Last schooldays

Given work, I don’t attend many recitals, but I got to Rohan Dasika’s classical, licenciate recital. He played Bach, Bottesini and an intriguing-sounding modern piece called Failing. The Bach was his Cello suite no.3 played in Gmaj (rather than the original Cmaj). The bass is large and unwieldy, its range is limited and the fingering limits how and what can be played, so it’s a different exercise and an obvious challenge. I didn’t envy Rohan chasing up and down the fingerboard, but it was a valid technical exercise and I enjoyed it although I found it harder to follow than it would have been on cello. The Bottesini was his Concerto no.2 for double bass in Amin and it was much more fitting to the instrument. Bottesini was a bass virtuoso and his works for the bass are key to the repertoire and apparently this is his key standard work for the bass. I seen several Bottesini clips on YouTube but never heard a live performance. This was much more apt for the instrument. Lyrical, effective use of the full range of the instrument, lots of harmonics and playing to the extremes of the fingerboard, rich tones down low and rising arpeggios and a nice interplay with the accompanying piano. The last piece was anything but out of place for Rohan’s recital. Tom Johnson’s Failing: a very difficult piece for solo string bass has the performer speaking while playing and talking about this very activity: easy at first, then getting harder; will he fail, or choose to fail and then essentially succeed; don’t all performances involve some failure. The accompanying music moved from lyrical to devilishly chromatic and the speaking moved from reading to improvised. Only Rohan will know where or how he failed (he certainly didn’t fall in a heap) but it suited his zany virtuosity. Great fun and much enjoyed. I have no idea how this performance would go over with examiners. The works were challenging. I noticed some technical slips and his face was variously mobile with pleasure and pain, but this was intriguing and engaging and entertaining and even humourous and for a solo double bass concert, I can only imagine that is exceptional. Well done, Rohan. Rohan Dasika (double bass) presented his third year recital. He was accompanied by Kylie Loveland (piano) for the Bottesini.

While in the building, I also caught the week-long lunchtime performance called Elevator #1. It’s percussion on a 36” concert bass drum in the lift at the Music School. I only heard the first few minutes and beats, written as crochet-rest-repeat, played with one mallet, then adding a second. The lift went up and down; the doors opened; visitors entered and left; it was loud. I was hearing the drum later, down a corridor, presumably when the lift door opened. I expect it’s a valid comment on the changes at the school (sounding all the world like a funeral procession at the start). I would like to hear the development over an hour, even over the week, but my ears wouldn’t be up to it. This is a small space and the big skin and beater is a loud combination. But it’s worthy and I’m glad I’ve seen it, if only for a few minutes and only in the earliest moments of musical development for that day. Austin Bucket composed and conceived the piece and William Jackson (percussion) performed it.

Limb

Limb was the title of the new music concert. And it was an authentic musical event, not just an informal gig. This had two intervals to allow the stage to be reset, dramatic lighting and shadows, even costumes, and music from free improvisation and percussion streams including the premiere performance of a percussion piece.

The gig started with the Pollen Trio. Three players, piano, trumpet, drums; a looper and some percussion and a ring modulator; some water for bubbly trumpet effects. This is not scored music, but I expect there was a structure. Starting discretely, with a drum kits played with hands, bubbling noises from the trumpet and effects and plucked strings in the body of a Steinway. Swelling with percussion in place of trumpet and a move to mallets and sticks. A trumpet without mouthpiece sounding of hunters’ horn. A rising intensity of repeating piano lines and harmonising, looped trumpet and piano chords looped and growing in power and volume and rock drum grooves. And finally a decay to bubbling trumpet and an end. This is sprawling music to close eyes to and drown in. Minimal change but often a busy hustle. Austin, Miro and Evan have been doing this for sometime and are about to tour the Pollen improvised experience. Pollen Trio are Austin Buckett (piano), Miroslav Bukovsky (trumpet, percussion) and Evan Dorrian (drums).

The rest of the gig was percussion, classically trained, notated, often pitched, complex and dynamic but also with some touches of great beauty. Yvonne Lam started the set with …And now for the news by Graeme Leak. This was a solo percussion piece against Yvonne’s spoken voice (in Chinese?) at start and finish and a news report (in Vietnamese?) over the PA through the middle. The drums were Chinese toms, congas and bongos and some wooden percussion. The drumming followed and reacted to the rhythms and inflections of the Asian tonal languages.

