Chemistry ignites Kottke-Gordon pairing November 8, 2002 - Boston Globe By By Tom Kielty The scent of wet wool and patchouli floated through the gates of higher education on Wednesday evening, when guitar legend Leo Kottke and Phish bassist Mike Gordon arrived on Harvard's campus for an intimate performance at the Sanders Theatre. To the devoted, the pairing made perfect sense. Kottke, an innovative wizard of finger-picking, has run the genre gamut, incorporating bluegrass, jazz, folk, and rock into his own powerful style. Gordon, meanwhile, has spent his career integrating just as many styles into Phish's distinctive musical potpourri. Settling into two chairs, with Gordon sticking to a five-string bass while Kottke alternated between six- and 12-string guitars, the twosome quickly showed that you don't need much gear to deliver a dizzying array of notes. Over the course of a 90-minute set, the recent partners visited their collective influences as well as more newly minted collaborations. Launching wordlessly into a pair of rootsy instrumentals, they showed an immediate chemistry. As Gordon's bass anchored the rhythm, Kottke applied subtle touches at first, delicately weaving in and around the shuffling melody. By the conclusion of the second piece, Kottke had taken flight, soaring above the bass line like a kite determined to stay aloft - but not without thrilling the assembled by diving back into Gordon's range, only to soar once again just as the song seemed determined to wind down. They then moved into the first of a tasty batch of covers, Doc Watson's ''I'm Going Back to the Old Home,'' in which Gordon's pleasant voice was backed exquisitely by Kottke's more weathered timbre. The result was a wonderful re-creation of the song's Appalachian setting. They followed with Gordon's folky ''The Collins Missile''; when, at the song's expected conclusion, Kottke admitted to having gotten lost in the tune's chord changes, they unabashedly replayed a verse. That was typical of the easy camaraderie. Kottke spun yarns from a lifetime in the music trenches while Gordon listened attentively like a happy nephew on his uncle's porch, affably adding the occasional observation. Saving the best of their cover material for last, they radically reworked the Byrds' ''Eight Mile High,'' with Kottke's playing and singing reminiscent of Jorma Kaukonen's varied reinterpretations. They then closed the set with the Mustangs' ''Ya Mar,'' a song often performed by Phish that not surprisingly brought the evening's loudest crowd response. With Phish reemerging from a self-imposed hiatus for a series of New York dates next month, the evening provided the perfect opportunity for fans of the band to get reacquainted, and to be introduced to a defining force in their eclectic sound. © 2002 New York Times Company