The Steve Giordano Quintet
(1985-1988)
Steve Giordano, guitar; Marc Adler, flutes; Bob Meashey, trumpet/flugel horn; Paul Klinefelter, bass and Joe Mullen, drums.
This was a truly magical mix of like minded young musicians eager to stretch out and explore often very challenging and difficult musical terrain.
Steve Giordano by this time had made quite a name for himself and it was our honor to play and work with him. We would meet at his house in Germantown each week and spend hours rehearsing and experimenting with various musical forms, harmonic structures, grooves, timbres and so on. We mostly worked on original compositions but enjoyed selected jazz standards as well. Steve has (and had back then) a profound understanding of harmony and would challenge and delight with his brilliant harmonizations of not only his works but of anything brought to the rehearsal to be considered for our repertoire. As difficult as the work was at times, he insisted we memorize everything and the result of internalizing such difficult music was that we were able to connect through playing in a most profound and meaningful way unencumbered by having to read the music - we all “owned” the music and were free to interact to the fullest extent.
About a year ago, Steve discovered a number of recordings the quintet made (still on VHS tape) stashed away collecting dust. They were from a recording session at a studio in South Philadelphia and the engineer was Ramone. We all (including Steve) had completely forgotten about them! Fortunately, he was able to convert the analog audio files to digital .wav files and I’ve uploaded them for your listening pleasure. It was wonderful to hear this band again after so many years! I believe the music is still as relevant and as fresh as ever.
Below is one of the posters we used for gigs back then (they were designed the old fashioned way (paper, glue, sissors, etc) by my lovely wife Marlene (we were newlyweds back then). That club is no longer in existence, unfortunately.
Audio: Pluto (Joe Mullen); Camel Humps (Paul Klinefelter); Happy Lady (Steve Giordano); Summer Landscape (Steve Giordano); Thoughts of You (Marc Adler); Litha (Chic Corea)
This was a truly magical mix of like minded young musicians eager to stretch out and explore often very challenging and difficult musical terrain.
Steve Giordano by this time had made quite a name for himself and it was our honor to play and work with him. We would meet at his house in Germantown each week and spend hours rehearsing and experimenting with various musical forms, harmonic structures, grooves, timbres and so on. We mostly worked on original compositions but enjoyed selected jazz standards as well. Steve has (and had back then) a profound understanding of harmony and would challenge and delight with his brilliant harmonizations of not only his works but of anything brought to the rehearsal to be considered for our repertoire. As difficult as the work was at times, he insisted we memorize everything and the result of internalizing such difficult music was that we were able to connect through playing in a most profound and meaningful way unencumbered by having to read the music - we all “owned” the music and were free to interact to the fullest extent.
About a year ago, Steve discovered a number of recordings the quintet made (still on VHS tape) stashed away collecting dust. They were from a recording session at a studio in South Philadelphia and the engineer was Ramone. We all (including Steve) had completely forgotten about them! Fortunately, he was able to convert the analog audio files to digital .wav files and I’ve uploaded them for your listening pleasure. It was wonderful to hear this band again after so many years! I believe the music is still as relevant and as fresh as ever.
Below is one of the posters we used for gigs back then (they were designed the old fashioned way (paper, glue, sissors, etc) by my lovely wife Marlene (we were newlyweds back then). That club is no longer in existence, unfortunately.
Audio: Pluto (Joe Mullen); Camel Humps (Paul Klinefelter); Happy Lady (Steve Giordano); Summer Landscape (Steve Giordano); Thoughts of You (Marc Adler); Litha (Chic Corea)
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