Buffalo Pearl, released in 2008, consists of 5 pieces--the aptly titled Light Queen; Head Nickel; McGeist; No Illusion; and The Good Neighbor--recorded live at Soundlab on July 17, 2005. The show was sponsored by Hallwalls, of course, and the reviews are glowing.
For All About Jazz, Mark Corroto wrote:
There are some combinations in jazz that are simply magic, including the duos of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli; Stan Getz and Kenny Barron; and Peter Brotzmann and Han Bennink. Add to that list the teaming of John Butcher and Gerry Hemingway [...] Buffalo Pearl is extremely compelling [...] Of the disc's five pieces, only "Head Nickel" goes for the obvious tenor versus drums blastoff. This power workout bridges the more subtle touches that the two masters bring to their live show. An evening hearing Brotzmann blowing waves of energy is always a treat, but within the context of listening to a recording, this is the superior experience.
For paristransatlantic.com, Dan Warbuton wrote:
This decade has seen saxophonist John Butcher making several successful solo forays into the worlds of electroacoustic and environmental improvisation – the former best documented on his Fringes solo disc Invisible Ear, the latter on last year's Resonant Spaces (Confront) – but in case you'd forgotten how good he is at burning it up with a drummer, this latest offering on Gerry Hemingway's Auricle label will remind you. Not that Hemingway, despite impeccable free jazz credentials (think of all those killer Braxton albums for starters) is exactly a hard swingin' bebopper: his ear for timbral nuance and feeling for space is just as keen as, say, Burkhard Beins's. And his kit isn't entirely acoustic, either: on Buffalo Pearl he makes judicious and impressive use of a sampler too. Recorded as you might guess in that upstate NY city on April 17th 2005, it presents five carefully worked examples of the kind of in-the-moment interplay that has characterised both men's work for over 20 years, since Butcher's stay in John Stevens' SME and Hemingway's boisterous mid 80s debut with Braxton. Comparing this to the other Butcher outing reviewed above with AMM probably doesn't make much sense, but as I've been listening to them back to back lately I'm tempted to – and the saxophonist seems to be more at ease with Hemingway, more willing to take the initiative and display his formidable technical mastery, from tight flutter flurries to those meticulous split tones. Hemingway is no less impressive, and his excellent recording and the pair's post-production (another date was recorded at Roulette two days prior to the gig in Hallwalls – maybe we'll see that out and about shortly) capture every detail to perfection. A pearl for sure.
