Performers

Guitar Larry Baione
Jeffrey Lockhart
Tim Miller
Rick Peckham
Bruce Saunders
Frangois Chanvallon

Karl Marino
Organ Anastassiya Petrova
Trombone Brandon Ting-Yang Lin
Trumpet Will Mallard
Drums Ilya Blazh

Reflections on Jazz Guitar Legend
John Abercrombie

By Gary Lefkowitz

My wife Laura and | first met John Abercrombie in San Francisco in 1980 while he was in town
appearing with his namesake quartet featuring Richie Beirach '67, George Mraz ‘70, and Peter Donald
'70 (all Berklee schoolmates) at the Keystone Corner jazz club in North Beach. That meeting marked

the beginning of John's courtship of Laura’s sister Lisa. John and Lisa's romance blossomed into an
incredible love story, and she would become John's life partner and muse. John married into our family
in 1986, and he and | became fast friends and closely related as brothers-in-law. | play, and in fact
studied jazz guitar with Billy Bauer, so for me this was like hitting some sort of cosmic jackpot.

I think that the Berklee community can take a certain pride in the way John plied his musical craft. John
was initially attracted to the electric guitar through the rock ‘n’ roll music of Chuck Berry, Fats Domino,
and Bill Haley, but after he heard Miles Davis, Kenny Burrell, and others, he convinced his parents to
send him to Berklee. He was one of just a handful of students enrolled in Jack Petersen'’s jazz guitar
class in the mid-1960s, and his time there provided him with a definitive musical foundation.

In Boston, John had the opportunity to play gigs in a wide range of situations. He saw the immortals—
John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, Wes Montgomery, George Benson, Jim Hall-play at the
Jazz Workshop, and he performed with many other musicians with whom he'd later collaborate in the
studio and on tour. He got his first big break in 1967, when he joined Johnny "Hammond" Smith's
organ trio. The group toured constantly, piling into a Cadillac hauling a Hammond B-3 in an attached
U-Haul trailer, and hitting the road for shows seven nights a week. This experience would inform every
note he played thereafter. John was an intrepid explorer with huge sensitivity and a first-rate musical
mind. He was always learning and evolving. He would take all of that organ trio knowledge, add in
some Indian raga, synthesizers, effects pedals, psychedelic textures, and blazing chops, and channel it
into Timeless, an instant jazz classic and his first recording for ECM as a leader and composer.