Gerry Gibbs,"The Thrasher"

Song Titles:
1. Some Skunk Funk (composed by Randy Brecker) (arranged by Gerry Gibbs ) (From the CD Gerry Gibbs Thrasher Big Band, Live At Luna (2006)
(Wailing City Sound Records)
2. Mistakes, Misunderstandings, Moving On, Never Looking Back G.T.J. (Movement one of an eight part suite. ) Movement one- Unexplained Change Of Heart.
(Composed and arranged by Gerry Gibbs)
(From the upcomming CD Gerry Gibbs and The Thrasher Sextet - Moving On, Never Looking Back)(May 2008)
(RKM Records)
3. Maiden Voyage (composed by Herbie Hancock) ( arranged by Gerry Gibbs ) (From the CD Gerry Gibbs Thrasher Big Band Live At Luna (2006)
(Whaling City Sound Records)
4. Impressions/Giant Steps (Both composed by John Coltrane ) (Impressions arranged by Gerry Gibbs ),(Giant Steps arranged by Justin Vasquez ) (From the upcomming CD Gerry gibbs and the thrasher sextet - Moving On ,Never Looking Back)(May 2008)
(RKM RECORDS)
5 and 6 Excerpts (All music recorded by Miles Davis (All music arranged by Gerry Gibbs , From the upcomming double CD (Gerry Gibbs and the Bitches Brew Orchestra plays The Music Of Miles Davis (1967 - 1975), (September 2008)
(Wailing City Sound Records)
( Gerry Gibbs CD'S)
Gerry Gibbs The Thrasher,Feat Ravi Coltrane (Warner Bros.) (1996)
Gerry Gibbs Third Trio From The Sun ,First Visit (View Point Records)(2000)
Gerry Gibbs And The Thrasher Band, Faces Unknown (SMS jAZZ) (2006)
Gerry Gibbs And The Thrasher Big Band, Conducted by Adrian Ruiz , Live At Luna (Wailing City Sound Records) (2006)
Gerry Gibbs And The Thrasher Sextet, Moving On, Never Looking Back (RKM Records)( May 2008 release)
Gerry Gibbs And The Bitches Brew Orchestra Plays The Music Of Miles Davis 1967 - 1975 (Whailing City Sound Records)(September 2008 release)
To listen, or purchase these Gerry Gibbs CD's on line, please click on each CD title above to get the link that will take you to each record companies website.
(Quotes from a few great jazz musicians)
" Gerry Gibbs is an up and coming talent that deserves recognition". - McCoy Tyner
"Another exciting and provocative collection of music from Gerry Gibbs ! Using a wide sonorous palette, Gerry and his trio take us on wild and compelling musical journeys". - Michael Brecker
"If Herbie Hancock's Headhunters band from the 70's had kept going, this Gerry Gibbs and the Third Trio from the Sun CD is quite possibly what it would sound like. This is an innovative and groundbreaking jazz effort - that's why you need to go out and buy it". - Larry Coryell
" Gerry Gibbs handed me a CD that reflects his immence talent as a player and writer which is undeniable". - Hubert Laws
" Gerry plays his ass off !". - mike stern
" Gerry Gibbs and his music will take us into the next century". - Billy Hart
(Quote about the CD "Faces Unknown"). The first impression I get from listening to this incredibly original music is one of optimism. The direction and the concept of the recording reveals and adventurious and joyful spirit, backed up by a thoughtful and masterful craft. Gerry and friends have managed to blend many desperate elements into an entirely organic whole, making each tune a great listening experience, surprising yet familiar. "Bravo". - Billy Childs
Gerry Gibbs has been passing off as my son for 43 years now. I now have hired an investigator to look into this matter. - Terry Gibbs
Musicians that I've had the honor of either playing gigs, touring, or recording with:
Terry Gibbs, Mccoy Tyner, Alice Coltrane, Larry Coryell, Joe Henderson, Mike Stern, Randy Brecker, Hubert Laws, Dewey Redman, Clark Terry, Tom Harrell, James Moody, Sam Rivers, John Abercrombie, David"Fathead"Newman, Ravi Coltrane, Brad Mehldau, Gary Bartz, Steve Turre, James Carter, Dave Liebman, Steve Allen, Joe Lovano, Billy Childs, Buddy Defranco, Patrice Rushen, Hubert Laws, Jon Hendricks, Joe Locke, Joanne Brackeen, Stefon Harris, Eddie Henderson, James Williams, Luis Gasca, Mark Feldman, Arthur Blythe, Reggie Workman. Joey Defrancesco, Eric Alexander, Jeri Brown, Mark Turner, Danillo Perez, Uri Caine, Ernie Watts, Mulgrew Miller, Milt Hinton, Kenny Kirkland, Jay McShann, Don Pullen, Rufus Reid, Horace Tapscott, Benny Maupin, Anthony Wilson, Ursala Dudziak, George Cables. Eddie Harris.
