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.

Late starter

I was relaxed in arriving at the Orange Winter Jazz festival this year.  My first concert was the last few mid-afternoon tunes of Bungarribee.  It's a project of Gary Daley of The catholics fame.  He's collected a quartet of odd combination to play a style of chamber music influenced by jazz and classical and more.  How's this for a format: piano/accordion, various winds, cello and drums.  The names are notable: Gary with Paul Cutlan, Oliver miller and Chloe Kim.  I came in to music soft, meditative and unexpected and bass clarinet solo.  Then to finish they started with free piano-based introduction leading to a gentle and pretty 4/4 with wind melody.  This was in Holy Trinity, a cathedral with considerably live sound, pretty obvious for this performance.  Wish I'd heard more.  Then off to Chloe Kim playing a solo outing in the Uniting Church which I remember as my favourite acoustic from last year.   Chloe had played a concert of 100hours solo drums over 10 days at MONA.  She subsequently selected 28 themes and improvised as a CD.  This was her first live performance of those selected themes, 1 minute allocated to each.  I doubt I've ever attended a solo drums concert but this entranced especially with the themes listed, like Cymbal peak or Dance! or Push and pull or Garbage truck.  It was Garbage truck that first got me.  Chloe had seard a garbage truck outside during her 100 hours and took the constant pulse as an improvisatorial prompt.  You could hear that truck.  Not all the themes were so clear but they were intriguing and honest and presented with connection.  Stunningly good.  

 
Bungarribee comprises Gary Daley (piano, accordion), Paul Cutlan (flutes, saxes, clarinets), Oliver Miller (cello, electronics) and Chloe Kim (drums, percussion).  Chloe Kim (drums, percussion) played a solo gig at the Uniting Church.

Waves on sand

I got to Verity Lane for another of Alex Raupach's 8-evening series, sadly coming to an end soon.  Each show includes a visiting or feature artist with the house band, but this was a doozy.  It was called Waves on Sand, the title of a piece written for this event by Alex, was located in a quiet room out the back and featured 3 visitors, just not 1.  And worthy visitors they were.  Chloe Kim is a renowned drummer in numerous ensembles and student/associate of Simon Barker; a member of one of her bands and also from Sydney, Harley Coleman, came on guitar; Melbourne-based trumpeter Ashley Ballatt, with a string of plays with international renowns, Terri-Lynne Carrington, Linda Oh,  Dave Douglas and Vijay Iyer no less.  The locals were Chris Pound and Tom Fell, both local experts.  Actually, both Chloe and Ashley had history at the ANU at the time of the SOM ructions, so some local presence.   So a promising program.  The concert was a series of tunes, written by all members, including Chris and Tom and Alex, of various styles, even touching one with a country-ish opening for one particularly beautiful ballad, Yellow pink to blue by Sandcastles Chloe/Harley band partner, Hinano Fuisaki.  But most was not like that.  There was glorious, calm, slow, chordal grooves with occasional movements in pitch, signalled by a leader, or frantic free, or totally solo drums or guitar, or drums or guitar solos in context, guitar lightly picked but quick, a most glorious bass tone that both Harley and I were praising Chris for, or glorious sitting three part harmonised notes from tenor, trumpet and bass, moving in small intervals down on instruction, but improvised on harmony, and throughout a gorgeously pure trumpet tone, and Chloe's rhythmic excursions and occasional space.  All with performers physically coming and going for different pieces, and with a quiet and responsive audience.  The listening location fitted and the purpose was well served with some stunning floating, and just occasionally ecstatic, music.  What a pleasure.

Chloe Kim (drums), Harley Coleman (guitar), Ashley Ballatt (trumpet), Tom Fell (tenor, soprano saxes) and Chris Pound (bass) performed at Verity Lane for Alex Raupach's Louis Louis series.

