NYC meets Oz

It was Sydney for the night and the choice was Post-bop or New York. It’s annoying when you have a choice like this. I chose NYC. Mike Moreno (of Bar 55 and more) was playing guitar with some mates: Alex Boneham and Ben Vanderwal. These are amongst the best of the locals and Mike was a revelation so this was an absolute pleasure. And I got to visit a new club, Foundry 616. It was also a shorter walk and perhaps this was the decider. I can only rave about Alex and Ben. They are truly inspiring. I was amused to see Ben perusing charts as he played, throwing in little fills of considerable complexity but he’s such a capable and playful player. Alex was strong, firm, playing incredibly long intervals. This stunned me: Alex was all over this fingerboard. I guessed he was playing 10ths and 11ths and 13ths on one string: long moves, precise, in tune. Alex seems to have a closed-hand technique at times, at other -times, a perfect, neat, spread of the left hand. Either way, it’s a revelation when he plays. But it was Mike who came from the mythical NYC. He was deceptive: melodic, lyrical, then sometimes dropping into the lightest of fills and licks, clearly presented but with a modicum of echo, perhaps increasing during the night, and … and th like. This as light playing, not distorted, spelling the melodies and playing with harmonies but not too daringly. They played had just played together once. Alex mentioned that they were reading, so less comfy but it didn’t particularly look that way. This was hot. There were some originals. Ruby my dear was a favourite standard, but there was also Wayne Shorter and more. I just sat back and took in some fluent playing. Mike fingerpicked with pick under his index finger, or picked with a pinkie for stability. He dropped into discrete sweeps and florid clusters of notes that were stunning, but more notable was a breathtaking ease over the fretboard: fast but not blinding and always expressive and malleable in his phrasing. Despite only playing once together once and concentrating on charts (they were practising as I entered the club ~40 minute early), this was still nectar of the gods. Otherwise, they played Sonny Rollins Airegin, a ballad Time for love, Miles’ Miles ahead, one or two others and some originals. I noticed a common theme of vamps to end the originals: this is a guitar band, after all. A great night. Top NYC meets top Australia. Magical.

Mike Moreno (guitar) led a trio with Alex Boneham (bass) and Ben Vanderwal (drums) at Foundry 616 in Ultimo, Sydney.

Meanwhile at Smith's

It's Thursday, so it must be concert night, and this was no different, rushing from the Drill Hall to Smith's to catch the second set of the Tim Clarkson Trio. Mozart to Led Zep? Works well for me. Tim Clarkson's trio is Tim on tenor, Alex Boneham on bass and Cameron Reid on drums. It's amazing how new names come out of the woodwork: I hadn't caught up with Tim or Cameron. Alex is a regular. I only heard one set, so just five tunes, mostly penned by Tim, but with a rendition of Led Zeppelin's Kashmir. This was sharp playing on well written contemporary jazz fare. Strange, spikey, staccato melodies that speak of post-modern irony to my ears; no chordal instruments; frequent counterpoint and unison from bass and sax; lots of odd times and open space. Tim sometimes sounded of klezmer to my ears, slightly indeterminate in pitch, toying with rhythmic divisions and sequences and delicate of tone. Alex was immensely firm in tone, rich in underlying counter melody, solid in ostinato and a force in solos. I was sitting with John Mackey and we shared amazement at the end of one particularly expansive solo in Bow wave. It was a stunner of speed, mobility and invention and not the only one. Cameron sat oddly high on his drum throne with bass and drums sharing a musical space but travelling contrasty paths. The roiling busyness underlying the sax was an exercise in this style of chordless contemporary jazz trio. That was Bow wave. Hope of the most audacious kind was an airy four with a riff melody that passed from sax to bass, and a staccato bass under sax solo. Kashmir was bass chords and rock drums and a unison riff underlying a geometric drum solo. Kinship was a flighty eight feel with bowed bass, hand drumming and sparse melody. Superpounds was the political theme for the night (an ode to lack of control over our lives), all riff-based, rock rhythms, pushy, sweaty and so right as the final number. This was interesting contemporary jazz with some great playing and a few stunner solos.