A little information about myself:
Hello,everyone My name is Gerry Gibbs . (many people ask where the nick-name Thrasher came from ? It was a name that I gave to pianist Don Pullen and some how in time it got turned around back on me and people started to call me the Thrasher, so I kept it).
I am 43 years old, not married, and have no children. I live in both Hollywood California and Astoria Queens New York.
My first real big gig came when I was 6 years of age and appeared on the Steve Allen show to play a drum solo. Also later that year I appeared on the Hollywood Squares to perform a drum battle with Bob Crane who played Hogan from the hit show Hogan's Hero's
I make a living as a Jazz musician and have had the opportunity to work with many great Jazz artists (I have listed some of my favorite people that I have either gigged, toured or recorded with up above).
I was born in NYC, but grew up in Southern California.In those early years (and I am talking about when I was between ages 18 and 23), I worked with an eclectic discography of musicians around Los Angeles. Of course I worked gigs and recordings all the time with my pops, Terry Gibbs and clarinet pioneer Buddy Defranco . I also worked with many of the greats from the old west coast jazz days such as Conti Condoli and Lou Levy to name a few. I also made gigs with more modern jazz musicians like Billy Childs and Ernie Watts . I was also part of what seems like the last Central Ave jazz scene which put me on many gigs with people like Doug Carne, Larry Gales, Horace Tapscott, Frank Morgan ,and many others. For me, one of the best times I had musically back then was being called to sub for Billy Higgins to play a few sets with trumpeter Woody Shaw in Los Angeles. My all time greatest musical moments back then came from with out a doubt , playing gigs and recording with Alice Coltrane . Those will always be some of the most important and gratifying moments in my musical and non musical life.
In 1988,I moved back to NYC to start a jazz career. Within a week of my arrival I met the Harper brothers . They were the hottest young lion jazz group in N. Y. at the time and had just finished their new CD for Verve Records. They were really big at the time and always on the road. Both brothers really helped me out and I became drummer Winards sub at the Blue Note jazz club playing in the after hours band every night. Many times in the next three years I got to even be the leader and hire my own bands there.This eventually would help to put me into a great situation to play with my 3 different bands that I was writing music for. I then played one week engagements every 4 or 5 weeks at the Village Gate in Greenwich Village. That went on for a few years until the club actually closed after being one of the most famous jazz clubs in NYC for 40 years. This was an important time in helping me to get my own music and projects out there to be heard. That situation would eventually lead to a record contract with Quincy Jones and Warner Bros. In 1991 I got married,but soon after my wife tragically passed away from the disease, Sickle Cell Anemia
During this time I was working a lot around NYC. I was still a sideman playing in the after hours band at the Blue Note jazz club and the Village Gate and didn't travel too much because it took me a few years to get back on my feet after her passing.
In 1994 I had 2 projects I was writing for. One was a band that was made up of vibes ( Joe Locke ) and violin ( Mark Feldman ) ,bass ,and drums and the other was a west coast traveling thing I was doing and writing for. My long time friend Ravi Coltrane was in that band. We would usually do a west coast 12 gig tour 3 times a year and have pianist Billy Childs with us. Sometimes Brad Mehldau or Patrice Rushen would do it too.
