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Stephen Gauci: Thunk!

By Mark Corroto

If the subject of an album of covers songs is pianist Thelonious Monk, then the approach invariably is reverence or its opposite, insolence. Bands either worship at Monk's alter or attempt to out-Monk Monk by counterfeiting eccentricity or outlandishness. To quote the great man, “You've been making the wrong mistakes."One band not making those wrong mistakes is saxophonist Stephen Gauci's quartet. Its eight Monk covers begin with a bold confidence and ply a determined vigor to this famed ...

Stephen Gauci: Live at Glenn Miller Cafe

By Marc Medwin

New York tenor saxophonist Stephen Gauci's first trip to Stockholm is documented on these hard-hitting Ayler releases in a double-disc set and an mp3 download. Between the two releases, most of the music recorded by this newly formed aggregate on Jul. 9th-10th, 2007 at the Glenn Miller Café is captured in vivid if slightly constricted sound. Gauci's work is always fascinating. Like Jimmy Lyons, his roots in bebop rhetoric are always evident, accompanied by an evenness of ...

Stephen Gauci: Absolute, Absolutely and CIMP 360: Circle This

By Jeff Stockton

Stephen Gauci Quartet Absolute, Absolutely CIMP 2008 Michael Bisio Quartet CIMP 360: Circle This CIMP 2008

More than 250 recordings have been issued on producer/owner/impresario/liner notes writer Bob Rusch's CIMP label. You can imagine how that number of sessions would result in a broad range of creative improvisation from variously sized ...

Stephen Gauci Trio: Substratum

By Stuart Broomer

Perhaps no combination of instrument and style carries the predictability of the free jazz tenor saxophone and it's to Stephen Gauci's abiding credit that he manages both to embody a tradition and refresh it at every turn. The over-the-top blowout is, of course, part of Gauci's vocabulary. Eventually it will all show up: mystical yipping onslaughts, Pharoah-esque polyphonic bursts, the Ayler birth wail, the split-tones and multiphonics--everything that's made the tenor the expressionist's instrument of choice. But it's all deployed ...

Stephen Gauci: Wisps Of An Unknown Face & The First Third

By Marc Medwin

Stephen Gauci Wisps of an Unknown Face CIMP 2007 Stephen Gauci/Reuben Radding/Todd Capp The First Third 577 Records 2006

Little playing heard these days is as enigmatic as that issuing from the as-yet under-recorded saxophonist Stephen Gauci. Jimmy Lyons and Albert Ayler are doing battle inside him, Lester Young serving as ...

Stephen Gauci Trio: First, Keep Quiet

By Derek Taylor

Cadence kingpin Bob Rusch has a reputable knack for putting his faith and funds toward the promotion of unsung saxophonists. Stephen Gauci is the latest in a formidable line that includes Ernie Krivda, Avram Fefer, James Finn, and Bill Gagliardi. But Gauci's story is a bit different from the others. In addition to the usual obstacles that commonly assail the creative improvising musician, he's had to contend with an auditory ailment that significantly hampers his hearing. He wears corrective aids ...