Gerry Hemingway

Drummer and percussionist Gerry Hemingway gained widespread recognition through his long association with the Anthony Braxton Quartet, an adventurous and influential group that certain observers have ranked alongside the landmark modern jazz quartets fronted by John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman. He entered the ensemble in 1983 and remained its drummer for a dozen years, participating in multiple studio sessions for several record companies while the band performed extensively at clubs, concert halls, and festivals around the world. One English tour receives detailed coverage in Graham Lock’s 1988 volume Forces in Motion.

Hemingway’s tenure with Braxton nevertheless represents only one peak among several notable achievements. Even as he continued performing with Braxton in the early 1990s, he began attracting attention as a leader, directing a transatlantic quintet that featured bassist Mark Dresser—also from the Braxton group—alongside three Amsterdam-based players: cellist Ernst Reijseger, trombonist Wolter Wierbos, and saxophonist/clarinetist Michael Moore. Hemingway supplied drums, percussion, and every original composition for the ensemble, material documented across several well-received albums. The group’s Hat Art releases comprise Special Detail (1991), Demon Chaser (1994), and The Marmalade King (1995), all of which have since gone out of print. Two further titles appeared on the German Random Acoustics label: Slamadam (1995) and Perfect World (1996). In 1991 the same musicians, without Reijseger, recorded as a quartet; that session surfaced as Down to the Wire on Hat Art in 1993.

After twelve years Hemingway dissolved the quintet, pointing to the “formidable cost” of transporting the Dutch musicians to North America for engagements in the United States and Canada. Waltzes, Two-Steps & Other Matters of the Heart, drawn from the group’s final live European concerts in 1996, was issued by GM Recordings in 1999.

At the 1997 New York Jazz Festival Hemingway introduced a fresh quartet drawn from a flexible pool of American musicians. Core participants included trombonists Ray Anderson or Robin Eubanks, tenor saxophonist Ellery Eskelin, and bassists Mark Dresser or Michael Formanek. While touring Europe in November 1997—with Eubanks on trombone—the band captured material later released as Johnny’s Corner Song on Auricle Records in 1998. Freed from the expense of importing European personnel, Hemingway kept the quartet active with numerous U.S. dates throughout 1998 and 1999. Several key pieces from those performances were subsequently recorded, with Anderson and Dresser, for the 2003 album Devils Paradise.

Hemingway has also ventured into contemporary classical composition. He was commissioned to create “Contigualis” for string quartet and “The Visiting Tank” for string quartet augmented by live electronics. Both works, together with revisions of two earlier commissions—“Aurora” for sextet and “Circus” for quintet—were recorded in February 1999 at Merkin Hall in New York City. The resulting program appeared later that year on John Zorn’s Tzadik label under the title Chamber Works. Additional commissions have included a concerto for percussionist and orchestra, a full-length piece for tape and percussion, a quadraphonic electronic composition, and a multimedia work involving multiple slide projectors, tape, and percussion, among other chamber and mixed-media projects.

Solo performances and recordings combining percussion with electronics form another strand of his output. In 1996 Random Acoustics issued Electro-Acoustic Solo Works (1984-1995) and Acoustic Solo Works (1983-1994), a pair of discs surveying this dimension of his work.

Beyond his own ensembles, Hemingway has played in groups directed by bassist Reggie Workman and pianist Anthony Davis. He maintains ongoing collaborative projects such as BassDrumBone with trombonist Ray Anderson and bassist Mark Helias, a trio with cellist Ernst Reijseger and German pianist Georg Graewe, a regular duo with pianist and former Braxton quartet member Marilyn Crispell, a trio featuring Crispell and bassist Barry Guy, the group Tambastics alongside Dresser, flutist Robert Dick, and pianist Denman Maroney, and the Iliad Quartet with guitarist James Emery. Additional recording and performance partners have encompassed Derek Bailey, Leo Smith, Oliver Lake, Frank Gratkowski, Conrad Bauer, John Cale, and Hank Roberts.