In 1995 the great drummer/producer and co leader of the Jazz group the Crusaders , Stix Hooper caught the band in Los Angeles. He asked me for a tape of what we were playing and played it for Quincy Jones . Quincy told him that he wanted to record us on his own label. I had actually envisioned a more colorful combination of instruments and wanted to combine the sax, piano, bass and drum combo with the vibes and violin. So I gave Stix some tapes of the Vibes/Violin band and told him to envision the two together. Within a week Stix told me that Quincy dug it and the result was my first CD of all my own music on the Warner Bros label. Along with pianist Billy Childs , I added long time musical friend, pianist Uri Caine to play on half of the CD because we played all the time together in NYC and did some tours with a co-led trio in Paris,France. That CD got many rave reviews all over the world and we did many great tours after.
In 1997 I met an amazing woman in San Antonio Texas. I started to visit there a lot and in no time was living between Texas and New York. In 2001 I helped her open her first club Carmens De La Calle Cafe. Today it is still a hotspot in San Antonio, Texas. At this time I was finding that there were over 150 jazz musicians living between San Antonio and Austin. Musicians that were on the same level as many musicians back in N.Y. Musicians that had more time to rehearse because everyone including myself in NY always seemed to be too busy and it was too hard to keep the same guys together. I had a club to do what ever projects I wanted to do. There were so many cats wanting and hungry to be involved that it became the scene in Texas. I built a studio to record everything done at the club. I had everything from a new quartet to a project adding 10 horns and 15 gospel singers. I also had a project called the Miles Davis Bitches Brew Orchestra playing the music of Miles Davis , from 1967 to 1975. That band was made up of 2 drummers, 2 keyboard players playing fender rhodes and the other playing organ. Also and electric and acoustic bass, sitar, percussionist, 2 electric woodwind players and electric trumpet. My latest recorded CD which will be released in September 2008 is music with a newer version of that project and was recorded January 2008 . It features musicians from Los Angeles, New York, New Orleans and San Antonio Texas. To continue on with the story,in time, I had a steady trio called "The Third Trio From The Sun" and had many guest from NY and Los Angeles come play with us. People in NY were also hip to the place. Two different times WyntonMarsalis , Wes Anderson and some of the cats in his band came by after another gig and played with my trio in front of hundreds of people for 3 hours both times. After having legendary innovator, saxophonist Dewey Redman be our guest, Dewey called me 2 days after the gig and asked if he could take us on some tours with him. Those were some of the best times I have ever had on and off the bandstand. I will always miss Dewey for his friendship and fun times playing with him as well as his check in's to say hello calls. The trio also went to Los Angeles to back up another legend, Gary Bartz for a week during that time.Over all I produced well over 25 concerts bringing people in from New York,Los Angeles and europe to play at Carmens De La Calle and concert halls in San Antonio. Names such as James Moody, Clark Terry, Larry Coryell, Randy Brecker, Sam Rivers, Tom Harrell, Joanne Brackeen, Steve Turre, Dave Liebman, Jon Hendricks, Ravi Coltrane, John Abercrombie, Mike Stern and many others. Eventually I would start to write for the biggest undertaking of my career. With the help of organizing, copying out thousands of pages of music, and everything else it takes to get 18 musicians up on a stage to perform, my long time friend trumpet player/conductor, Adrian Ruiz came to the rescue and without him there would not have been a Thrasher Big Band. His unique way of conducting, interpreting and giving the band his wild energy,as well as his wild trumpet playing helped to bring more out of the music than if it had been anyone else. I then took that year to write and arrange music for The Thrasher Big Band and an amazing vocalist that also travels with Adrian and I when we do Big Band gigs outside of Texas, by the name of Joan Carroll . Later on my pops used her on his next CD. Well, after having a home for one and a half years before I would leave Texas for good, my big band played each week at a wonderful club in San Antonio called Luna Fine Music. Each week we performed in front of 100's of hungry jazz fans. The result came in the recording of the Gerry Gibbs Thrasher Big Band "Live At Luna", conducted by Adrian Ruiz (look above for CD info).The same year my sextet made up of 5 guys from the big band also recorded a CD called Gerry Gibbs Thrasher Band "Faces Unknown" for the SMS jazz label. Both CD's were chart bound on jazz radio across America and received rave reviews in almost ever jazz publication.
