(Kate Gentile behind the drums at The Jazz Gallery, April 14, 2023; Image by James Koblin)
Rhythm is the essence of music. Music’s other parts are also essential – beautiful melodies, rich harmonies, fascinating texture, and the power of sound itself. But those elements are organized around rhythm, without which there is no song at all. Rhythm frames the other musical elements, providing the propulsion to make the composition move. It is the beating heart of music – time itself. Rhythm is also endlessly fascinating. For decades, art and popular music have explored the nuance and majesty of 4/4 meter – even this most common time signature has seemingly endless permutations of counterpoint, syncopation, and swing. Equally exciting has been the development of music in other time signatures, first in 3/4, which Max Roach and Dave Brubeck pioneered in the 1950s, but since then, the creation of music with increasingly complex and fascinating rhythms. On the current music scene, 4/4 is crowded out by 7/8, 11/8, you name it. While these new rhythms are now widely accepted, they are also a form of expression just in its infancy. After hundreds of years of 4/4, we have only had a few decades of exposure to the possibilities the world of new rhythms can give us. The musicians on the vanguard of this new approach are the rhythmic warriors of a new age.
These thoughts bring us to the main instrument for expressing rhythm, the drums, and a particular drummer who captures this new approach to music – Kate Gentile. We could discuss many musicians, and many drummers, who trade in this new rhythmic language, but Gentile plays it with ease and writes compositions that are built around these new structures.
The place to start with Gentile’s music is her auspicious debut, the 2017 album Mannequins. Pop Matters featured this album in 2017 as one of the year’s best, and you can find Will Layman’s interview with Gentile here. Mannequins is an incredible album from top to bottom, and Gentile spends time breaking down her composition style and playing in the Layman interview, as well as another 2017 interview with Jazz Speaks. I recommend playing all of Mannequins from beginning to end (the music is really well programmed), but the track from Mannequins that best captures Gentile’s music is “alchemy melt [with tilt].” This track begins with low, rumbling bass (Adam Hopkins) and piano (Matt Mitchell), with accents from Mitchell’s right hand and splashes from Gentile’s cymbals. The opening section is menacing, largely from the stuttering rhythm which drives the music forward with no rest. “alchemy melt [with tilt]” has an episodic structure and proceeds to an open section with soloing on tenor from Jeremy Viner, and then a return of the piano/bass/drums. Ten minutes in, the performance arrives at a theme so intricate you’ll wonder how any musicians could play it accurately. Gentile, Mitchell, Viner, and Hopkins do that with verve. Remarkably, this section of the music (10:08 to the end of the tune) morphs from one time signature to the next every few bars. In a 2019 interview on Dave Douglas’ Noise From the Deep podcast, Gentile describes the components of the structure, saying, “It actually goes, like 5,6,7,6,7,8,9,8” (each number indicating the time signature). Then, Gentile doubles down on this scheme, ending the recording with a pre-programmed electronic version of the same rhythmic structure, but played much, much faster than any human could. The explosion of intricate, impossible music is thrilling.
However, I don’t want to mischaracterize Gentile’s music by overemphasizing rhythmic complexity to the detriment of everything else going on. Yes, to these ears, the crazy rhythms are a major draw, but the music is also rich with other ideas. Gentile states in the interview with Pop Matters that her compositions explore the intersection of “language” (the grammar from which the music is constructed) and “sound” (the sonic qualities of the forces used). Rhythm is simply a means to explore these other artistic avenues. Aside from rhythm, the richness of harmonies and the exploration of sonic possibilities immediately jump out. You can hear these possibilities realized in, to cite two of many examples, the beautiful and moody counterpoint played by electronics throughout “Micronesia parakeet,” or the guitar-like edge of Mitchell’s Prophet-5 (an analog synthesizer) on “stars covered in clouds of metal.” Another strand is the influence of modern European classical music. On Mannequins, when the heated improvisation cools down, “third stream” musical episodes explore texture, dynamics, and melody, such as during Viner’s clarinet playing on “trapezoidal nirvana.”
The other element I’ve neglected to discuss is fun. Talking about 11/8 meter, unusual harmonies, and European art music might give the impression that this music is very intellectual (sure, a lot of it is), but it’s also visceral, dynamic and has a puckish sense of humor not limited to the quirky song titles. The spirit of curiosity, excitement of discovery, and experimentation are all over Mannequins, and even more so on the six-disc magnum opus Gentile released with Matt Mitchell four years later, Snark Horse.
Snark Horse consists of five and a half hours of original music composed by co-leaders Gentile and Mitchell. Where to start with a release that captures 70 compositions written over eight years? Gentile states in the podcast interview with Douglas that Snark Horse began with a dare between Gentile and Mitchell to write a bar of music – just one bar – every day. This regimen gradually developed into a massive book of micro compositions, which Gentile and Mitchell recorded in 3 days in 2019 and released in 2021. The performances on Snark Horse use different strategies to turn all those bars into fleshed-out performances, such as repeating the bar to make a tune or combining several separate one-bar compositions. The Bandcamp page says the bars “can be looped, connected, made into vamps, transposed, inverted, alternated, played together to create otherworldly counterpoint.” To improvise over those small nuggets of composition, Gentile and Mitchell employ the “Snarkestra” – top-shelf players including, (in addition to Gentile’s drums and Mitchell’s piano/electronics) the saxophones of Jon Irabagon, the viola of Mat Maneri, and guitar and banjo, respectively, of Ava Mendoza and Brandon Seabrook.
