This is a piece I wrote for extempore. It's a great site, and has been a great (printed) journal, published by Miriam Zolin. I'm not the only one to present their top 5 - see others online from Mike Nock, John Shand, Roger Mitchell, John McBeath and others including a few Canberra locals, Keith Penhallow and Brian Stewart. Mine are pretty local and intimate and perhaps plebian, but the choices spell variety and richness to me. Fascinating!
My Top 5 of 2010
It’s an interesting task to collect my five most significant jazz experiences of 2010. I can revisit my memories easily enough through my blog (CanberraJazz.net), which is as much a record for me as reports for others, but the selection is the hard part. These are my most intense memories as I scan through my blog, but there’s an inevitable subjectivity. They may not be the most renowned players (viz. Shorter, Patitucci, Jamal, Marsalis aren’t included) but they are significant and they all said something special to me on the night.
Steve Newcomb & Hannah Macklin Steve and Hannah visited Canberra from hometown Brisbane, which seems to be undergoing a cultural renaissance. Just a bar gig in a noisy environment, but I loved the intriguing lyrics and complex electronics that made a duo into a looped orchestra and harmonised choir. All confirmed on the CD which they were promoting. This is jazz training applied to electronica-cum-pop with considerable profundity.
http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2010/01/delightfully-different.html
Tina Harrod Spellbinding and touching singing with a fabulously capable and understated backing band of Matt McMahon, Jonathon Zwartz and Hamish Stewart. Somewhere in the area of R&B/soul but again with great jazz playing, including one of my favourite bassists (I have to admit that I play bass).
http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2010/02/underneath-your-spell.html
Roil An eye-opening visit to free playing. Chris Abrahams, Mike Majkowski and James Waples introduced one tune each and the developments were detailed and responsive and deeply communicated between musos and to the audience. I can struggle with minimalism and free, but this was clear and purposeful and deeply satisfying.
http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2010/03/roil-not-my-ales.html
Sandy Evans Trio Sandy started the night with her trio of Brett Hirst and Toby Hall, and these were great tunes and wonderfully played. But it was the performance of her CD-length suite, When the sky cries rainbows, that floored me. It comprises about a dozen pieces or themes that tell of personal tragedy around illness. It was obviously deeply felt and wonderfully played by a very sympathetic group. The trio was joined by Miroslav Bukovsky, James Greening and Luke Sweeting for my most touching musical experience of my year.
http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2010/06/when-sky-cries-rainbows.html
Anjali Perrin I visited London during the year and lucked on a great night of jazz. The first duo included a graduate of our own local Jazz School at the ANU, now playing the London theatre scene, pianist Mike Guy. The second band was a quartet led by singer Anjali Perrin with Ross Stanley, Davide Mantovani and Enzo Zirilli. The band was just thrown together but made up of some of the best on the London scene. I remember great grooves and intriguing solos, but especially intelligent rearrangements and reharmonisations of the most common of tunes (Autumn leaves, Love for sale, Never will I marry, etc) that played with the audience’s memories. These were standards performed with great invention and easy skills.
http://canberrajazz.blogspot.com/2010/08/lucking-out-later.html
That’s my five. But there’s so much more: Australian Youth Orchestra performances their summer camp; concerts by Jacam Manricks, Vocal Sampling, Vertical, Marcin Wasiliewski, Pan Francis, Java Quartet, Paavali Jumppanen and many others; Henry IV Pt 1 at the Globe in London under the rain; many gigs by local musos including staff and students at the ANU Jazz School and the performers at our Jazz Uncovered 2010. And thanks to the various players I perform with, because that’s the most fun of all: Brenton, Peter, Mike, Leanne, Richard, Monica.
