released May 1, 2003

GERRY HEMINGWAY QUARTET
DEVILS PARADISE

GERRY HEMINGWAY DRUMS
ELLERY ESKELIN TENOR SAXOPHONE
RAY ANDERSON TROMBONE
MARK DRESSER DOUBLE BASS

01 DEVILS PARADISE 7.21
02 IF YOU LIKE 7.18
03 JOHNNY'S CORNER SONG 6.12
04 FULLOFF 7.13
05 BACK AGAIN SOME TIME 7.45
06 TOOMBOW 9.32
07 GENTLE BEN 5.49
08 TOM SKWELLA 5.14

All compositions by Gerry Hemingway-Nagual Music (GEMA/ BMI) except “Gentle Ben" by Mark Helias-Radio Legs Music (GEMA/ BMI)

Recorded by Michael Brorby at Acoustic Recording, Brooklyn NY, on February 8, 1999
Mastered by Gerry Hemingway
Produced by Gerry Hemingway and Bill Goodwin
Liner Notes by Bill Shoemaker
Executive Production by Trem Azul
Design by Rui Garrido
Cover Painting by Manuel Amado {Portugal Telecom Private Collection)
Group Photo by Alan R. Chandler

Special thanks to all the people who produced concerts of the quartet prior to this recording, and to Ellery, Ray & Mark as well as Herb Robertson, Paul Smoker and Mike Formanek who were also involved in the development of this quartet prior to this recording. Thanks also to Clean Feed for making this recording available to all of our listeners. For more information about this quartet and other projects of Gerry Hemingway visit:

www.gerryhemingway.com

LINER NOTES FOR DEVILS PARADISE by Bill Shoemaker / March 2003

Composer/ improvisers working in jazz and related idioms practice something akin to crop rotation in agriculture. They will take a seasoned band out on tour one season, then spend the next polishing a commissioned work for premiere, or road testing a new collaboration. And, so it goes year in and year out, until they have developed a wide variety of projects.

Gerry Hemingway has honed this process to the point !hat, at any given day, he has several projects in various stages of cultivation. In the past year alone, Hemingway released "Songs" (between the lines), his most ambitious recording to date, premiered his "Sideband: Concerto for Three Improvisers and Orchestra," and debuted a new book of compositions for his revamped Quintet. Additionally, Hemingway logged thousands of miles germinating and tending numerous other projects.

Inevitably, projects with a pointedly occasional nature, or a sufficiently arcane agenda, are overshadowed. Yet, in Hemingway's body of work, such projects are not appendices, but sinews uniting its large muscles. Without them, his creativity would atrophy. Hemingway's constant movement through ad hoc meetings and occasional collaborations facilitates the accumulation and filtering of ideas that ultimately propel lifelong partnerships and underlie major works.

Given the aesthetic interdependency of Hemingway's disparate projects, it is not an exaggeration to suggest that a bi-annual weeklong tour with John Butcher is crucial to extending the quarter-century run of BassDrumBone, his co-op trio with Ray Anderson and Mark Helias. Nor is it hyperbolic to argue that a CD of free improvisations with Thomas Lehn is as important an item in Hemingway's discography as the 1994 album-length suite, "The Marmalade King" (hat ART).

When History weighs in, it will pronounce some of Hemingway's projects to be significantly more important than others. Undoubtedly, many of his projects will receive only cursory mention in an encyclopedia entry. To a degree, these assessments will be made on the basis of familiarity, which is why Hemingway's tenure in Anthony Braxton's classic quartet of the '80s and early '90s will most likely be included in the lead paragraph. Steve Lacy has remarked that a composer's first struggle is to have his music heard and the second, longer war, is to make his music familiar to his or her audience. Hemingway has won the first, convincingly, but he still has a long march to secure the second and arguably more important victory. It is in this light that "Devils Paradise" is a very timely and germane album.

Two lines of familiarity shape this recording. The first is the material: six of the album's eight compositions have appeared on previous Hemingway recordings stretching back to "Down To The Wire" (hat ART), the 1993 debut of the most acclaimed edition of his Quintet. Two of Hemingway's pieces - “If You Like" and "Toombow" - have appeared on more than one album. The other line of familiarity is the personnel. Hemingway met Anderson through Mark Dresser in 1976, and their careers have been interwoven ever since. Ellery Eskelin is a newcomer by comparison, even though his six years with Hemingway's Quartet would give him seniority in most ensembles.

The convergence of these lines of familiarity manifests in the spirit of camaraderie permeating every note on this recording, and how that spirit animates Hemingway's compositions. As much as Hemingway is attuned to putting both song and dance into a composition, the lilt of the phrasing and the lilt of the rhythms is largely attributable to his cohorts' ability to banter and toast. Despite being a studio recording, the album has the rousing conviviality of a classic club date.

A flower may be a labor of ages; but Gerry Hemingway somehow develops a perennial every few years. His Quartet is one of his hardiest, and it is in full bloom on "Devils Paradise"