The Power of Three...

Funny thing, discovery. When it happens you think you're at the beginning. In a sense you are but that can be deceiving...

When I first heard the trio Gateway I was not familiar with the three players. John Abercrombie, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette, as far as I knew, were three talented jazz musicians who recorded for the ECM label and that was the end of it. That was in 1979 when I'd only begun listening to jazz musicians who weren't dead or dying. It wasn't long before I realized that I was butting into three musical careers what had been in motion for more than a decade by that point. Little did I know that Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette had recorded with Miles Davis for Bitches Brew and dozens of other seminal recordings of the 70's, that John Abercrombie had recorded with Gato Barbieri, Enrico Rava, Dave Liebman, Gil Evans, and Billy Cobham by this point. As far as I knew the three of them were young upstarts in the jazz world.

But that's what happens when you enter into one's musical career somewhere between the start and the end; you end up following their music in two directions: forwards and backwards. I also became aware that the name Gateway had begun as the name of their first recording, continued as part of the name of their second recording but, by album three, had been adopted as the name of their trio with albums three and four earning individual titles, Homecoming and In the Moment.

What we have are two concerts by Gateway that are separated by twelve years. The first one was recorded in 1983 in Bremen, Germany and the second one in 1995 at the Montreal International Jazz Festival. Both highlight their near telepathic interaction - quite a feat considering they do not gig on a regular basis. Ironically, you get to hear two versions of the same Dave Holland composition, "Jumpin' In" which isn't even on a Gateway recording but is the title track to Dave Holland Quintet recording from 1984!

For the 1983 concert this is the playlist:

01 - M 11:00
02 - May Dance 26:10
03 - Silver Hollow / Jumpin' In 25:47
04 - Ralph's Piano Waltz 9:02
05 - Back Woods Song 27:29
06 - Blues in Ab 16:15
07 - Four Winds 22:22
08 - Conference of the Birds 7:54

For the 1995 concert this is the playlist:

1. 7th D (Jack DeJohnette) (12:26)

2. How's Never (Dave Holland) (12:13)

3. Short Cut (John Abercrombie) (7:26)

4. Timeless (John Abercrombie) (13:38)

5. Jumpin' In (D.Holland) (15:11)

6. Calypso Falto (John Abercrombie) (12:09)

Enjoy!