My mind is racing!

So I was listening to this last night and this morning. Just could not get it off my mind. Gateway to me is the power trio of all power trios. You may say Cream was, but this power beyond words. Listen to this song from this album set up with all three members in video stills. You don't have to watch the video part but the audio is awesome.

The three musicians I speak of are Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette and John Abercrombie. These three people are wise musicians beyond their years. These three are some of the most important people in jazz field. Dave Holland's biggest break was working with Miles Davis in the Late sixties. I mean how awesome is that. Abercrombie is a Berklee from 1966 and was a star for the great ECM label. Lastly Jack DeJohnette who studied of all things classical piano. He turned to drums in the mid sixties. Played with Charles Lloyd and then replaced the great Tony Williams in Miles Davis band.

Recorded in Ludwigsburg, Germany in March 1975. On GATEWAY, their first recording together, this trio of innovators did more than just cement the image of a group sound that would endure some twenty years hence. In the first days of Manfred Eicher's label, they helped define some of the parameters of what would become one of ECM's signature guitar sounds. On "May Dance," a simple modal theme soon gives way to expressive, telepathic free improvisations, as DeJohnette's crystalline cymbal textures shade in and around the beat--playing in and out of time; meanwhile, Holland's muscular lines anticipate and support each complex rhythmic variation. Abercrombie extends on their tumultuous dialogue with a canny array of textures, harmonic contrasts and polytonal melodic lines. On "Unshielded Desire" the drummer engages Abercrombie in a furious dialogue, while on DeJohnette's "Sorcery 1" the trio moves from rolling waves of sound to a fat, rocking vamp worthy of Jimi Hendrix's Experience.

The reason I pick this album is because it defines ECM and to me it defines power trio. ECM is one of my favorite record labels. It is a label I really cannot describe in words, but a label that makes music seem important and suggest the listener that this is such an important presentation that this requires your full attention.

As Far as the group as concerned I think talking about their background above kinda give the idea why I like this album so much. It takes a repeated listening, but I am sure you will be rewarded well. In the future of this blog I will tell you about the album they put out twenty years later, if you think this is great wait till you hear their album Homecoming.

http://rapidshare.com/files/234836372/abercrombie_holland_dejohnette-gateway_01.zip

http://rapidshare.com/files/234837239/abercrombie_holland_dejohnette-gateway_02.zip