Next was four performers presenting four of six movements of The Heavenly muzak machine by Mark Clement Pollard. This is an exploration of the vibraphone as a machine and as a musical instrument. The movements we heard featured harmonised vocals with vibraphone, then a four part performance with 8 mallets, then a quiet and delicate movement with tapped keys, then a final four part movement with 8 mallets. It was all beautiful and ringing, but especially the tender harmonised vocals and the delicious tapped third movement. The four performers were Bartholomew Haddock, Anna Ng, Yvonne Lam and Veronica Walshaw.

Then William Jackson performed Exposiciones by Andrian Pertout. This was a solo notated marimba piece against another vocal track, as I remember, a news broadcast in English. I was impressed by the detail and skills, but also by the performance of 15 minutes of detailed percussion by rote, but then the accompanying track must have assisted. I was also thrilled by some devastatingly fast stick work. The classical world may not improvise but it sure has chops.

Another interval, another stage change, another set. The final set was a single work composed by Austin Buckett, called Reset: for multi percussion due and field recording and performed by William Jackson and Yvonne Lam. This was a complex setup of quadraphonic recordings and effected percussion, performed in the round with contrasty, white lighting and white costumes and headphones for the performers, scraping snare skins and striking bottles and bass and kick drums and gongs. There was repetition, I think it was in two similar parts, big volume from bass drum hits accompanied by long decays from the gong, prying, interrupted scraping from fingers on snare skins and moving accents from sharply-struck empty glass bottles.

I’m still musing on it a day or so later as I write this. My preference was the tuned percussion. It’s at the unchallenging end of the performance spectrum on the night, but it was ringing and quite beautiful. But when I closed my eyes, I took in the freedom of Pollen and the formed and rhythmic-tonal-(or with open eyes)-visual presence of the pure percussion. All intriguing and musically involving stuff. What a lot of work; what a wonderful presentation; what developed skills and gratifying sounds.

Cyberhalides Jazz Photos by Brian Stewart

Kaoss?

Shoeb Ahmad and his digital processing was the common feature at a challenging concert I attended yesterday. Spartak played the first set with two numbers. Austin Buckett presented a work originally written for a string quartet as the second.

This was a larger, 5-piece Spartak. I’ve written here of Spartak as a duo. The essence of drums/percussion and processed instrumental sounds was still there, but this was bigger and more exploratory. The first tune was indicative of the approach and structure. Evan started by setting percussion rhythms. Tim introduced a simple melodic line on trumpet, repeating with some small variations. Andrew played mostly harmony notes. He once inserted a snippet of modern jazz (lovely) but returned to simpler harmony notes, which are a better base for Schoeb’s digital manipulations. These digital sounds formed an intense and all-encompassing background for snippets of notes and varied percussion until Tim restated his simple melody and the tune ended. Guitarist Morgan was also there with few notes but extended effects. I couldn’t identify his part, although Shoeb was obviously clear on his space. It’s music that has its own logic and art and it demands intense contemplation. I find it rewarding although the passers-by at the Street seemed a bit non-plussed. I found the clarity and strength of the trumpet was perfect to cut through the environmental noiseworks and also as a base for these manipulations. I also noticed the tunes grew and fell away (obvious enough) and interestingly it was the human sounds that made growth and the digital sounds that accompanied the decay. Not sure I can read any more into this than that the digital followed the instruments, but maybe it’s a comment on our human progress? Growth as a search for harmony, tonality, melody, structure; digital as mechanical, intervened, under human control but not human. The second piece first had me amused with shades of scifi: R2D2 and, more profoundly, Forbidden Planet. Again, the trumpet set intervals and the alto found harmonies, and the electronics bent and repeated these sounds and fed them back amongst a clatter of rhythm. These are not easy sounds, but they are satisfying.

