CLICK HERE FOR LYRICS

These comments were from an interview in 2013: In 1973, at the age of 22, singer-songwriter Gary Marks self-produced Gathering. It is now considered a collector's classic -- a totally unique amalgam of folk, rock and jazz that seems to get richer and more powerful through the years.

It was first released on the prestigious JCOA label, run by Carla Bley. Original copies go for $400-500 on eBay nowadays, since it has never been re-issued. Kindred Spirits found a copy in Jazzanova's collection and contacted Gary Marks to request licensing the album.

What makes the album extra special is the fact that the band included guitar legend-virtuoso John Scofield, the renowned pianist Michael Cochrane, and one the of the top vibraphonists in the world, David Samuels. At the time none of them were known to the general public. (Gary, apparently even from the beginning, knew how to hand pick his band members.) In fact, Gathering was the recording debut for each of them!

Gary played and sang live with the band on these tracks. No overdubs were used, and all nine tracks were first takes.

A March 6 FB and IG post called:  

The Crazy Way My First Band Formed.

The players on my first album, “Gathering," were my first real band. The band formed in 1973 because I met Michael Cochrane, already a great jazz pianist at the age of 21. I heard him play in a university practice room in Boston. I was wandering around various practice room hallways all over the city trying to find someone who I thought could play my odd, very complicated songs without just riffing over the changes.

I had my guitar with me, just in case…. I knocked on his practice room door, sat down on the floor, blurted out the fact that I was offered free recording time in New York, and then played him a song that I thought would win him over. Halfway through the song he started trying to figure out the chords I was playing, because they were not “normal.” I didn’t even know the names of them. They were just odd finger formations I had come up with that sounded good to me. 

After he agreed to be in my band I asked him who the best guitar player in Boston was. He said, “John Scofield.” So I went to John’s apartment, and we bonded over the music pretty quickly. I asked John who the best vibraphonist in Boston was. He said “David Samuels.” We all became friends very quickly. David wrote the chord charts to the songs in great technical detail and passed them around to the rest of the guys.

Those three players became the core of the “Gathering" band that recorded at Ultra-Sonic studios in New York a few months later. 

We gathered in a big circle in the tracking room and played all the songs live in one take. It was kind of a miracle, really.

We were very excited about how well the album turned out. But because we were in our early twenties, none of us knew anything about the future, except that we would probably stay friends, and hopefully keep getting better as musicians. 

Soon after the “Gathering" recording was over, I asked Michael to teach me piano. He approached me as a songwriter. Instead of teaching me reading notation, he taught me jazz theory, and how to improvise. That was the beginning of understanding theoretical concepts that would be central to the way I wrote music for the rest of my life. 

“Gathering" has since been reissued three times in Europe and Japan, including Lantern Heights Records in 2025 - which then led to them releasing and distributing my latest album, “Crossroads."