Tim Clarkson (tenor sax) led his trio with Alex Boneham (bass) and Cameron Reid (drums) at Smith's.

A guitar band

Well, it’s a guitar band so you expect some volume and an excitable audience. We got both for James Muller at Smiths. I was not the only one who arrived early. This was James, our Aussie-International, playing with Alex Boneham and Ben Vanderwal. This is a hot trio and the room was well populated 30 minutes before start time. I arrived and they were doing a sound check, and it was loose but furious. It just got better through the night. This was the hottest chops played for fun and amusement and just a bit on edge. I noticed a few slips, inevitable with three guys going for it, and some chuckles and knowing smiles were proof. The solos passed around with some informality and they were all to die for. I was amused by the tune, Mitch, a dedication to Hendrix’ drummer, Mitch Mitchell, that started with a strangely heavy and simple beat from Ben with perfect blues guitar over, a veritable contemporary update on the best of Hendrix. And there was an authentic jazz ballad, Embraceable you, which was swung and felt a little out of place, but was a proof of the jazz heritage. James played guitar of the jazz greats, a work of stunning flexibility and interpretation. Jazz was quoted elsewhere, but with more an abandoned, rocky take. Diddums (yeah, I kid you not) was a take on Giant Steps (!) with the changes featuring in a solo in the middle, but flanked with a hot unison melody that responded to the original. Sonny Rollins’ Freedom suite First movement started the concert and it was demanding and forceful. Players at this level don’t seem to need much warm-up, but still they just got better as the night wore on. The final tune was another blues, hot and a throwaway with plenty of solos on show. James is a master. Mellifluous, inventive, fast, using mostly using pick and perhaps one finger and just occasionally fingerpicking. He had a collection of effects pedals, but nothing was flashy except the stunning playing. There was colour from the floor, but little more. Ben had the same subtle concern with tone. He’d continually change sticks or brushes or mallets, damp skins, even dull a cymbal with a clamp and he did it all amongst his urgent and wonderfully varied playing so no one missed a beat. Alex always works the strings but this was more so, hard and committed and fluent, playing the full range. I noticed lots of long paired seconds sequencing up and down the neck, jumps and thumbs and rock-infused even beats. I was close and could watch entranced at James’ fluency and inventiveness and the ease of it all. Guitar is not played hard; at this level (it should be so at any level, but often it’s not) it’s precise and controlled fingering and this was a lesson. Consonant or not, this was a display of craft at a stunning level. Firm, always fluent, occasionally fluffed because he was going for it and a bit under the weather. I tend to concentrate on one or a few players at a gig: those having a good day or with the most chops or authenticity, but I noticed I was entranced by each player as I concentrated on him. Guitar, bass, drums: all stunners. Get the drift? This was hot and I was not the only one impressed. A blow and a blowout. See them if you possibly can.

James Muller (guitar) led his trio with Alex Boneham (bass) and Ben Vanderwal (drums) at Smiths and it was a blast.

