There are times when music lovers can just feel a talent
coming into his or her own, when that artist is someone to catch onstage or on
record at every opportunity. Drummer-composer Devin Gray has arrived at such a
moment. The Brooklyn-based artist made his leader debut in 2012 with the Skirl
Records release Dirigo Rataplan, which featured him fronting the eponymous band
with tenor saxophonist Ellery Eskelin, bassist Michael Formanek and trumpeter
Dave Ballou, each a master improviser renowned far and wide among fans of
creative music. Cadence magazine declared that initial disc to be
"fantastic," while JazzTimes said that Gray's debut represented "the
work of a young artist who knows who he is."
Now, after six years of intensive experience as a leader and
sideman on both sides of the Atlantic, Gray has reconvened this all-star group
for Dirigo Rataplan II. Time Out New York has praised
Gray's compositions for balancing "formal elasticity with a meticulous
sense of pacing." The new album brims with more earworm melody, richly
implied harmony and a loose-limbed sense of rhythm as something physical and
flowing - as blood, as breath. Fans of jazz from Ornette Coleman and Henry
Threadgill to Dave Holland and Craig Taborn will dig this organic mix of
composition and improvisation, structure and freedom, atmosphere and dynamism.
About the evolution of Dirigo Rataplan and his writing for
the band, Gray says: "I've become more at ease with following my natural
artistic impulses. The experiences I've had over the past six years have been
so inspiring - in the intense, ultra-energized New York jazz scene, of course,
but also in Europe, where players in improvised music are so open to different
genres and have this holistic approach to art and creativity. With Dirigo
Rataplan II, there is more free improvisation in the music, but I also think
the melodic fluidity between the composition and the improvisation is more
seamless, with one flowing into the other in a way that I really like. This
music is personal for me, but Iwant Mike, Ellery and Dave to do what it is they
do, to maximize the pieces in the way that I know they can."
About working with Gray, Formanek says: "Devin has
grown as a composer since that first quartet recording session in 2011, but
most important, he has a much more evolved sense of who he is? as a musician,
and also of who we are in the band as improvisers. These instincts take time to
develop, and it has been great to see that process unfold in both his playing
and his composing. This music is free and open with a lot of room for
improvisation, but the tunes also have an intrinsic rhythmic and melodic
character to them, a color and energy. With the quartet having played together
more now, the sessions for the new album felt even better."
For Gray, what is most vital about Formanek "is not
just that his tone and sense of time are so incredible. It's also that he cares
so much about doing whatever he can to ensure the quality of the music in front
of him. He's a composer's improviser, in that way. I feel this total, unspoken
trust with him." About Eskelin, Gray says: "Ellery sets the bar so
high for improvisation. The fluidity of his solos, the intense forward motion -
that's what New York musicians have more than anyone else." Regarding
Ballou, the drummer adds: "I've known Dave's playing intimately since I
was a kid. I don't think he has ever sounded better, with that beautiful tone
and wide palette of expression. He brings a strong interpretive sense to my
music in that he anticipates what I'm looking for, yet via his own sensibility.
Working with cats like this, you don't have to worry about individualism - it's
in everything they do. They bring what are just notes on a page to real
life."
Reflecting further on Dirigo Rataplan II, Gray concludes:
"I don't set out to make jazz records, per se. I set out to make music,
period - to capture the moment, the contemporary feel of the music, hoping that
it can reflect in some small way how we live now and what we all have to deal
with as human beings in the world."
In addition to Dirigo Rataplan, Devin Gray leads the quartet
Relative Resonance, featuring Chris Speed, Kris Davis and Chris Tordini.
Reviewing that band's eponymous Skirl Records album, All About Jazz said:
"The vitality of Relative Resonance can't be denied... the music here
literally sparkles with wit and resourcefulness." On record, Gray has also
led his Cloudsounds trio (with Ingrid Laubrock and Corey Smythe) and his
quartet Fashionable Pop Music (with Tordini, Jonathan Goldberger and Ryan
Ferreira). He recently released a hard-grooving digital single fronting his
quartet Meta Cache with Jeremy Viner, Elias Stemeseder and Kim Cass.
As a sideman, Gray has recorded recent albums as part of
Nate Wooley's Argonautica sextet, trumpeter Daniel Levine's trio Knuckleball
(with Marc Hannaford) and a trio led by pianist Santiago Leibson (with Drew
Gress). Of late, the drummer has played with Dave Liebman and Tony Malaby,
along with touring Europe at the head of a trio with Speed and Gress. Gray's
recent collaborators also include Gerald Cleaver, Uri Caine, Andrea Parkins,
Satoko Fuji, Richard Bonnet, Daniel Guggenheim, Marc Ducret, Frank Gratkowski,
Jacob Anderskov, Eve Risser and Susana Santos Silva.
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