Ralph Peterson 35th Annual Student Music Awards - Downbeat

By Claire Daly | Photography by Kelly Davidson
An avant-garde chordless trio with a steady gig for 40 years? Nearly unimaginable,
“I think what has made the band survive so
long is that we aren’t doing tunes and we aren’t
responsible for writing tunes to keep the band
fresh,” said saxophonist George Garzone. “The
‘fresh’ is just the improvisation, and that’s what
keeps it alive. We go there and play whatever
we want. That’s what developed the sound. You
never know what’s going to happen.”
Garzone has taught at New England
Conservatory, New York University, Manhattan
School of Music, The New School
and is now exclusively at Berklee College of
Music. Drummer Bob Gullotti and bassist John
Lockwood (who joined The Fringe in 1984) are
on the Berklee faculty. The Fringe’s original
bassist, Rich Appleman, will retire this year as
the head of Berklee’s bass department. The trio
has worked all over the world in various settings,
but Monday nights are an event that is never predictable.
Like any long-term relationship, the
dynamics shift and grow, but their dedication to
the music overrides any problems that arise.
Describing the music of The Fringe is challenging.
Yes, it’s avant-garde, but it’s also remarkably
accessible. At times, the music will soar. All
three players will stop and restart together on a
dime, astounding listeners. The music breathes,
races, pushes, pulls, screams, seduces, taunts
and heals—all on its own terms. Seasoned musicians
and guys in business suits can be heard
screaming to the primal call of The Fringe. Any
style of music can weave its way into the set and
take over. Acclaimed musicians such as pianist
Kenny Werner, saxophonist Dave Liebman or
reedist Frank Tiberi might sit in or just hang in
the audience to listen.
34 DoWNBEAt JUNE 2012
yet this Boston-based trio has maintained a remarkable dedication to the music
for four decades—with only a single personnel change. Each member is a vir-
tuoso musician and formidable educator, and the three of them come together
weekly to embark on a sonic adventure.
Fans of The Fringe are plentiful, from teenage
students to the biggest names in jazz. In a
conference call with DownBeat on March 30,
bassist/singer Esperanza Spalding (who graduated
from and taught at Berklee) talked about the
trio: “The Fringe really are an institution of the
avant-garde. They represent the epitome of cultivating
something because you believe in it. They
all have to be there for the music, and I know they
don’t get what they deserve. I love The Fringe.
They’re just so important in that they’ve existed
for 40 years. When music students are in Boston,
they know they can hear the real avant-garde.”
The trio is driven by pure musicality. There
has been no business plan. They are on a life mission
to serve the music, and what happens around
that seems almost incidental to them. If there is
a festival audience, or a small room with a few
listeners, they go to the same edge of the music.
Always searching. Their work has been documented
on nine albums, including 2005’s The
Fringe Live At The Zeitgeist, with guest saxophonist
Joe Lovano.
Examining my life as I packed up to move
from Boston back to New York in 1985, I wrote
that one of my main reasons for being in Boston
was to experience the music of The Fringe.
They had, at that time, been playing together at
Michael’s Pub every Monday for about a decade.
As a young saxophonist, I had heard the band for
many of those years. In fact, I took the bartending
job after having been there every week for a
year. When Michael’s closed, they moved to The
Willow in Somerville, where they played for 17
years, followed by a stint at the Lizard Lounge.
They currently play Mondays at the Lily Pad in
Cambridge, sharing the night with saxophonist
Jerry Bergonzi’s quintet.
At times, The Fringe has even shared the
bandstand with Bergonzi’s band, creating a massive
collective dubbed “Gargonz,” which includes
two bassists, two drummers and two tenor players.
The last time this occurred, the group played
two different tunes at the same time.
“The Fringe has created history,” Bergonzi
said. “Everybody who’s been in this city—every
student, every musician—has heard The Fringe,
and when they have, they’ve had their minds
blown. Every time I hear them, I have a belly
laugh and I very rarely get that. It’s outrageous—
the audacity—I can’t believe it. I get so inspired
when I hear these guys. They’re my heroes.”
Garzone, Gullotti and Lockwood sat down
for an interview at Garzone’s house on Super
Bowl Sunday.
DownBeat: What do you remember
about the beginning of the fringe?
gullotti: Junior year at Berklee, I met
George on an r&b gig. We played together in that
band for about a year. I had a nice little apartment
with a deaf landlord, so we could play at my apartment
and I’d have sessions all the time. That’s
how The Fringe started. A lot of times there’d be
piano players and guitar players, and vibraphonist
Tom van der Geld would come quite often. A
few times we couldn’t get a chordal instrument,
so we would just play trio. It just started to get a
sound of its own, so I stopped inviting others and
we developed this trio. We ended up playing on
WBUR radio. Saturday night late, like midnight
to 4 a.m. on Rob Battles’ show.