New to me

Contrafact was a new one on me, but it's there, in Wikipedia. It's a new melody over existing chords, a common compositional technique in bop because melodies are copyrightable but chord sequences aren't. I'd never hear the term, contrafact. Alex Raupach introduced it for a few tunes at his gig at Smiths, with Steve Barry, Alex Boneham and Mark Sutton. This was one great band. Again a winner. Alex is playing with much maturity with unrushed lines, often extended, nicely structured and unpretentious. Steve's lines can be like a column, unrelenting, long, hinting at quotes but not quite, with solos building from even but sparse, doubling time then doubling again, always logical, sequenced, neat but also intriguingly bent. Alex will be swinging or ostinato, mobile over the neck, low to high, wonderfully formed strong tones from a firm right hand technique (see that finger bent over a string, feeling the weight, taking the pressure) and solos that spelt out clear sax-like intervallic melody, not easy on the doghouse. Mark a powerhouse, driving, brushes, sticks or flipping the stick to mallet, attacking the fills or driving the rhythm. I often find I concentrate on one player ona night. Mark was that for this night, although I did take a few glances at the others. The music was not too practiced, but their skills and reading drove through it. They soon get the feel of the tune and the ability shines. They'd played a standards night at Hippo the night before; apparently this was loud. Smith's was more the concert performance, original music, contrafacts from Lee Konitz (Thing-In on the chords of All the things you are) and Alex R (Tower condition on Isfahan). Ron Carter's 81. A range of originals by Alex R, often melancholic, and one by Steve Barry, Sahara. Interestingly, a few references to poet Dorothy Parker "Some beautiful things, even in change, wondrously remain the same". Alex sang some lines against the final tune. It's an interesting expansion on instrumental jazz; I like it lots. An involving night with some wondrous playing and substantial tunes. Last visit was in February. I can only hope this becomes habit.

Alex Raupach (trumpet) led a quartet with Steve Barry (piano), Alex Boneham (bass) and Mark Sutton (drums) at Smiths.

Bowties

Steve Barry and Alex Boneham arrived in white shirts and bowties. I felt underdressed. They had played at the opening event for a new suburb. A musician's life is a string of diverse experiences. They were there to play with Alex Raupach and Mark Sutton. At least they looked casual. Not that the music is casual. As expected, this is deadly serious, even if with a jazz nonchalance.
The dress sense gradually dissipated, but the music didn't lose a beat. They started with Ron Carter's Eighty one. It's just a blues, but with a luscious Milesian floating feel with a sudden flourish in the head. Then a few standards and a few originals from Alex R. There were walks in some standards, but also interpretation that grew out of but almost concealed the underlying tune. Alone together was introduced with a bass solo, presumably in the D min key but it was some time before I even recognised this old favourite. Also Just friends and Wayne Shorter's Fall from Miles' album Nefertiti. Steve took an early solo with a long-sustained right hand 8th note line that ran on and on through choruses and gradually grew in dissonance. I was wondering how he'd escape. Eventually he doubled time for a few choruses on 16th notes then dissolved into chords. Fabulous. He set a bit of a theme for the night. Alex B had played a perfectly melodic and richly phrased solo earlier, but then dropped into his own sustained 8th notes on bass, although for one a few choruses. Ales R had a go later, too. Otherwise, he felt more Miles ethereal or sometimes boppy. Mark just laid out lovely steady grooves with tasteful fills and embellishments, always precise and neat. This is just so nice to play with: driving and unpretentious. I only remember one drum solo, of swapped 8s or 16s, again sharp and precise and free of flash. This is professional stuff and I'm in awe. I looked around out the windows at Smiths a few times, expecting the passersby to be peeking in in awe. Some do look; some come in. But too many just pass by on their way to bars or moshpits. Sad, that, but thus is the state of our rich and varied and too often too commercialised civilisation.

Alex Raupach (trumpet) led a quartet with Sydney visitors Steve Barry (piano) and Alex Boneham (bass) and local Mark Sutton (drums) at Smiths.

Again so soon

Twice in one week ; another stunner although a very different concert. This was Steve Barry playing a trio set with Alex Boneham and Tim Firth. I heard this as contemporary original compositions and a few standards; long right hand solo lines from piano with sparse left hand chordings; richly effective syncopated feels from bass with exciting drums of flow and dynamics and gushing fills; several long and tortuous written heads played unison by piano and bass; dynamics that moved gradually to surprise with their intensity.
Steve had written one tune from two favourite standards, Conception and East of the Sun West of the Moon, and two tunes influenced by books, Plato's Republic and Kundera's Unbearable lightness of being. Joe Henderson's Inner urge was just a hard swing workout at considerable pace. More than you know was one standard more than I knew and they played it with slow, heavy, unrelenting walking eight-to-the-bar swing. The standard rewrite of Conception/East-West reimagined with a contemporary latin-ish bass. I asked the barrista how she found it. She was obviously not a jazz freak but she responded that she liked it, as she does all good music. I'm more one-eyed. This was a technical tour-de-force and I can't compare with contemporary indie or other, despite a good feel or intelligent lyrics. This was music pure and simple played with abounding skills. Twice in three nights; great! This trio is going in the studio later this month to record another album. It will clearly deserve a listen.