Diversity

Chloe Kim is an improvising drummer in Sydney, female, born in Seoul.  I wouldn't normally highlight it for mostly a muso is a muso, but Chloe makes an issue of supporting genders and nationalities in jazz (good on her!) and more importantly, she just sounds different.  She performed a short solo piece that wasn't so much virtuosic as melodic.  She explained its structure as in four parts, uke, uke and guitar, guitar alone, guitar and drumset.  She would use sticks on the stringed instruments, giving a sound wonderfully jangly and metallic.  It started with simple 4/4 taps on the uke, undemonstrative, naturally developed, into the most sweet, perfectly collapsing fills and intriguing polyrhythmic lines on snare without snare engaged and toms, not much kick that I remember.  All the time with an awareness that sounded Asian to my uneducated ears.  I could believe that, given her background, of course, and Simon Barker as her teacher, known for his exploration of Korean drumming.  She talked of her solo albums and solo gigs, of strict, planned, disciplined practice with metronome and repetition versus improv over minimalist structure in performance, of imitation as disrespectful of self and the respected.  This last intrigued me but the success in her playing seems evident: there's a personal presentation here, doubly so in solo drum gigs.  Solo drum gigs?  That's challenging and unusual and also revealing of her approach.  Otherwise, she'd prerecorded for this event and that was obviously necessary given her shared housing situation.  But she valued the lessons that this demanded of her.  It's relevant that she'll soon be drumming for a Chicago radio station.  There are new possibilities with these suddenly ubiquitous technologies.  So a fascinating drums outing and a intriguing discussion  Unpretentious but delicious in performance and relevatory in purpose.

Chloe Kim (drums) performed for the Earshift Festival.

Carefree on white sand

ARC Quartet studied at the ANU, but I didn't know of them even if their faces seemed familiar. They played together in school days at the Prep course. Some members are still studying or performing professionally. They presented as a 5-piece quartet, strange I thought, but presumably a gathering of like-minds and the addition of one mate. In fact, another mate sat in later in the night for a 6-piece. They played a few originals and reharmonisations and the like, and these were my favourites. Standards are great and they are shared so good for sitins, but we have heard them before. Bassist Ross had a nice original harking back to playing rock and metal in his younger days. That path is not too unusual and the tune was successful. Tenorist James had another original, a latin with a forward calve-feel. I liked that they paid tribute to Australian band, The Vampires, by playing their reggae-feel Mandala. The Beatles made an appearance with a latinised and reharmonised Eleanor Rigby. There was a guitarist in the band, Harry, so I wasn't surprised by a Pat Metheny tune. Trumpeter mate, Matt Nicholls, sat in for Footprints and Misty and they also played jazz hits Tenor madness and Beautiful love, but my favourite of these was Coltrane's Moment's notice - a great tune running through keys with plenty of momentum. I would have liked to have watched these players develop over a few years at the ANU, but I can understand they went to other schools, Sydney, Melbourne, Mt Gambier, and perhaps other things. Drummer Chloe was always precise and I enjoyed how she slowed a tune on request after an excited start. The two horns, James and altoist Alfred, sat well together and each took their generous share of blues-influenced solos. Guitarist Harry was neat and nicely sharp in accompaniment and I very much liked his solos, clear and well articulated and purposeful. Bass Ross was able in walks and accompaniment and impressive in the thumb position heights of his 5 string e-bass. But perhaps the biggest surprise for me on the night was the reception for St Thomas. I've long felt it's a daggy tune but the calypso feel is infectious and this one was the best received of the night, and perhaps the one played with most breezy abandon so I must reconsider. That's how calypso should be, reminiscent of carefree people on white sandy beaches, and nothing like the days preceding a dismal election. This is much nicer: thinking sunny with ARC.

ARC Quartet comprises Alfred Hearn (alto), James Stuchbery (tenor), Ross Davidson (bass) and Chloe Kim (drums). Harry Tinney (guitar) also played for the two sets and Matt Nicholls (trumpet) sat in for two tunes.