The second set was Austin Buckett leading a performance of his piece, Stuttershine. It was originally written for a string quartet but performed here by piano, cello, viola and violin with digital manipulations. It started sparse, with rubato notes passed between piano and strings and built to end with a constant arpeggio-like single-note passage on piano that seemed to restate the sparse melodic movements of the first part. Over this was again the digital processing of strings by Shoeb. I really enjoyed the un-manufactured sounds of acoustic stringed instruments as well as the ringing acoustic piano tones. The digital reformulations seemed a bit intrusive to me although the concept of a reworked environment was good. Perhaps this was just a little too loud or edgy for the gentle stings. I found it satisfying work of composition and of performance, somewhat related to Spartak, perhaps as the distant more-upright cousin?

How great is it that we have such music here? Congratulations and thanks from CJ. BTW, my title, Kaoss, makes reference Shoeb’s principal interface for these digital manipulations, Korg’s Kaoss Pad dynamic effect processor. Shoeb was using the mini-KP with laptop and numerous other digital dongles. Spartak was Evan Dorrian (drums), Shoeb Ahmad (digital manipulations), Tim Bowyer (trumpet), Andrew Fedorovich (alto sax), Morgan McKellar (guitar, delay). Austin Buckett (piano, composer) led a quintet comprising James Larsen (cello), Xina Hawkins (viola), Elyane de Fontenay (violin) and Shoeb Ahmad (digital manipulations) playing his piece, Stuttershine.

Varieties of lullaby

Pollen Trio is an elusive and facetiously meek name for a band which is anything but meek. It’s actually the Austin Benjamin Trio renamed, but the music has moved since their first album, and it seems to continually be seeking new natures. Their performance at JU surprised me with a minimalist challenge for the afternoon radio audience.

This Front gig was a little more aligned with the CD, but also more bombastic, with powered, repetitive figures that could be mistaken for free, until you encountered various starts and stops and obviously programmed bars and unison lines that stitched the parts together. There’s lots of repetition at high energy, some quite understated minimalist soloing and always that push and drive that’s the nature and intent from the top. Austin leads with a strangely effected Nord piano sound. A friend wondered why he used this tone, but to me it fits the manic style perfectly well. This is not an audio space for gentleness or hesitation. It seems post apocalyptic, informed by sci-fi thrillers, but with a sense of purpose and seriousness and threatening reality. Chris admirably holds bass duties and dropped in a few melodic lines with precision, but this is a repetitive although challenging bass role. I particularly enjoyed Evan’s drumming, here at its most involved and committed. Body flailing, sticks and mallets touching or beating with these movements. He’s a very mobile and expressive player. Passages that hinted of drum solo with a repeated riff from the band, but I wasn’t quite sure if it was full on solo or busy accompaniment. It was all mesmeric repetition and sustained odd time signatures. I thought I counted 5/4 and an oddly syncopated 8 and 7/4 and a 16 divided into 9 and 7. But the times were not easy to count, so perhaps I’ve erred. This intensity says menace and no prisoners, but an unexpected lullaby theme appeared in Chase the clouds. So, intriguing and involving and another worthy expression from this inventive outfit. Pollen Trio. I like the name. Despite the lullaby, it’s a delightful disparity from the music.

But lullaby was a clearer theme of the second performer, the Sydney-based ambient guitarist, Seaworthy (AKA Cameron Webb).

Why lullaby? Firstly, because I heard those simple, satisfying melodies in this guitar playing, and ambient seems to me a modern day lullaby for adults. Secondly, because his toddler daughter was there for the performance, and delightfully interrupted it at one point. (There’s no interrupting headstrong toddlers!) This was true ambient music. Simple themes and instrumental performance, supported by an array of tools of the trade (PC and effects and loops and echoes) and assisted by background soundscapes. Cam played two tunes (he normally plays a single long piece, but it was two this day due to the interruption). The first was against sounds of seagulls; the second against footfalls in an identifiably dull, reverberant space. Apparently he’d recorded this in concrete bunkers discarded the Navy. You could hear these reflections in cement, somewhat like a Canberra underpass but bumpier. This music was simpler than Pollen’s, but hypnotic and quite seductive.

So two versions of lullaby; two versions of hypnotic music. They were very different, but an interesting combination and well received. Also interesting was the neat little business card CD with tracks from each of the bands that you were given with the cover charge. Never seen that before.

Pollen Trio were Austin Buckett (piano), Chris Pound (bass) and Evan Dorrian (drums). Seaworthy was a one man band comprising Cameron Webb.