Steve Barry (piano) led a trio with Alex Boneham (busiest bass) and Tim Firth (drums) at Smiths.

The pleasure of informed delicacy

Ben Winkelman is a delicate player. Richly detailed. His tunes display complex structures and changes. They are heavily syncopated with written lines defining rhythmic and harmonic relations of bass and piano. The solos, piano, bass or drums, appear from a vista of chordal movements and subtle repetition. His solos are similar. Exploratory but unobtrusive with rhythmic tension and symmetrical sequences and conversational embellishments.
Two originals were from an earlier period and channelled 1920s and ragtime although with a modern ironic take and historical respect. Drummer Ben V fits perfectly with all this, toying with tone and splitting and conjugating rhythm. Alex and Ben V both rode freely over the beats, implying structure and responding to it without obviously stating it. Admittedly this wasn’t always true: there were two fairly straight works with more traditional cyclic structures, and Alex was persistent and unending with the bass line on Five Odyssey, a salsa in 10 as I counted it. This was the final tune at CGS and later the intro tune for the jam at the Loft, so it’s a favourite in public. They played Monk’s Bye ya but mostly these were originals by Ben W. That early pair, Tomazo variations (?) with a ballroom melody and swing feel and diatonic harmony with heavy accents, and Maxine’s stomp, a ragtime feel about a deceased cat. The others had various odd times, like Remolacha, the beetroot song (long story), that switched back and forth between 6/8 and 4/4, all latin, or Prospects, more standard with an even rock feel, or Other way, a lovely 3/4 ballad-styled tune or the Schlep in 5/4 or Westbury with floating piano chords over slow rock drums and sparse bass. This doesn’t suggest off times but the written syncopations and the players’ styles supplied it. Ben W with his diverse tones (including a cowbell kick), constant and obtuse polyrhythms and playful articulations and splits of the beat shifting all over the tune and seldom settling. Alex with his sharp syncopations, similarly precise 16-th notes, expressive intervals and richly expressive solos that often spoke to the mainstream of jazz melody. And Ben W with his easy nature, joy in performance and finely wrought but unassuming solos over detailed and expansive tunes. It all makes for a special night of contemporary jazz at the highest level. Great stuff. Ben Winkelman (piano) returned from the US for a tour with Alex Boneham (bass) and Ben Vanderwal (drums). They played at the Canberra Grammar Gallery.

Jacam and Paul

Jacam Manricks with Paul Grabowsky, Alex Boneham and Andrew Gander. It was the ultimate gig of the Canberra Jazz Project for 2013. Ultimate in several ways: an intellectual treat with virtuosic chops. There’s a spot of Paul Grabowski’s album, Tales of time and space, where, at the end of the blaster, Tailfin, Branford Marsalis exclaims “Great Caesar’s ghost”. That’s what this gig felt like. This was a stunner and the skills were top class; worthy of wooing them anywhere. Jacam, with his lithe, fluid compositions that sit so nicely and the perfect chops with the flowing streams of notes, mostly smooth, strained on call, always lucid in intent and punctuation. This time with Paul Grabowsky, endlessly inventive and a fine foil to Jacam. I wondered if sometimes this overflowing creativity clashed, but to be overwhelmed with skills like this is something I’ll suffer. Alex, as always, strong and supportive and with a sweet solo of 10ths and 13ths and the like, relatively undemonstrative but neatly intoned and careful and studied. Andrew Gander’s tumpy toms and kick, tuned low and throbbing (I’ve noticed this recently with other drummers and I guess it’s a new fad around Sydney or maybe wider) with neat upper cymbals register. I melted from some perfect 4-bar leadin fills in the final tune, Thread, which was premiered in this format. I mostly recognised Jacam’s tunes from his 3 CDs. Ondina (borrowed from a flute etude); Forbidden nuts & fruit, a slow punctuated 4/4 leading into a bass solos and then that busy interplay of piano and sax; Cry from Cloud 9; Mood swing with Alex bravely reading devilish syncopations; Cloud 9 in 5/4. These are interesting compositions: easily syncopated, fitting for Jacam’s melliflous tones and varied chordal movements, undemonstratively virtuoisic. Jacam’s technique is almost too perfect: rapidly repeating phrases that sit so unforced and dissolve into whatever that follows. He’s the son of two classical orchestral musicians, so I guess it’s that technique that shows. Paul hit me in much the same way. I noticed one spot where he was not expecting the solo but switched it on at will, all structured and inventive from the first note. Masterful stuff. This is just Canberra, but this could be anywhere. Memorable.

