CD review: John Abercrombie, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette – Gateway – 2024: Video, CD cover

The music that was deemed visionary at the time may have been a little premature in the flush of excitement that greeted the release, and there are moments where the music sounds tentative and exploratory.

‘Funny, I’ve never noticed this before’ was my reaction and reading the stores tag line, ‘world’s finest music emporium’ I was immediately intrigued. Plus it was cold, and I had an hour and a half to kill before my friend’s birthday dinner was to commence.

Low and behold, this store had a wide variety of jazz and classical music and I immediately began to skim the shelves. Where to begin! When the store clerk, seemingly a little surprised a person of my age was in the previously empty store, asked if he could help me I replied, ‘got any Dave Holland?’

What marks the music out as rather special is the three-way interaction between the musicians. If Holland and DeJohnette had already built a solid rapport, Abercombie seemed to gel with the drummer more readily than bassist Holland which can be heard in the way i which the bassist occasionally appears to be viewing his own composition from the outside looking in.

One aspect of Abercrombie’s song writing I find interesting is his ability to use band interplay as the body of his work instead of always soloing. For example in May Dance, the album centerpiece, Holland and Abercrombie feed off each other with Abercrombie shaping his melodies around Holland’s bass line.

DeJohnette on the kit provides interesting textures over top, never really settling into one constant groove, his drumming is fill-oriented and constantly shifts gears into different meters. Not until the near the end of the piece, after Abercrombie and Holland take turns making interesting solos, does DeJohnette find a steady groove.

This is typical of the drumming throughout the album, it’s always busy, but never over taxing on the listener, merely an added texture to the work. Jamala also shows of the interplay ability of the trio, most notably Holland and Abercrombie again. The piece sees the guitar toned down a bit, trading in the shredding for a more melodic turn. Again the bass and guitar intertwine themselves in what is easily the prettiest piece on the album.

Dave Holland’s bass playing on the album is silky smooth, like everything else he does. Perhaps biased on my part (seeing as he is probably my favourite bass player in full disclosure), I find that Holland has a keen sense of rooting progressive jazz into a traditional base. Take for example, Unshielded Desire, a piece that is essentially one long shredding solo by Abercrombie with loud and busy drums to accompany.

Think Bird of Fire era Mahavishnu Orchestra and you’re on the right track. However, listen carefully to the bass; it’s constant, steady, keeping time and keeping the base chord progression, in the traditional way that provides the ground for Abercrombie’s progressive freak-out to stand on. Not that Holland is purely traditionalists, after all this is the guy who played with Miles Davis on both Bitches Brew and In a Silent Way (holy influential batman!), but still he acts the ying to Abercrombie’s yang.

John Abercrombie treats his guitar like a blank canvas, with no limit to what he can create. While maintaining a technical prowess in the traditional sense, he isn’t afraid to experiment with the sounds the guitar is able to create. The opening of Sorcery 1 is clearly indicative of this as Abercrombie spends the better part of the first two minutes creating various feedback and droning noises. It’s a really interesting turn to see in a jazz album, and this is another quality to Abercrombie’s work.

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He is able to create a sense of dissonance in his music that can be missing at times from jazz. This ultimately benefits the album in a genre where the recordings are often thought of secondary tools to the live performance.

The musicianship on this album is all round superb. The trio seem comfortable with each other, and all three add their own unique styling to the fray. It’s a difficult progressive jazz fusion album that remains approachable to many a listener. Fans of Mahavishnu Orchestra would find an interest in this album, though this tends to stay in more accessible time signatures (ie. there aren’t any 19/8 songs on this album.

What marks the music out as rather special is the three-way interaction between the musicians. If Holland and DeJohnette had already built a solid rapport, Abercombie seemed to gel with the drummer more readily than bassist Holland which can be heard in the way i which the bassist occasionally appears to be viewing his own composition from the outside looking in.

Holland contributes no less than four of the six titles (three of which make up side 1 of the LP), and each explore different aspects of the way in which the trio can look at operating. The opening ‘Back-Woods Song’ opens with a strong ostinato bass line before the melody is stated by Abercrombie with a rock solid commentary from DeJohnette. Continuing the ostinato, Holland keeps the composition grounded and Abercrombie is left to build his solo within a framework that is confined by the bass line and does so in a most pleasing way making use of his by now familiar arpeggiated runs. DeJohnette’s ever shifting drum patterns keep a firm grasp on proceedings and provide the bridge between bass and guitar.

By contrast, the following number, ‘Waiting’ is a brief interlude for bass and drums with the gentle duet giving way to ‘May Dance’ that provides another interesting contrast. From Holland’s delightful melody, the trio move into a more abstract territory as if not looking to follow the obvious path. The three musicians once again create a dialogue that almost wilfully turns its back on the melodic theme with Abercrombie’s improvisation making frequent breaks for a more lyrical approach to the music but being held back by the unfolding dialogue between bass and drums; and it is not until about a third of the way into the piece that Holland and DeJohnette relent and provide Abercrombie with a more homogeneous support in which to work.

Turning to side B of the album we are presented with another take on the approach of the trio with ‘Unshielded Desire’ composed by DeJohnette and Abercrombie which wades in with more of a jazz rock feel, and a looseness that allows for greater freedom in the improvisations. Abercrombie relishes the situation to cut loose and does so to marvellous effect. ‘Sorcery I’ is credited to DeJohnette as composer and give the trio the freest rein of all the pieces from it abstract opening that leads to a mere hint of a theme before Holand’s bass line lays down some more fixed harmonic and rhythmic guidelines. Holland is the lynch pin again that again keeps the music grounded while Abercrombie’s solo flows fluidly over DeJohnette’s everchanging patterns as the guitarist takes on a solo of real invention.

Sandwiched between these two tracks is Holland’s fourth composition and the only ballad of the set, ‘Jamala’; a lyrical and melodic piece that somehow finds a place among the music despite being at odd with the other tunes on the album.

In a curious scenario that found the band really coming together as a coherent and singular unit nearly twenty years later in two stunning albums recorded in December 1994, this debut recording continues to delight, and serve as reminder of how from humble beginnings a true supergroup emerges.