieces with some more sturdy, interesting works. The best on Abercrombie Quartet is one of the shortest, the solid hard-bop “Stray.” The fusion-like “Riddles” really rocks, moving things forward handily as Abercrombie pairs up with each member of the rhythm section in turn for some very inventive and exciting jazz. The album wraps with the bluesy “Foolish Dog” which contains a fine solo turn by Mraz and excellent piano throughout.
The second, title track on M is an airy, intriguing piece with a pentatonic sound to it, particularly in Beirach’s chording, and a deeper tone to Abercrombie’s guitar than he usually employed. Some amazing, fleet guitar runs, too. After a deceptively formless intro, Beirach’s “Flashback” picks up the tempo with some delightful piano-bass counterpoint, Donald’s driving, propulsive drumming, and stabbing guitar fills. Abercrombie at times leaps from lightning-fast runs to shimmering glissandos in the space of a couple of measures. The rest of the album ranges from the avant garde excursion of “What Are The Rules” to the sometimes overly smooth and ephemeral sounds of “Veils” and Mraz’s “Pebbles.”
This set, remastered from original analog sources, is a fascinating and nearly always entertaining look back at the beginnings of a career that’s still going strong, from a musician who has moved jazz forward over that career.
ECM, 2015