Jacam Manricks (alto) lead a quartet with Paul Grabowsky (piano), Alex Boneham (bass) and Andrew Gander (drums).

A thesis in dots?

I was interested to hear that Steve Barry is reading for his doctorate in music. His thesis concerns classical music and improvisation. It’s not a common association although I’ve written of it several times here recently. I was chatting to Alex in the break and he was talking of classical bassists and hand shapes and fingerboard technique. Jazz, and perhaps all creative music, is a magpie art (“Good artists borrow, great artists steal", supposedly Picasso) so I shouldn’t be surprised. So what of Steve’s take?

Someone mentioned classical influences but I felt this was clearly out of a jazz tradition. I thought of Brad Mehldau with his truncated lines and current sensibility but I heard just a spot of Chick Corea’s harmonic sense and unison melodies and perhaps some longer Keith Jarrett lines. Steve’s compositions were strong on chords, there were latin and rock rhythms, there were unexpected fillips of time or missing beats. I also felt his playing defined left and right hand roles of chords and melody, although there was an easy modal freedom in that melody and the lines easily played around the underlying bar structures. Classic contemporary jazz, not bop styled and seldom swung. I was interested in how a changing chordal structure is relegated to feel almost unchanging, but I expect this is the end result of 50+ years of modal jazz. And I was intrigued by the very busy but unharried playing of the whole band. There were lots of ideas, lots of commitment and un-affected variation here, but it felt settled with like long crescendos and occasional change. And long tunes, up to 30 minutes.

I’ve heard all these guys in Canberra in recent days and it’s been a pleasure. Steve with Jess Pollard; Alex with Mark Lockett; Tim with Liam Budge. How different can these outings be? Alex was again clear in thought, adventurous in intent and accurate in technique. I marvel at his big well-intoned interval jumps. I found his sound a bit podgier on this night, perhaps a bigger low-mid, but what expansive inventiveness and entrenched groove in these solos! Quite stunning. Tim excited me, again with an ease of presence, but with perfectly accurate and sharply rendered fills and embellishments and rudiments. Steve led with his own compositions and the lyrical freedom I mentioned above. I liked that they played a single, long set, ~90 minutes: more involving, more relaxed for after-gig chatter, and shorter for a workday evening. I reckon that’s something jazz could learn from rock showbiz: play long and hard, don’t rest too soon. There’s a lot of understated change here: piano to bass solo to drums against ostinato and the rest, but malleable and undemonstrative although clearly planned. The tunes were originals, and Wayne Shorter’s Taru. One was entitled Parks and dedicated to pianist Aaron Parks. Changes was a love song from a distance. Vintage was a right hand melody with syncopated left hand chords and contrapuntal bass. Listening to the CD as I write, it seems strong and forceful. On the night, I heard it as more internal, busy and outspoken but complex, conversational and inner directed. Whatever, it was complex and satisfying and virtuosic. How I like it. Great stuff. Steve Barry (piano) led a trio with Alex Boneham (bass) and Tim Firth (drums) at the Loft’s last gig for the year.

