GHS (Gambale - Hamm -
Smith) 3: Liner Notes
 First,
a frank admission right up front in the interest
of full disclosure: I’m a fusion junkie. Have
been since I first saw Return To Forever in
concert in 1974. Nearly 30 years later I still
love the sound of throbbing basslines and double
bass drums, impossible unison lines and
sextuplets, rapid-fire tom tom fills and nasty,
distortion-laced guitar playing way too many
notes. All those early Lifetime and Mahavishnu
Orchestra records still sound good to me. Not
just good...AWESOME! RTF’s "Where Have I Known
You Before," Billy Cobham's "Spectrum,"
"Introducing Larry Coryell & The Eleventh
House," Jean-Luc Ponty's "Enigmatic Ocean," Al
Di Meola's "Land of the Midnight Sun," ’Stanley
Clarke's "Journey To Love," Lenny White's
"Venusian Summer," Bruford's "Feels Good To Me,"
Brand X's "Unorthodox Behaviour" ...YEAH! Bring
on the wretched excess!
Those were all
players-albums intended to blow listeners away
with the sheer intensity and virtuosity of the
performances. There was a sense of pushing the
envelope instrumentally, playing at the peak of
one’s ability and then reaching down for that
magical something extra to take it over the top,
and I dug it. Still do. Which is why this third
recording by Frank Gambale, Stu Hamm and Steve
Smith is currently killing me. Cast in that
early ‘70s players tradition, it holds nothing
back and makes no apologies for its extreme
notey-ness. This is not crossover music, this is
going-for-the-jugular music. And I like it.
In Gambale, a former member of Chick Corea’s
Elektric Band and current member of Steve
Smith’s Vital Information, you have one of the
most incredible guitar technicians on the planet
today. Frank’s sweep picking facility is by now
legendary stuff among guitar aficionados and he
unleashes it with jaw-dropping abandon on the
opening track "All in Your Head" as a kind of
in-your-face manifesto that sets the tone for
this burning project. Hamm, longtime sideman to
guitar hero Joe Satriani, is possibly one of the
few electric bass guitarists who could cut the
blazing unison lines thrown at him on Gambale’s
demanding compositions "Confuse-A-Blues" and
"The Challenger."
Gambale had high praise
for Hamm. "I like Stu’s bass playing a lot. Even
though he’s mostly considered a rock bass player
he’s had some schooling (Berklee College of
Music). So he’s not just an ear or feel player.
Even though he doesn’t play this kind of music
very often, he really rose to the occasion. He’s
a very musical bass player. He doesn’t just play
the root, he subtly outlines the chords as he
plays so he makes my job easier. That’s
something that a lot of bassists don’t
understand."
Smith, a former member of
Jean-Luc Ponty's mid-'70s powerhouse group (the
one featuring the twin guitar attack of Daryl
Stuermer and Alan Holdsworth) as well as a
longtime member of rock supergroup Journey,
holds his own alongside Frank and Stu in this
fusiony fray, blending power and precision in
his uniquely melodic approach to the kit. Says
ringleader Smith, "There’s a great chemistry
that happens with this trio, especially in the
jamming aspect. It’s so easy and natural.
Rhythmically it’s comfortable and there’s a lot
of interesting interplay that goes on."
Smith and Hamm originally hooked up in the late
‘80s on a session for Shrapnel Records by young
guitar hotshot Richie Kotzen (who was all of 17
years old at the time). Some years later the two
found themselves playing together again as the
rhythm tandem for an all-star jam at Guitar
Player magazine’s 25th anniversary party.
Gambale was one of many guitar slingers who took
the stage that evening and Smith presided over
the introductions between Frank and Stu. The
three established a quick chemistry in the
studio on their first Tone Center outing
together, 1999’s jam-oriented "Show Me What You
Can Do." For their follow-up, 2000’s "The Light
Beyond," the trio placed more emphasis on
compositions than all-out jamming. This third
outing features their most ambitious writing
yet, along with all the sparks and pyrotechnics
we’ve come to expect from these three formidable
players.
Interestingly, the sequence of
tunes here is in the actual order that they were
recorded over two weeks time. The aforementioned
opener is a quintessential high energy jazz-rock
burner powered by Smith’s muscular, crisp
backbeats and nimble fills and anchored by
Hamm’s mighty groove. Gambale’s acrobatic solo
here is simply not to be believed... yet another
landmark in an auspicious career littered with
way too many notes.
Hamm’s "The Great
Roberto," a heavy duty ode to Robert Fripp,
evokes memories of King Crimson's "Red" or
"Discipline" with Hamm carrying the melody
upfront before rumbling on the low end
underneath. In an appropriate nod to Crimson
drummer Bill Bruford, Smith eschews the cymbals
in favor of tom toms while Gambale unleashes
another mind-boggling display of sweepage that
will leave fretboard fanatics falling to the
ground with their teeth chattering.