The resulting music keeps drawing you back for its open-minded sense of adventure, and highlights abound from both the Mitchell and Gentile tunes. Since our emphasis is on the music of Gentile, I’ll mention a few of her tunes that stand out: “f tessellations” (paired with “chimeric number”) is built around a loping phase over which the entire Snarkestra layers cacophonous harmony while Gentile pounds out rolls on her snare. “for teens” has Mendoza’s buzzing guitar and Irabagon’s tenor dancing around a taunt circular pattern. “trapezoids” (matched with Mitchell’s “matching tickles”), opens with a rock beat from Gentile against electronics with Mitchell’s piano playing the theme, and segues into an intricate solo from Irabagon’s saxophone. Those are just three gems from hours of music that does not disappoint. With so much to explore, you’ll want to spend time inhabiting this unusual and, yes, fun sound world. You can order the digital version on Bandcamp, and as of the time of this writing can also get the boxed set—highly recommended.
Gentile also is a very in-demand drummer who has played and recorded with Dave Douglas, Tim Berne, and especially Matt Mitchell – Mitchell and Gentile regularly play on each other’s projects. In addition to Snark Horse, Gentile has been the drummer on Mitchell’s incredible albums A Pouting Grimace, Phalanx Ambassadors, and Mitchell’s new double album Oblong Aplomb (Gentile plays on the first disc, drummer Ches Smith on the other). I recently caught Mitchell’s April 14 set at The Jazz Gallery celebrating the release of Oblong Aplomb, where he and Gentile performed all the compositions they play together in the album.
Hearing these musicians in a duo provided an excellent chance to get acquainted with their sound and appreciate music written for the needs of the piano and drums alone. Without other musicians, Mitchell’s piano has to hold down the harmony that the bass would play, and the music takes on a very structured shape. For me, the reference point for this approach is the music of Herbie Nichols, who shares with Mitchell a self-enclosed sound word, funny song names, and music that thirsts for the drums. This music was a perfect vehicle to show off what Gentile can do, and it made for a riveting set of music.
Mitchell and Gentile played the 12 tunes of disc one (called Oblong) as they appear on the new album. The music’s dense language was immediately apparent in the opener, “all immoderation,” which contrasted Mitchell’s dense two-hand voicing with drumming by Gentile that shadowed the piano lines. The tune ended with stunned silence from the audience, who evidently were trying to process the dense polyrhythms. As the audience settled into the music, the shared language of the two musicians became more apparent. “slarm biffle” may have been the highlight of the set. This labyrinthine 13 1/2 minute performance progressed from a raucous opening vamp into several sections of music built around Mitchell’s left hand under cascades of runs in the upper register. Throughout the performance, Gentile summoned an astonishing variety of accents, rhythms, and counterpoint to the piano playing. Part of what captivated me was the distinctive drumming style – Gentile does not rely on the ride cymbal to play time like most drummers have since Max Roach and others in the 1940s developed the technique. Instead, Gentile creates syncopated polyrhythms by splitting the beat between the bass, snare, tom toms, and cymbals. At the Jazz Gallery show, I was fascinated by the complex drumming as Gentile used the whole kit. The variety was heightened with extra texture from wood blocks and a cowbell unceremoniously tucked inside the snare. This was the first time I’d heard either Gentile or Mitchell live, and it was riveting. For those fortunate enough to live in the New York area, the two of them can regularly be seen not only at the Jazz Gallery but also at Roulette, Nublu, Barbès, The Stone, or IBeam. Make sure you get out to support live music!
It’s been a blast getting acquainted with the music of Kate Gentile and sharing it with you. Happily, there’s more to appreciate right around the corner. On May 19, Gentile will release her 2nd album as a leader, b i o m e i.i. The music is a 12-part suite of through-composed music with improvisation. There are two tracks available to listen to on Bandcamp right now, and the music sounds just otherworldly. You can order the album from Bandcamp here. Also, you can check out a live performance of this music from last year on the Roulette website. Gentile says b i o m e i.i is the first of three albums to expect from her this year! You know we’ll keep you posted about this amazing music here, and don’t forget to check out Gentile’s website, which is regularly updated.
More Gentile
If you want to explore the artistry of Kate Gentile further, there’s a lot else out there. Here are some rabbit holes I recommend:
Secret People – The name of another cool project, Secret People is a cooperative trio of Gentile with Nathaniel Morgan on alto saxophone and Dustin Carlson on electric guitars. Their self-titled album was released last year, and the music is unsurprisingly exciting guitar-driven skronk with an infusion of advanced harmony. You can get their album on Bandcamp here.
Cool album art – Gentile makes fantastic visual art that appears on her records – the cover art for Manequins (and the album title) suggests artificial elements taking the place of a human form. It’s evocative, and maybe provocative too. Gentile also created the art for her new album Biomei.i. You can see a time-lapse video of the cover coming together (and also hear excerpts of the music that are not posted anywhere else yet!)
Heavy Metal – Take a listen to the (long) interview with Hank Shteamer’s Heavy Metal Bebop, where Gentile discusses her love of, yes, extreme metal music. I think you can find parallels to the textures of metal in Gentile’s music, and the discussion about trying to create a new musical language that draws from metal and jazz is tantalizing.
The AEC – Gentile contributed a segment to the New York Times music feature “Five Minutes That Will Make You Love Percussion.” So cool that Gentile picked a performance on the “little instruments” by the Art Ensemble of Chicago. I encourage you to check out this piece and listen to the album Reece and the Smooth Ones.
The Percussion Barista – A podcast interview called Discussions in Percussion gets into some interesting background about the difficulty of balancing a day job with the life of a creative musician. Gentile talks about how after arriving in NYC, she had a job on boats around the city and supported her life as a drummer by working as a barista during the day.