Relatively the underworld

I just managed part of the second set by the Mark Lockett Trio at the Loft. I’d been at Christian Howes and that was a lengthy concert. The contrast was educative. Both had great skills but these were wildly different styles, different audiences, different presentations. Mark is the underground. He’s been studying in NYC with Ari Hoenig; Ornette’s a favourite. His drumming was sparse; the band’s sound was open, being a sax trio; his accompanists were amongst Australia’s best: Julien Wilson and Alex Boneham. This is contemporary music, open and searching, unrushed as notes are sought, beauteous in tone and intimate in context. The Loft and the limited audience just added to the intimacy. I noticed some technical mannerisms in Mark (probably a function of contemporary drumming – things are different now, not all swing and filling the spaces) and his playing was intimate and always purposed. I thought of Paul Motion, although Mark’s not so free. Also the perfect, nuggetty tone of Alex’s bass and long but well-intoned intervals and individually formed notes and his contorted, bodily playing. And sinuous, personal tenor from Julien. I haven’t heard him nearly enough: his reputation is well deserved. This was variously sustained steams of eighth notes of varied dissonance or simple but apt phrasings of sure lyricism. I came in on a first tune that had me elated with these streams of tenor notes then a bass solo of searching melody and perfect tonality. Then a recognition of simple beauty, a ballad My little brown book, which was devoid of solos. Then Bernie McGann’s Brownsville. Then an syncopated original, Sneaking out after midnight. That’s all I heard; damn the clashes. This is beauty. Again, recorded by ArtSound for a Friday Night Live broadcast in coming weeks. I’ll be keeping my ears open for what I missed. Mark Lockett (drums) is touring with Julien Wilson (tenor) and Alex Boneham (bass).

Never rains

Actually it was raining when I set off for Phillip Johnston and the Coolerators at the Gods but “never rains” really refers to two international jazz acts in Canberra on one night. The first was Sydney/NYC saxist Phillip Johnston with a support band of Alister Spence, Alex Boneham and Nic Cecire. I just caught one set and what a distinct style it was. To my ears this was a post-modern melange, ironic and frosty and a matter of mind rather than emotion. Phillip played a soprano sax that sounded all the world to me like clarinet, so of another era of jazz and of society: no way you could mistake this for the instrument Coltrane played. I seem to remember the tonguing as clipped, but it was unmistakably unadorned except for a characteristic swing band vibrato when reaching for high notes. The lines he played were simple, clearly stated, ironically bland. It’s more than just a musical style, but a presence, and I felt it in his wit and stage persona. Cool, otherworldly, undemonstrative. Maybe it’s the movies, but I can associate this with the big city, with NYC, with cool underground rock. It fitted that he played one tune called “Shelley’s got a brand new handbag” that nods at funk but that he performed in a NYC new wave rock band called The Public Servants. All dry with distant wit. It’s not something that’s easily received outside its milieu but it’s a noteworthy stream of alt culture and it’s interesting to hear it visiting Canberra from the source. Shelley was not funk, but unison, lightweight melody against composed accompaniments in arrangements of disparate parts and rock grooves. Maybe it’s danceable or suits a cool club scene. This is something different for the Gods. Phillip introduced the show with a solo sax passage called Splat which merged into a calypso-St-Thomas-like tune by Albert Ayler called Ghosts that was all simple chords and joyous melody and cacophony. Then an original with unison scalar snippets then a heavy funk 4/4 than some sparse latin segments and floating Leslie and synth organ amongst other solos. Then Steve Lacy’s Prospectus with complex head and some fast walk. Then Shelley, then an attractive and simple tune by folk singer Michael Hurley (Phillip noted he was not a guitar/strummer) with a characteristic folk/blues sense of time (here 4/4 interspersed with occasional 2/4 bars). Then a final Monk tune, We see, to end the set. I was impressed at how effectively the band read. Nic Cecire just nailed the feels in the most understated way. Alex Boneham is an intensely involved and musical bassist and always a joy to my ears. His accompaniment was impressive and two solos were richly melodic statements that just spoke so well to the tune, not just the chords. Alister Spence was playing organ and this seems a more romantic instrument to me. He had the easy fluency and rapid solo lines but it was the swelling organ chords that spoke to me of gospel and soul more than irony and things of the mind. I doubt that sunny Australia and harboured Sydney can do nihilist irony like NYC new wave (but I’m forgetting Nick Cave). To maintain the po-mo references, I’ll call it an interesting pastiche, but I did feel there was a diversity of approaches here. So it was an interesting and cogitatively enlivening outing. Phillip Johnston (soprano sax) led the Coolerators with Alister Spence (organ), Alex Boneham (bass) and Nic Cecire (drums).

