Unified Presence

David Gilmore | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 19, 2006)
• Original Release Date: 2006
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: RKM Music/Kindred Rhythm
• ASIN: B000GYHR9W
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #240,413 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

About the Artist

Over the past decade guitarist and composer David Gilmore has recorded and performed with some of the most highly influential and innovative artists in modern music today including Wayne Shorter, Dave Douglas, Muhal Richard Abrams, Sam Rivers, Steve Coleman, Don Byron, Cassandra Wilson, Uri Caine, Randy Brecker and David Sanborn. He has appeared on over 50 recordings and been a major presence on the international touring scene. In the Spring of 2001 he released his first recording as a leader entitled Ritualism, which has already received major international critical appraise and was nominated for Debut CD of the Year in 2001 by the Jazz Journalists Association. Mr. Gilmore was also recently voted into the Rising Stars category in DownBeat Magazine's Critic's Poll.

Born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Gilmore sought out music at a young age experimenting with piano, drums and percussion before discovering the guitar at the age of 15. After a few years of private study with Boston local guitar gurus John Baboian and Randy Roos, Gilmore moved to New York to attend New York University, where he studied under the tutelage of sax titan Joe Lovano and pianist Jim McNeely. Shortly after his graduation in 1987, Gilmore began touring and recording in earnest with many of the members of the fledging M-Base Collective, and soon after began to find himself in many other diverse musical situations, recording and/ or touring with Ronald Shannon Jackson, Trilok Gurtu, Graham Haynes, Robin Eubanks, and Lonnie Plaxico. In the early 1990’s he became an active member of the popular jazz/fusion group Lost Tribe, co-producing their first two recordings for the Windham Hill Label. Over the years he has also lent his skills to a variety of pop/ commercial acts including Japan’s Monday Michiru, Me’shell N’Degeocello, Melissa Etheridge, Joan Osbourne, Mavis Staples, Issac Hayes, Boz Scaggs, Tommy Lang of Austria, Rise Robots Rise, and toured extensively with multi-platinum selling artist Joss Stone. In 1995 Gilmore got the call to join sax legend Wayne Shorter’s group, and appears on Mr. Shorter’s Grammy Award winning album, High Life on Verve. He can be found most recently on recordings by Christian McBride, Carolyn Leonhart, Don Byron, Ron Blake and Uri Caine.

As a composer, improviser and guitarist, Gilmore is committed to pushing the boundaries of improvisational music, at the same time without alienating the uninitiated listener. His music reflects the diverse musical influences and experiences he has assimilated throughout his career. The exploration of rhythm is a major component of his music, utilizing many non-Western approaches and integrating them into a modern framework. Gilmore was a recipient of the Chamber Music America New Works Composer Grant, enabling him to compose a commisioned work entitled "African Continuum" which was performed in public in the Spring and Fall of 2003. His playing has been compared to guitarists with styles as diverse as George Benson, Wes Montgomery, Jimi Hendrix and Leo Nocentelli.

Product Description

"Unified Presence" is the sophomore release and a major musical statement from jazz guitarist David Gilmore. The eleven new Gilmore tunes that make up "Unified Presence" showcase the artist as a tremendous composer with unparalleled expressive powers on the electric and acoustic guitar.

One of the most in-demand guitarists in jazz, it’s only fitting that Gilmore would call upon a jaw dropping cast of A-List musicians for his new CD: Christian McBride on bass, Ravi Coltrane on saxophone, and Jeff "Tain" Watts on drums. Chilean singer Claudia Acuña drops in for an added treat – a gorgeous vocal on the album’s closer, "Broken Kiss."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Guitar---if you have snappy reflexes, June 27, 2007

By 

Marty Nickison II (Austintown, OH) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Unified Presence (Audio CD)

David has great talent and ability. But, this album isn't for everyone--you have to posses the ability to listen to complex rhythmic figures (try to find the count in Tadd's Delight from Miles Davis' 'Round Midnight). If you cannot, you won't get it--trust me!

But the complex rhythm just lets the music float on the harmony---not in our time element. I do formal dancing, and this music is perfect to practice to---keeping my feet ears listening.

With a great trio with Ravi Coltrane--this quintet (with vocal on last track) give snappy, rhythmic, pulsating jazz. Think Pat Metheny goes Latin with a shot of Wes Montgomery.

..I have yet to dislike anything with Ravi Coltrane! Keep it up, guys.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars splendid, November 7, 2009

By 

hanyi ishtouk (Budapest, Hungary) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unified Presence (Audio CD)

In comparison with the previous, debut album "Ritualism" (Kashka, 2000), D. Gilmore's second release under his name is more firmly rooted, in enhanced manner though, in the jazz tradition of bebop, hardbop and swing styles. This is readily observable on and evenly distributed among the following cuts: # 1, 4, 6, 8, 10. The guitar trio (tr. 1, 3, 7), featuring the phenomenal rhythm section of Christian McBride (solo on tr. 1, 6-8) and Jeff 'Tain' Watts, is augmented by Ravi Coltrane's unpretentious, pure jazz math contribution on soprano (2, 4) and tenor (6, 8, 10) saxophones. When not playing electric guitar using a pick, Mr. Gilmore resorts to right-hand finger technique on his classical (cutaway) guitar (3, 7, 11), as evinced by the mesmerizing African dance 'doula' written in metre 12/8 and the lyrical 'window to the soul', this latter one being reminescent of some Adam Rogers theme(s). While almost each tune is worthy of a study in and of itself, winners of the day happen to be the hypnotic 'protean way' and the spirited 'law of balance', the second of which finds commander McBride trading his double bass for a 4-string fretless bass guitar (also audible on the concluding track) and executing a formidable solo filled with densely chopped notes.

Contrary to how they appear on the CD cover, the song titles 8 and 9 should be inverted so that we have 'unified presence' followed by the experimental filler 'hankiskas'. The last tune is a bit odd one out in that it hasn't been composed by the guitarist bandleader but is a romantic Brazilian song showcasing the singer's fine voice. Runnig time: 65.07 mins. Heartily recommended.
P.S. My hope is that we don't have to wait another 6 years for the next offering, which could recruit drummer Marcus Gilmore and bassist Matt Garrison (Kindread Spirits?), whom would be joined by, say, keyboardman George Colligan, saxists R. Coltrane and David Binney.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a different dave, November 21, 2007

By 

Fred Basset (in the doghouse) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unified Presence (Audio CD)

It is the fate of David Gilmore always to be confused with David Gilmour, who, I am reliably informed, plays for a popular beat combo, Pink Flush, who are long since dead, but touring the world in perpetuity. In deference to those who cannot spell, a search on Amazon for the work of David Gilmore brings up numerous references to the other Dave (RIP). If you cannnot spell, and found your way here by mistake, this is your lucky day. Buy this CD and radicalise your ears. Give your hi fi a treat. Here is guitar playing of a different order, with the power and dexterity of John McLaughlin, but, um... "with feeling" - 'jazz fusion' is exhumed and resuscitated by the work of a 'unified presence' - as the reviewer above notes, the form of this music is 'difficult', but this means, among other things, that you can keep going back to these recordings, and become engrossed in their 'complications' and surprises... as for David's 'band', it is impossible to pay them too much respect. Press that buy button, if you're not too square...