the trey gunn band - live encounter

.:: Rarely will you hear the words "explosive" "tender," and "hypnotic" all used simultaneously to describe the same sound. But critics and fans agree there doesn't seem to be any other way to explain a Trey Gunn listening experience. Gunn, the Warr Touch Guitar playing virtuoso of King Crimson and The Trey Gunn Band, continues to amaze his audiences time and time again with his lulling melodies and furious deep grooves.

Tower Records Pulse magazine says "King Crimson sideman steps out with a bit of hard-hitting esoterica." Bass Player magazine says of their music "big, bad bass ostinatos, slinky odd-time signatures, and percussion from every corner of the globe are the basis of these otherworldly soundscapes." And the LA Jazz Scene called the band's live show "the ultimate balance of power and symmetry. Gunn and cohorts gracefully interspersed rock, funk, ambient, and world beat elements with the precision of a Swiss watchmaker."

Joined by multi-percussionist Bob Muller, guitarist Tony Geballe, and second Warr Guitarist Joe Mendelson, Gunn has finally captured the band in it's true essence -- pushed to the edge in front of a live audience, raw and bursting with energy.

Trey Gunn is still best known as a member of the most recent incarnation of King Crimson, playing his Warr Touch guitar, a variation on the Chapman Stick. Gunn's work with Crimson carries over into his own ensemble, except instead of holding down the bass player's role, he stretches out into some scintillating lead work that owes a debt to his mentor, Robert Fripp, especially the long, undulating sustained melodies.

Teaming up with another Warr guitarist, Joe Mendelson, guitarist Tony Geballe, and drummer Bob Muller, Gunn shows that 2000's The Joy of Molybdenum was no studio fluke, as he brings the same hell-bent fury and sky-scraping architecture to the live performances captured here.

Jettisoning the vocals that often make King Crimson sound like two different bands--one a quirky pop group with Adrian Belew singing, another storming the gates of instrumental heaven--Gunn's band sets their sites on the instrumental heaven, with roles shifting in the band as guitars become percussion instruments and drums become melodic. But topping it all are elaborate guitar and Warr guitar leads veering from African style cross-picking to feedback frenzies. --John Diliberto

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