Eric Pozza is a long time jazz lover, bassist and author/editor for CanberraJazz.net
31 January 2011
Top 5 of 2010
Labels:
Anjali Perin,
Hannah Macklin,
Roil,
Sandy Evans,
Steve Newcomb,
Tina Harrod
26 January 2011
Fr’OstralyaDay
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I am not one for the flag-waving nationalism and the crosses to our soldiers in yet another war called by yet another powerful English-speaking ally or the sentimental tosh that goes with all this. It’s not the Australia that I know and it’s a pretty recent one, as I see it. Anzac Day, of course, suffers the same way, as pollies and ideologues use and abuse another national event. There was a time when Australia Day was just a laid-back day for barbie or beach or both with the family, and Anzac Day was a truly sombre memorial, but not now. Last night’s Australia Day Live concert outside Parliament House had some of this showy emotionalism, but also had some redeeming characteristics. There was a nice mix of cultures and a good feeling about it all and a decent and modern acceptance of aboriginality. The history of dispossession was glossed over, of course, but there was an inclusive feel for Australia’s first people. In fact, my favourite performance of the evening was by the Chooky Dances (of You-Tube Zorba fame), with their humourous poly-cultural dance sequence that blended Aboriginal and Indian dance styles. This clever presentation doesn’t surprise me. For a few years, I’ve been listening to Awaye!, ABC Radio National’s Indigenous arts and culture program, and it serves up a feast of interesting and optimistic stories of modern Aboriginal life. Otherwise, I found the music and dance pretty derivative, although Jimmy Barnes singing of Adelaide’s Largs Pier pub, a ‘70s haunt, with a harp and Irish backing was interesting. Ross Wilson’s joke that Eagle Rock was our third national anthem was said with rather more seriousness than it deserved. Jack Thompson appeared with his stories of outback Australia which don’t click with the far more common Australian urban life that I’ve known. Peter Allen’s songs were there as the eminently sentimental creations they are, but despite the schmalz (and the perverse fact that the writer of all this Aussie sentimentality was an ex-pat), I have to admit I like them: they are overwhelmingly memorable. The hosts did a decent job in a characteristically Australian semi-professional way. We watched it on TV, but perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of the night was the attendance: 35,000. This may not seem a big number (the MCG holds 100,018) but it’s one in ten Canberrans, so it’s big. In all, it was a pleasant and good-natured if derivative and uninspiring event. But thinking further, perhaps that’s just what an Aussie event should be.
23 January 2011
Blast!
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Tito is over from New York for an Australian tour backed by the Adelaide latin band, Salcedo. The theme is New York’s Palladium Club in the ‘50s and the music of Tito Puente (the father) and the nuyorkian samba craze. I don’t recognise all the styles of Afro-Cuban music. There’s a lot of complexity down south, far more than just languid bossa novas. My guess is there’s not a lot of understanding by jazz players outside the latin scene, but there’s little doubt that they are excited by it. I thought Tito said that Guancango is Afro-Cuban and it comprises three styles: mambo, malumbo and chachacha, but I may be wrong. Certainly there are numerous other names for latin styles if you read the literature, presumably each with their rhythms and formats. I expect this is a life-time work despite some deceptive simplicity.
Tito led the band from the timbales, sticks in the air to gain attention, sometimes singing, often chatting and goading dancers and audience. The backing band was Salcedo, a respected latin outfit from Adelaide led by Hugo Salcedo. They were obviously concentrating, although the horns had time out for a few chuckles. I particularly noticed Mark Ferguson on piano and Shireen Khemlani on bass with eyes on charts and watching Tito sharply. As you’d expect, they didn’t get any time out, as these two are so, so important to the rhythm: the piano montunos, those infectious repeated two-bar phrases, over those bass claves that really define the AfroCuban experience by ignoring the 1 except for occasional band hits. Layered over this is the complex polyrhythm of the various percussion instruments: timbales, congas, bongos, and alternatively maraccas or guiro. Interestingly, no drums. Then horns (two trumpets, trombone and tenor sax/flute) stating melody and comping lines and some solos, and the clear and cutting sound of high latin male vocals. All this makes for an onslaught of busy, moving rhythms that demands a physical response. It’s a challenge to sit still for music like this. Add to that a dance floor of set piece displays and sensually animated couples, and you have that wonderful, infectious latin experience. Truly a blast!
Tito Puente Jnr (timbales, vocals) led the Adelaide latin band, Salcedo, at the Hellenic Club.
Labels:
Hugo Salcedo,
Mark Ferguson,
Salcedo,
Shireen Khemlani,
Tito Puente Jnr
20 January 2011
This is personal
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Jeremy has an easy fluency on alto and soprano saxes and an ease with dissonance that I noticed especially on the snake-charmer-like soprano. Jackson Harrison’s playing was sustained and sometimes fragmented, variously fighting the beat or riding it, stating ballads with sweetness or up-tempos with some contention. Abel Cross sat in for Alex Boneham on this tour and did a great job on some very demanding numbers. He was playing a stubby Czech-eze bass with a delightfully soft presence in accompaniment, although I would have preferred a bit more volume. James Waples was tellingly disjointed, inventive and apt. I enjoy the contemporary willingness to play away from standard sound mixes so I was intrigued with a passage of fast, free playing by bass and piano against sustained hi-hat patterns. James’ solo at the end on the night lifted the house in a crescendo of thought and power that incessantly grew to lift off then suddenly ended as he stopped to retrieve an errant bass drum. I’ve observed just a few players who can’t help but take off in solos and I think they must be naturals, or at least naturals in solo structure. This solo was like that.
