Pandelis Karayorgis - System of 5-Pandelis Karayorgis Quintet (Hatology 2011)

System Of 5 showed up at the Lily Pad 5/30 and tore the place apart again. I’ve written about this quintet before, invariably with glowing terms. Things haven’t changed. Except the band is better than ever. I was listening to the music and thinking about how fine the outfit is when the peculiarities of the personnel hit me. One of the most distinctive characteristics of the band is how different the musical character of each musician is. For example, Jeff Galindo--continuing on the same path established by such important New England trombone forebears as Roswell Rudd and Gary Valente--comes out of the tradition of street parades, the circus, and tailgate. That powerful tradition is there, right in your face. And, just as Messrs. Rudd and Valente did before him, Jeff uses those technical devices to push his solos and those of fellow band mates into the Now. Matt Langley approaches a solo quite differently. He offers an idea, turns its angles into the sun, hammers it sometimes startlingly, and wrestles with it until he has revealed--to himself and his audience--the very essence of that initial kernel. Different but also beautiful. You look at Jef Charland playing bass and inevitably think, “old school.” You get the feeling that you could travel through time with him and plunk him in the middle of the Basie or Herman band circa 1945, and everything would be copasetic. That grounding gives Jef an edge. When a band mate makes a passing historical reference, Jef is there with a backward glance even as he pushes the music into the future. Luther Gray is on a different journey, a different search. Quite apparently he’s on a quest to discover the percussion within the percussion. He knows it’s in there somewhere and he pursues the elusive goal relentlessly. I’ve seen him on occasion go through a dozen cymbals changes in one evening. What was he looking for? The same thing he looks for every time he sets up his kit: the percussion within the percussion. And because his search really is a different take on what all profound musicians search for, everyone else in the band is right in there digging in with him. Leader Pandelis Karayorgis is one of a kind, and a host of jazz critics have picked up on that fact. But you watch him play and you don’t care what anyone has said. He plays beyond the words. Yes, words such as “machine” and “computer” come to mind because of the technical facility and the mind-bending originality of his ideas. But those words do not work. Mostly because what ultimately comes out of his piano reaches down to the emotional and psychological core of who we are, often with frightening acumen. And with all that, he is the band leader, the man who was smart enough to put this package of disparate and brilliant musical voices together. The other guys in the band are smart enough to take him up on the challenge. And what about the folks in the audience? We’re the lucky ones...
Stu Vandermark, Boston Jazz Scene blog, June 2011