# CD review: Mark Egan & Danny Gottlieb – Electric Blue 2020: Video, CD cover

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2020/09/07/cd-review-mark-egan-danny-gottlieb-electric-blue-2020-video-cd-cover/
- Published: 2020-09-07T12:09:27+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Mark Egan and Danny Gottlieb, longtime band mates and highly acclaimed rhythm 
section team, have announced a new duo recording, Electric Blue.**

After nearly 50 years of playing music together, going back to their days as students
at the University of Miami through their years of touring and recording as members
of the original Pat Metheny Group, with the Gil Evans Monday Night Orchestra, exploring
new tones and textures with their band Elements and heading up their own individual
projects, bassist Mark Egan and Danny Gottlieb have forged an indelible chemistry
that transcends time and notes on a page. On their first-ever duo recording, _Electric
Blue_, the longtime musical partners showcase their rare empathy in a revealing 
stripped-down setting of just drums and bass.

As Gottlieb explained, “The duo music contained in this recording reflects our 49-
plus years of friendship and our musical adventures together. In your musical life,
and especially if you are a rhythm section player, you sometimes get lucky to find
a musical partner with whom you connect immediately on the deepest level. It’s even
more amazing when that person turns out to be a best friend. That is the relationship
I have had with Mark since we met at the University of Miami in 1971.”

From the entrancing “Back and Forth” to the jauntily swinging “Cabareté,” the loping,
lazy groover “Down the Road, the rubato soundscape “Blue Sound Bath,” the visceral
funk of “Hookey” and the meditative closer “Offering,” Egan and Gottlieb showcase
the results of their long musical partnership. With Egan’s distinctive singing fretless
bass carrying the melodies and his layers of overdubbed fretted basses providing
the harmonic content and Gottlieb shifting gears intuitively from ultra-sensitive(
as on the stirring improv piece “Come What May” or the airy “Offering”) to all-out
slamming mode (as on “Hookey” and the exhilarating title track), the interactive
team can turn on a dime while evoking myriad spirits along the way.

“For this new recording, we wanted to document our rapport as a duo team,” said 
Egan of _Electric Blue_. “When you look at the definition of rapport, it’s ‘a harmonious
relationship in which the people or groups concerned understand each other’s feelings
or ideas and communicate well.’ That perfectly describes how we interact as a duo.”

Weighing in on his drumming partner Gottlieb, Egan said, “Danny’s technique is incredible,
which I think comes from having studied with the great Joe Morello [Dave Brubeck’s
longtime drummer who was immortalized by his famous “Take Five” solo on the 1959
classic, _Time Out_]. He’s just got this masterful facility with his hands. But 
he also studied with Gary Chester [world renown New York session drummer] working
on hand and foot independence. And when he combines both of those aspects of playing,
he has the facility to go anywhere on the kit. So if I start to play something, 
he can triple it up or quadruple it up or perfectly underscore it with his tremendous
musical facility. Danny has a rare combination of masterful technique and remarkable
musicality.”

Recorded live at Electric Fields Studio in Connecticut over three days in June of
2019, with additional overdubbing and mixing taking place until December of 2019,
_Electric Blue _traverses different moods, key centers, dynamics and tempos for 
the two partners to negotiate.

Gottlieb explained the evolution of his duo chemistry with bassist Egan. “While 
playing in Pat Metheny’s band during the late 1970s, we traveled frequently to Japan,
and Mark and I often would stop in Hawaii on the return trip. While there we would
stay in Kauai, right on the ocean, with our friend Gina. We would play music in 
her living room, playing free while listening to the ocean in the background and
would also play late into the night out in a valley overlooking the ocean, offering
up sound waves and grooves for our friends, and to the gods! By 1982, we started
the group Elements and that first album reflected many of the feelings captured 
during those Hawaii trips. We also started playing duo gigs and found that in the
right environment, the combination of bass and drums could be magical.”

Added Egan, “Some of the things that Danny and I are acutely aware of whenever we’ve
played together is the importance of the groove, listening and reacting to entire
ensemble and the use of dynamics. During our time together playing with the Pat 
Metheny Group there was a focus on dynamics as a compositional tool. Musicians at
times forget about using dynamics in their own playing wether it be soloing or grooving.
Danny and I are aware of dynamics and we instinctually utilize them when we’re playing
together.”

_Electric Blue _documents that same empathetic spirit between the two players. As
Egan said, “I think there’s a special thread that goes through all of our playing
on the records and projects that we’ve done. Whenever we get together, just drums
and bass, it always seems to have a complete musical sense to it. We know each other’s
playing so well that if one of us plays one note or a certain phrase the other one’s
right on it and can either complement it or lead it into a new place. It’s a very
special rapport and this is the first time we’ve recorded a complete project of 
it. It was so much fun recording creative music in the studio as a duo.”

01. Back and Forth
 02. Cabarete 03. Down the Road 04. Electric Blue 05. Come What
May 06. Blue Sound Bath 07. Hookey 08. Offering

![unnamed](https://i0.wp.com/bassmagazine.com/.image/t_share/MTc0NjM3MDI5MDMwNjM1NDY1/
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