No Difference

Gordon Grdina continues to explore Arabic-inspired improvisation in a series of duets, trios and quartets with bassist Mark Helias, drummer Kenton Loewen, and saxophonist Tony Malaby. From the meditative oud and bass duets “Hope in Being” and “Fast Times” to the modernist electric-guitar-driven “The Throes”, the album furthers Grdina’s goal to find spiritual unity in cultural difference. - Mark Werlin, All About Jazz

Vancouver-based guitarist and oud player Gordon Grdina has been involved in many collaborations with creative improvisers going back to his 2006 trio Think Like the Waves with Gary Peacock and Paul Motian. His association with bassist Mark Helias dates from that time, and eventually resulted in this duo/quartet recording featuring Grdina's longtime drummer Kenton Loewen. "I wanted to add Kenton on part of it because he and Mark have a great connection through Ed Blackwell – Kenton through Ed being his biggest influence and Mark through having played with Ed for something like 15 years! I also could hear a horn on some of this music and I immediately thought of Mark and Tony Malaby's connection in Open Loose. Their thing is real deep, and Kenton and I have been working on everything together for about 10 years, and I thought that these two things might work really well together.” In June 2012 they went into the studio for a day and played a gig at Brooklyn's ShapeShifter Lab (the recording includes two live duo tracks).

The pieces, all Grdina’s, range from searching, delicate duos on oud or guitar to denser, more energetic guitar quartet tracks, where a striving towards collective abandon is held within fairly tight structures. Grdina wrote specifically for these musicians and what he could hear the entire group sounding like. So “Visceral Voices” is both free and swinging. “The Throes” has a dark melodic/harmonic language and a 5/4 lope reminiscent of certain tunes from Think Like the Waves, but the treatment is somehow more rooted, a melancholy introspection tempered by the group’s buoyant togetherness. Also notable are the tender ballad “Nayeli Joon” (named after Grdina’s daughter) and the experimental “Cluster”, where the duo quietly plays the melody and improvises off it against an overdubbed backdrop chaos of effected bowed guitar.

Grdina’s oud provides an Arabic flavor to some of the duos, giving the record a subtle world-music dimension. His guitar sound has evolved over time: “Originally I was getting most of the high end from my guitar recorded acoustically directly and then the amp sound was very dark. This was from a love of Jim Hall and Bill Frisell and hearing my own sound through theirs. I’ve since become more interested in a brighter amp tone and distortion to create that larger sound. This came quite naturally out of trying at first to hear Wayne Shorter’s music through the guitar and then later Albert Ayler. Trying to get something like their size, energy and intensity of expression.”