Gerry Hemingway
The songwriter and producer Gerry Hemingway has a long back story
as a drummer, multimedia artist, bandleader, composer and
improviser of music beginning in the early 1970’s. His singular
approach as a writer and player is heard on well over 250
recordings. “I admit that I stopped counting some time ago, but
its around that amount.”
“Afterlife”, as its title
might suggest, is a rather dramatic departure from the well
documented trajectory of his career. “I notice that writers by now
commonly refer to me as a ‘veteran drummer …’ But if you look
closer I have a history of seeking roads I’ve never traveled on,
always curious to deepen and challenge my experience as an artist.
In the case of the release of “Afterlife”, I should say that
songwriting was always somewhere in me, close to the roots of why
I became a musician. In a way, I've returned to discover something
that was really always there. Singing, or the use of my voice, has
made numerous appearances on past recordings, but more in an
instrumental context. To sing lyric in the more traditional
context of song is a more recent development.
To understand the expressive range, character and limitations of
my voice, as well as to go deeper into producing, I spent a number
of years singing songs I admired by Dylan, Geeshie Wiley, the
American Songbook, or standards, Lou Reed, the Monroe Brothers and
many others . Making these covers meant my finding a new home for
the original song. After a while my own songs started to arrive.”
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March 2023 interview with Andreas Fellinger in FreiStil magazine
in Deutsch
in English
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January 2023 article in Jazz'n'More magazin with Pirmin Bossart
in Deutsch
in English
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He transforms pop sensibility into new and deeper territories and proves that he is a very effective vocalist, a kind of 21st-century blues bard and a rapper, with a seemingly unassuming phrasing but quite a personal one, and a songwriter with a compassionate perspective of a Buddhist sage on life and love (“check - what you know / it’s never too late, to let it go”, he sings on the opening “The Creeks Do Rise”…
But the magic of Afterlife also lies in the rhythmic conceptualizing of the songs. Hemingway’s phrasing, the rhyming texts, the precise editing of the contributing parts of the other musicians, and obviously his own playing on drums and percussion instruments, all construct layered and highly nuanced, sensual rhythmic frameworks that correspond beautifully with the clever and suggestive lyrics. A rare, inspiring gem.
Eyal Hareuveni FreeJazzBlog / Dec. 8 2022
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"It took him four years to perfect this album, which is as unexpected as it is fascinating. A work often solitary but for which he has had the help of many musician friends whom he does not fail to thank for their help, their advice, their contributions. The sung/spoken voice, sensitive and warm, sometimes fragile, takes us into a composite sound universe which is based on a mastery of electronics but also gives an important place to conventional, acoustic and electric instruments. Unclassifiable, often in the vicinity of poetic rock with a good dose of inventiveness and audacity, Afterlife is a nice surprise for this end of the year 2022. A new life after Life."
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