Bruce Gertz: Red Handed

Boston-based bassist Bruce Gertz is a writer-leader to reckon with. As annotator Bob Blumenthal reminds us, this is the fourth outing for the Gertz quintet. Since its debut disc in 1991, Gertz’s fivesome, save one change, has retained the same turbo-charged line-up of guitarist John Abercrombie, tenor saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi and drummer Adam Nussbaum, with pianist Bruce Barth now in for Joey Calderazzo. Talk about musical ESP. These guys “see” as well as hear around corners. Lines fly “inside” and “out” and everywhere else. A large part of that has to do with Gertz’s tunes which, while appealing in their own right, also function to push the band into the ether of inspired weight-free improvisation.