One other project I was so fortunate to be part of was to work with a very talented radio programmer in San Antonio named Ben Donnelley to start a 7 day a week jazz station. As a radio DJ which I was for 5 years before I left Texas, I introduced every kind of jazz to the station and San Antonio jazz fans. We would play everything from Louis Armstrong to Cecil Taylor to Charlie Parker to Weather Report to Miles Davis and everything he did from Birth of the Cool To Bitches Brew. We played Dixieland, old big bands, modern big bands, bebop, straight ahead, avant garde, and even some contemporary stuff that was still jazz based like the Crusaders or Grover Washington . I also would do interviews with everyone from Larry Coryell (who spent 5 hours with me on the radio talking, playing, telling wild stories and listening to music) to Dewey Redman who spent 3 hours with me, telling stories and playing his personal recordings. Eventually I recommended the greatest music programmer in jazz music, Aaron Prado from the radio station at Columbia University in NYC, and today he has turned the station into the most innovative and important jazz radio station in America. Check out KRTU 91.7 sounds for San Antonio on your computer.
In February of 2005, the five guys and myself as well as the three wife's married to 3 of the guys in the band,all packed our bags from San Antonio and moved to Los Angeles to work together as a band. (for the complete story of the sextet you may go to Thrasherband.com and read our story). At the end of the year (2007) The Thrasher Sextet will release our next CD on Ravi Coltrane's RKM Music label. Its called Moving On, Never Looking Back. Its title comes from each of us in the band having our own personal things that we have had to move on from and those things that we should never look back on. Also as all bands have their ups and downs, there have been and there were things that we all had to move on and never look back on. These are some of the things that have kept this band together for over 4 years and make a huge move together as well as keep our music moving forward into new directions.
Today I look forward to working on the next Thrasher Sextet CD, Thrasher Big Band CD ,and to record the Bitches Brew Orchestra Project. I also have a new project to record and work with. Its a quartet made up of four musicians with different ethnic backgrounds coming together to play jazz with a unique blend of music from India, Iran, Africa and America mixed in with it. I also will record with the help of my conductor Adrian Ruiz the whole 8 movement suite of Mistakes, Misunderstandings, Moving on, Never Looking Back, (GTJ ). It will be made up of a big band, strings ,choir, voice, and rhythm section. It comes from a really troubling experience I endured and learned from. Many times in life we think the grass is greener on the other side, and through making a big mistake to actually go see for ourselfs, we actually find that it was actually deception coming from the other entity. A person, thing or situation sometimes in life can seem too good to be true. One must always be careful because you may be staring into the face of the devil. This can happen even when you think you are looking into the face of what you think is the most beautiful thing in the world! When that situation is put to the test of loyalty, thats when we eventually find out many times that it appeared to be one way and then all along it was made up of fickleness,lies,and selfishness on the other entities part.We dont see this sometimes untill it has caused some damage to our hearts and souls. Nothing then can be more important than to realize that you are dealing with pure evil and as the title suggest, it is best to, as well as manditory to (move on, and never look back). Serendipity would only reconfirm the grass actually being browner on the other side! A close musical, and non musical friend inspired me to write a musical sound track for the experience. (You may hear movement 1 - "Unexplained Change Of Heart") on my new upcoming CD Gerry Gibbs And "Thrasher Band", "Moving On, Never Looking Back" (above on track 2).
On January 17th I completed my 6th solo CD. Gerry Gibbs And The Bitches Brew Orchestra Plays The Music Of Miles Davis From 1967 - 1975. This latest project is a double CD with 26 songs. The music covers his music from 14 different albums recorded from 1967 to 1975. The album features 13 different musicians and will be released in September 2008. This will be my second recording for the Whailing City Sound Record Lable. You may listen to excerpts of it on track 5 and 6. We sincerely hope you enjoy. I will continue to look forward to the other many projects I play and will play as a sideman on.
I look forward to hearing from all of my friends and new friends and connections I hope to make from Myspace.
Peace and Love to All, Gerry Gibbs, "The Thrasher"