New Album: Bruce Gertz Quintet, Octopus Dreams

Bruce Gertz has enjoyed a very busy career as a bassist, composer, bandleader (heading over 20 albums), and educator. His latest recording, Octopus Dreams, features his music being performed by an impressive quintet also including trumpeter-flugelhornist Phil Grenadier, tenor-saxophonist Rick DiMuzio, pianist Gison Schachnik, and drummer Gary Fieldman.

The set begins with “Power Walk.” The harmonically advanced and dissonant melody disguises the fact that its chord structure is actually based on “Jada” and Sonny Rollins’ “Doxy.” Gertz, Grenadier and DiMuzio each take colorful solos. The moody ballad “Octopus Dreams” has Grenadier soloing effortlessly over the complex chord changes while “Sea Worthy” includes concise statements from all five musicians.

“Mr. Z” is relatively mellow while “I’m Busy” is the most uptempo piece of the program and includes a heated tradeoff of the two horns with drummer Fieldman. Octopus Dreams concludes with “Opening” (notice how Schachnik begins the piano solo by echoing DiMuzio’s closing idea) and the lively “Redacted.”

Bruce Gertz has quite a resume. He has been the Professor of Bass at Berklee since 1976, has written six books, and is a contributing editor to Bass World Magazine. As a performer he has worked with such classic greats as Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Dave Brubeck, Gary Burton, John Abercrombie, Joey Calderazzo, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Bill Frisell, Gil Evans, Jon Hendricks, Jerry Bergonzi, Joe Lovano, George Garzone, Mike Stern, Larry Coryell, and Danilo Perez among many others, in addition to leading his own groups. He can always be relied upon to uplift the music no matter what the style, and his solos are consistently thoughtful and full of subtle surprises.

And, as is obvious throughout Octopus Dreams, Bruce Gertz is a very talented composer. The new release is one of the finest in his career.

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