It was a strange night with that diminutive audience, but it lent it a unique presence. The event was somewhat disappointing, but in response the music was intimate and connected. Jeremy Rose (alto, soprano sax) led a quartet with Jackson Harrison (piano), Abel Cross (bass) and James Waples (drums) playing his own compositions at he Loft. Jeremy returns to Canberra at the Gods in a few weeks’ time with the Vampires. And don’t miss anything at the Loft: it’s infrequent but it’s the most adventurous modern jazz around town at the moment.
Labels:
Abel Cross,
Jackson Harrison,
James Waples,
Jeremy Rose
17 January 2011
Doggy tea
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But it’s the community at a relaxed gig like this that’s fun. I met a retired bassist (Ray Newland from bands The Midnight Five and The Newlanders) who shared the same Melbourne musical scene as the Seekers before their fame. And the cutest of young girls: an 8-week old miniature black and tan dachshund. The human babies I saw were also cute, but we have a dachy at home (Chips, ~10yo) and we’re suckers for him, so any dachy’s a friend of mine. Just one pic - I promise.
16 January 2011
Oh, woe, Taronga
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It’s Twilight at Taronga but my woes fit. I’m not the only one to complain about the state of pop music, rehashing classic rock and the rest, but this one stunned me. I was looking at the Sydney Morning Herald entertainment pages this weekend and found Twilight at Taronga. Look at the lineup over 12 nights: Yvonne Kenny; Beatlemania; Bjorn Again; Caroline O’Connor; 80s night; Salute to Van Morrison; Stones Tribute; Forever Diamond; Cliff & Dusty; Tribute to Fleetwood Mac; James Morrison does Motown. A wall of tributes. Now, I’m not a purist and I recognise that musos have to eat, but this is disappointing and stunningly unadventurous. I’m not nasty enough to call it a festival of fakes. I thought maybe a tintinabulation of tributes fitted: light and suburban clean (hoping not to discourage the bell-ringers amongst us). Just to prove I’m no purist, I can say I’ve seen Bjorn Again, and enjoyed it and I think ABBA were a wonderful pop band. I also heard the Beatnix years back and I was enthralled. Moptops before the interval, and Sgt Peppers costumes after; genuinely accurate renditions; even harmonies by the right singers, so mockPaul sang Paul, mockJohn sang John; same guitars, Ludwig drums, Hofner violin bass, even mockPaul playing lefthanded (!) and no recordings that I noticed other than some help for Day in the Life, but how could they do the final pianos without it. I loved it! But a festival of tributes? Just too, too far for me.
Labels:
Beatnix,
Bjorn Again,
Tribute bands,
Twilight at Taronga
10 January 2011
Wayback machine
So in summary, I really liked this time travel by the end. The malleable timing, the good natured vibes, the relaxed tempos, the harmonies and collective improvisation and some very, very good playing went down a treat, even if the cut time feels and clarinet slides are still borderline for my ears. Moulding the fig is a work in progress for me, but with musicians like this, I’ll enjoy the apprenticeship.
Heather Stewart (vocals, violin) led a band with Eamon McNelis (trumpet), Jason Downes (clarinet, alto sax), John Scurry (guitar), Leigh Barker (bass) and Lynn Wallis (drums).
09 January 2011
Bundle of joy
Ben Hauptmann (guitar, loops) played with Rajiv Jayaweera (drums) at the Brunswick Green.
Labels:
Ben Hauptmann,
Brunswick Green,
Rajiv Jayaweera
08 January 2011
Of an era
05 January 2011
Melb qt-ly
I was strolling to the National Gallery of Victoria. A few years ago I marvelled at some antiquities and was delighted by early mediaeval European works. This time it was C17-C18 European paintings and a little photography and decorative art, and some sadly disappointing contemporary art. Also interesting was a new room, only opened 10 days ago, with massed art in the style I’ve seen in the Pitti Gallery (Florence) and some other spots in Europe. I loved that: enthralling and overwhelming and obviously popular. This is a great gallery: the wealth of the Victorian gold rushes continues to provide for a wonderful collection. It reminds me of a stunning fact: at the time of the gold rushes, for two years Ballarat was the richest metropolitan area in the world. Ballarat a beautiful town with an oddly satisfying gallery, but who could conceive of that now? And thanks to the NGV's sensible approach to photography: it's OK but no flash.
Labels:
buskers,
Desmond Potts,
Erdu,
Melbourne,
National Gallery of Victoria,
Sheao
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