Young guns

I was chatting to some of my generation after Tessie Overmeyer Trio's concert.  They were stunned like me by the maturity and chops and effectiveness of these three.  And by their ages.  Maybe that's a thing that comes with age, but so does maturity and this trio had obvious musical maturity.  Just another way I admire our upcoming young (another is their politics but more on that elsewhere).  The trio is led by altoist Tess with Chloe Kim and bass Jacques Emery.  Jacques played with excellent crystalline tone and an extension: I'd seen him recently at CIMF (classical) so this fits.  He used it for one low riff, but he was all over, quick with eighth and sixteenth notes up and down the neck and lots of long intervallic double stops and the like.  Hugely effective playing.  Tessie led on a Zappa tune but also a series of bluesy post-bop drivers.  She'd often play blues scales and with great inventiveness and interest, but then also ready to drop into various more complex harmonic colours.  All with purpose.  Then Chloe who I've written about elsewhere this weekend.  A responsive, varied drummer of great subtlety.  Her latest project is for 6 basses.  I joke that the AWO/Katz-Chernin did one for 8 basses, but that's just a joke.  They are both incredible investigations.  Tessie included a slow, sparse solo sax piece that developed into a mostly tempo-free improv with bass bow and drum noise and more.  Then a bluesy funky 4/4 with interesting structure and that Zappa (Little umbrellas) and a 70's driving hard-bop original Ecki thump.  (Wikipedia confirms this is from a 1975 Goodies episode.  Our more aged cohort recognised this!)  Then another effective, impressive, inventive bluesy finisher.  Great band!  Please excuse the mushy pic.

Tessie Overmeyer (alto) led a trio with Jacques Emery (bass) and Chloe Kim (drums) at the Uniting Church.