Product Description

Audio CD

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Product Details

Publisher	Ecm Records
Number Of Discs	1
Original Release Date	2000-01-01
Creator	Marc Johnson Peter Erskine
Format	Audio CD Original recording reissued
UPC	042282777027
Label	Ecm Records
Studio	Ecm Records
EAN	0042282777027
Artist	John Abercrombie
Title	Current Events
Release Date	2001-03-20
Manufacturer	Ecm Records

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Customer Reviews

Late summer sunset: still still still

Review by Steve Wyzard, 2009-09-28

If you've come to this album looking for John Abercrombie's high-intensity howling guitar-playing, you're in for a great disappointment. If, however, you are interested in his gifts as a composer, an interpreter, a technological innovator, and an atmosphere-and-mood-creator par excellence, this album is a must-have. Released in 1986, Current Events is not only one of Abercrombie's greatest albums/performances EVER, but also one of the very best albums released by ECM Records in the entire decade.

There's an autumnal melancholy hanging over this album, but it never descends into sentimentality or nostalgia. With the exception of "Killing Time" (an over-the-top improv freak-out), it's mostly calm and peaceful without becoming a soundtrack for massage therapy or a new age healing center. It's nothing at all like Abercrombie's disappointing previous (1984) album, Night. Most will comment on the extensive use of the guitar synthesizer on songs like "Clint" and "Hippityville" - a quirky pattern is laid down, add Peter Erskine's solid drums and amazing cymbal work, add Marc Johnson's rumbling, adventuresome bass-playing, build slowly and solo on top. Abercrombie's acoustic playing is featured on "Lisa" and "Ralph's Piano Waltz" (originally recorded on the 1975 fusion classic Timeless).

The two performances that make this album one of the greats are also the two longest. The second song, Sammy Fain and Bob Hilliard's "Alice in Wonderland" (yes, the Disney one, also covered by Bill Evans) opens with 1-1/2 minutes of the most hauntingly beautiful guitar playing you will ever hear. Johnson solos over Erskine's brush work and you have a very unlikely masterpiece. Album-closer "Still" is built on a mesmerizing, repeating cadence - close your eyes and you're in a vast, solemn cathedral listening to chords on the pipe organ. Johnson (bass) and Abercrombie (acoustic guitar) both have their say before it fades into nothingness. The effect is absolutely unforgetable, embedding itself in the memory long after it's over. Still indeed.

Give John Abercrombie credit for departing from expectations and giving us something truly different and memorable. He would continue with the guitar synthesizer, and with Johnson and Erskine for the rest of the 1980s, but never came close to matching the atmospheres captured on Current Events. While some will dismiss this as an experiment gone wrong or "mindless noodling", I for one am thankful he was willing to take chances, and we have this album today.

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Still Timeless

Review by M. J. Devito, 2007-11-23

This is an amazing CD. Abercrombie only made about 3 CD's during the 80's early 90's with the guitar synth before he scrapped that and turned to the classical/jazz sound he has favored since then. There was an energy in the 80's in jazz where there was a feeling of something new again and I think it really was the last great decade of jazz. And there was such a melding back then between jazz and pop, whether it was Miles or Sting's first solo Cd, U2 or what Pat Metheny was doing. We underestimate how "smooth jazz" has rotted out the form from the inside out. Honestly, I can't remember the last time I heard something both technically flawless and as moving as this.

What Abercrombie does with the guitar synth here was just really great. You never feel like your listening to a trio. Within a melodic context he constantly deconstructs his own solos like on Clint or Hippityville. For the beginning guitar student THERE IS A LIFETIME'S WORTH OF GUITAR LESSONS HERE. I've been playing for 30 years and still learn new things whenever I hear this one...

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A Masterpiece by a Virtuoso at the Peak of His Powers

Review by Stephen Silberman, 2005-05-02

Guitarist John Abercrombie has recorded dozens of albums in varying configurations, but "Current Events" is one of his very best. His playing on each of the range of styles represented here -- from the muted, straight-ahead swing of "Alice in Wonderland," to the perky guitar-synth explorations of "Hippityville," to the hauntingly lyrical meditation of "Still" -- would be a career peak for most other guitarists. With the top-notch accompaniment of Marc Johnson on bass and Peter Erskine on drums, Abercrombie often sounds like a guitar player plus a keyboardist here, but the synth-tones he's using on this album are warm and organic-sounding, unlike the more tart, puckered flavors that have infiltrated his playing in recent years.

It's truly a shame that Abercrombie is not more widely known among the general jazz public. John Scofield has been able to package himself more successfully, but is not nearly as versatile or lyrical a player; Bill Frisell is brilliant, but Abercrombie has maintained a standard of outright beauty across an astonishing range of music that none of his peers can touch. He's a national treasure.

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A classic

Review by Charles Hartman, 2003-01-14

I can't believe there's only one review of this album. I've now owned it on LP, cassette, and CD -- the last just ordered because I can't be without it. Abercrombie's been a lot of different players in the last 20 or 30 years. Here at least as well as anywhere he combines the lyrical, the fiery, and the atmospheric. It's a turning point, but of permanent interest to anyone engaged by guitar music, post-60s jazz, or simply American improvisation.

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Oh well!

Review by Piotr C., 2002-06-04

I'm not a reviewer but need to say this: no time to hurry if you listen to this album and if you only hear the sounds you waste time because I see many fantastic colors melting in my mind. That's enough to recommend it.

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