"Confuse-A-Blues" is Gambale’s slyly deceptive
take on the age-old I-IV-V chord progression.
The rhythm actually shifts gears from four in
the I chord to seven in the IV chord to five in
the V chord. Hence the title. Gambale plays
steel string acoustic guitar here with the same
fire and fervor that he exhibits on electric.
Hamm adds a spectacular bass solo before
doubling up with Frank for some dizzying unison
lines. And Smith offers a particularly melodic
solo on the kit before the three engage in some
heated exchanges in classic '70s fusion fashion.
It’s a nearly 10-minute tour-de-force that
stands out on an album chock full of daring,
exhilarating moments.
"Saving Grace" is
Gambale's lyrical ballad, performed on acoustic
guitar once again, that gradually builds to
flamenco flavored bravura with Frank leading the
way. "Culture Clash" is Smith's drum showcase in
which he plays Indian rhythms on the kit and
then doubles them (via overdubbing) on djembe
drum. As he explains, "That's a composed solo
piece I developed that incorporated some rhythms
that Sandip Burman taught me. He is a tabla
player from Calcutta, India whom I toured with
last summer. The piece is based on Indian
rhythms and concepts that I’ve been
investigating. They have a lot of strict rules
that they follow in Indian music, very similar
to a lot of jazz. But there's also room for
embellishment and improvisation within those
rhythms. I'm playing rhythmic phrases using the
Indian technique of expansion and reduction,
where you can shift the rhythms around as long
as it all works out mathematically."
"Geo
100," co-written by Hamm and Gambale, carries
more of the signatures of classic ‘70s go-for-it
fusion. Set to a rapid rock pulse, it is
brimming with more difficult unison lines and
outrageous shredding by Gambale. Hamm is also
featured prominently on the piccolo bass here,
laying nimble melody lines on top of Frank’s
grinding distorto guitar work. Smith adds his
own bit of virtuosity to the proceedings with
another remarkable drum solo. "For this piece I
had the groove set but I wanted Frank’s harmonic
take on it," explains Hamm. "I showed him what I
was doing and he came up with something
brilliant. So it’s my groove with his harmonic
thing."
The somber "November" is Hamm's
virtuosic bass showcase in which he overdubs a
lyrical melody line on top of chordal bass.
"That was a piece I had written in November when
I was feeling rather melancholy," he offers. "I
originally brought it in to do as a piece for
the whole band but we never got around to it. So
I did it myself and it works well as a solo bass
piece. It’s something nice to give everyone’s
ear a rest. There’s a lot of notes flying by on
this one, but that’s how (Tone Center head Mike)
Varney likes 'em."
The astounding closer,
Gambale's "The Challenger," is an intervallic
obstacle course that Smith calls "the hardest
piece that I’ve ever played." Originally
composed as an acoustic guitar piece for the
solo portion of his duet concerts with Italian
classical guitarist Maurizio Colinna, the
aptly-named piece is laced with incredibly
challenging unison lines that culminate in a
dramatic flurry. It’s the final exclamation
point on an all-around astounding display of
chops wedded to thoughtful compositions.
Adds Gambale, "You can only hope that the more
you do it the better you get at it. That first
album we did was the first trio recording I had
every done. Trio for guitar can be extremely
challenging but this third album felt easier in
some ways. I have a lot more confidence now."
While Smith clearly holds the reigns on
Vital Information, the GHS power trio is more of
a cooperative affair with each artist having
equal input in the overall scheme of things.
"Vital is definitely Steve’s thing," says
Gambale. "The trio is different. We’re all
contributing equally. So I bring in something
that’s in a fusion vein because my roots are in
fusion. I like to play hard and I like to burn.
Playing fast is sort of a drug to some
listeners. They get addicted to it."
And
Frank is only too happy to oblige them (and me)
with another fix.
"We try to keep raising
the bar every time we do these trio recordings,"
adds Hamm. "It's always challenging from a
compositional standpoint but we also do them so
quickly that they retain a spontaneous feel. We
learn the songs and then we gotta make it sound
like we’ve been playing them out on the road for
a couple of months. I think part of what makes
these records work is the fact that what you’re
hearing is basically the first time we’re really
getting through the pieces and playing the shit
out of them. So you get this
could-fall-apart-at-any-moment kind of energy at
these sessions. And I think fans respond to
that."
I know I do.
--
Bill Milkowski
Bill Milkowski is a
regular contributor to Jazz Times and Guitar
World magazines. He is also the author of "JACO:
The Extraordinary And Tragic Life of Jaco
Pastorius" (Backbeat Books) and "Swing It! An
Annotated History of Jive" (Billboard Books).
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