Cyberhalides Jazz Photos by Brian Stewart

What maturity means

Alex Boneham said to me it’s like the music you learn at the Con but then seldom perform in public.

Andrew Dickeson led a quintet at the Gods and it was furious post-bop and beautiful ballads and down-home blues and it’s something any modern jazzer loves. But it was also the sheer skills that hit me this night. The very first bar had me in awe. It was sharp, precise, relaxed but laden with energy that was always about to explode. It’s a great skill: precision and power that sits and promises, even seduces, and clearly has energy sitting in reserve, even while the notes are scrolling by in sixteenths and the ideas are flowing freely. Then I heard a line from Warwick that I thought just sat so right and I realised there are perfect lines for certain combinations of chords and melodies and tempos. It’s no surprise, really, given the importance of transcription for advanced students, but it’s not obvious when we talk of improvisation as the basis for jazz. And then I noticed these perfect snippets all over the place. Warwick has a library of them. James and Steve had plenty of their own. The blues is replete with them. We call some of them “licks”, but there are others, too: perfect statements that ring true to our unconscious listening history. The music was not pretentious, not original compositions although there were original arrangements. They were reading, but you might not know it from the ease of the unison melodies. The band played standards but they were not common ones: Here and now, Never let me go, Ill wind, I’m a weaver of dreams, Embraceable you was common. Some tunes were features for the frontliners: Billie Holiday’s I’ll be seeing you was a feature for Warwick so James sat out; Embraceable you was a guitar trio with James. There were some blues: Freddie Hubbard’s Byrd-like and Carl Perkin’s hard-bopper Carl’s blues. The song is you was arranged by Andrew with odd staccatos that challenged the readers. It surfaced a few chuckles from Alex and smiles from Steve. The old hands up front were mostly phlegmatic but even they looked around with discrete smiles at times. There were some devastating solos from the masters. James reached to the top frets and was mostly above the first octave, but could fall away with clanking frets right down the neck, all within lines of furious speed and unending length. Warwick also played those long, fast lines, although I thought more scalar against James’ pentatonics. I remember his plays on scales where he started with, say, a third that then fell away, then a fourth, then a fifth, and so on. Get an idea and execute it, exercise-like, maintain it, explore and twist it. I was drooling at how much playing and practice was on display. Andrew was leading from the drum stool with a distant grin of concentration. He’s mainstream to my ears and so precise, driving from behind or laying solos that spell out melody in rolls and rudiments, quite loud and spot on. I heard Steve as less explosive than Warwick or James, playing tenor-style sustained eighth notes with rising and falling lines and neat bop-triplet fills in solos and pianistic colour in comping. Alex is a young master to my ears. His intonation was impressive despite (maybe because of) squirming like Charlie Haden, his solos were thoughtful - slow and intervallic or minimalistic and arpeggiated - and his tone was firm and edgy and to die for.

So, what to make of all this? Mature and classy and unpretentious but with some devastating, world-class skills. More than I could have hoped for. Andrew Dickeson (drums) led a quintet with Warwick Alder (trumpet), James Muller (guitar), Steve Barry (piano) and Alex Boneham (bass) at the Gods.