Revisiting favourites

Wang JF is mainly composed of the best of the Australian scene and it's a pleasure to catch up with them. In Canberra, I don't see them nearly often enough and Melbourne and Sydney listeners tend to see their own and not those from the other city. As for Brissie, Perth and the rest, I guess they see even less.

I'd recently seen James Muller and Steve Magnusson on two occasions in two different bands. They are such different guitarists and I was intrigued by how they'd work together. James is the ultimate smooth virtuoso; Steve the intriguingly divergent player. In this case, they were playing with Frank Di Sario and Danny Fischer. Scofield and Frisell were obviously on the program, and Solar (claimed by Miles as were many tunes), an original by Frank and some others. Apparently this was the third time that James and Steve have played together. James was breathtaking. I felt Steve didn't quite get the opportunity for his choppy and inventive style. Perhaps there was some competitiveness, conscious or not. I greatly admire each for his playing so I was a little disappointed by this outing. Interesting experiment, but in the end oil and water don't mix.


It's ages since I saw Sam Keevers at gigs with Jamie Oehlers and I've held admiration for his playing ever since. I admire the quiet and respectful with depths to be mined. Certainly his playing was like this when he played a set of tunes by Bernie McGann with his quintet. I felt these was clean, neat, steadily swinging period pieces somewhere around post-bop territory, lithe and steady and admirable as carriages for improv. Spirit song, Brownsville, Sweet Lucy, Mail, Twist. This is standard format with two horns out front. The fabulous pairing of Eugene Ball and Phil Noy were great together and strong apart in solos. Bass was Chris Hale, the first electric bass I'd seen at this festival. From afar, I didn't pick up on the subtleties, but up close this was pick and finger pick and chords with middle, ring and little fingers. This is six-string electric bass, which is an instrument that cries out for a new conception and Chris had one and it was well developed. Not at all standard in this context, but impressive. Craig on drums was steady as presumably required for this outing. Very well played and an admirable tribute and presumably particularly memorable for those who were close to Bernie, for Geoff and others.

James Muller (guitar) met Steve Magnusson (guitar) with Frank Di Sario (bass) and Danny Fischer (drums) supporting. Sam Keevers (piano) led a quintet with Phil Noy (alto), Eugene Ball (trumpet), Chris Hale (electric bass) and Craig Simon (drums) playing a tribute to Bernie McGann.

Again Enrico

At the end of his concert, Enrico Rava said he usually doesn’t like a gig in the morning, implying this was different. I think it was. He looked genuinely interested in several of the solos, patting Frank on the back after one of his, leaning against the piano an gazing at Paul during another, smiling at Mirko and Niko at other times. It’s a matey friendship and professional respect on stage that we were to see after the last gig on the night, too. Enrico’s second outing was with a crack team and it was a standards gig. Yeah. That interested me and surprised me in some ways. Standards are often denigrated, but Miles did it and here Enrico Rava did it. The tunes were immediate and comprehensible and the lesson in how you can meld and bend them was intriguing. They started with a cool 4/4 funk groove and I was surprised when it became You don’t know what love is. Not much more standard than that. But these are lessons, exhaustive in their openness to variation. Enrico holds the feels wonderfully so his departures are unobstrusive. Again, the spaces, the interludes of long quick phrases, the tonal plays and a less frequent use of the flutter to the sky. He’s a master. Fellow Italian, now Melbourne-based saxist Mirko took up on some of these skyward flutters and I liked that reference, and he would also play noise, but he was fat, more smooth and straight in spelling the chords while adding passing chords. More harmonically evident. Paul Grabowsky is in another space altogether. His takes are a melange of styles bundled together, harmonic colour changing on a whim. This is death defying improve and a lesson in exploration. There’s no doubting his technique or capability, which I presume is classically developed, but it’s not an easy place to visit. His take on Funny Valentine was a dream; his takes on the more boppy numbers were challenging and stylistically multitudinous. I’m intrigued. Frank was a straighter proposition. Lovely solos that were fresh and unpretentious revisits to the melody. Just so nicely done, and obviously well received by Erico. Niko is another of the Melbourne pack that I wish to visit more. Musically outspoken, vivacious, perhaps capricious. Always a challenge to staid concepts. Nice, but needing acclimatisation. So, Enrico played a much different concert on his second outing. Showing us what standards can be. Lovely.

Enrico Rava (trumpet) led a band with Mirko Guerrna (tenor), Paul Grabowsky (piano), Frank Di Sario (bass) and Niko Schauble (drums) playing standards at Wang.

Continuing the latin dream

Barney McAll’s album, Mother of dreams and secrets, is one of my favourites so I jumped at the opportunity to see him at Bennett’s Lane. We’re in Melbourne and I’m rather overwhelmed with the jazz choice on offer, despite some clubs being closed for January. Phroenesis is in town soon; will they make Canberra? That’s the sort of realisation I’m having. But what of Barney and his alter-ego Feral Junior? Feral is Barney's new puppet mate, amusingly but somewhat ominously introducing the early sets. It worked; it drew attention and entertained; I liked it; most people listen with their eyes, so why not? But Barney’s talking was mainly through his fingers and also his compositions.

This was his Non-Compliance Trio, sometimes enhanced with alto. It’s a return to a simpler format for Barney: the piano trio as a classic jazz combination. Despite the efficient format, Barney’s concepts of structure and composition were obvious and remain attractive. Plenty of piano expositions, slow feels with down-South blues-infused sensibility, sustained heavily syncopated ostinatos on bass or piano left hand, contradictory and sparse melody from right hand or bass and alto or some other combination, perhaps long and tortuous unison lines breaking the parts. They don’t always sit together with ease, but they communicate a personality and artistic sense that’s not too far from the Yoruba/Cuba of his Mother album. The compositions were mostly his, but he also played Chick Corea’s lyrical Tones for Jones’ bones and a supremely beautiful, theatrical piano solo medley of the standards The party’s over and Why didn’t I choose you, and a somewhat simple song by Rhiannon called Only girl (in the world) which worked well enough but felt somewhat out-of-place. I like jazzers testing newer popular songs, but the simple blues scale melody was not up to the richness of the rest of the night, even if played well. I’ve read recently about the simpler harmonies of pop from the ‘50s onwards not supporting jazz complexity and this has to be one example.

The playing of Barney and the band made this a worthy night. Barney with his full-handed technique was satisfying and big and colourful and dug in and homely. He dropped into left hand chords and right hand sax-like lines at times, but it was this big conception (and his compositions) that defined it for me. There were piano intros and generous head nodding to lead the band. Danny Fischer was right on top of it all. Perhaps he’d played with Barney in NYC and knew the tunes or maybe he just had a great memory (one syncopated snare line that got subsequently taken up as written sax melody convinced me) but he was ready to sit on nothing, then swell and be all over the solos. Great listening. And his own solos were open and expressive of melody and the tune. Wonderful. Bassist Frank Di Sario was impressive as he ran with the fast bop and soloed neatly and read up amongst the thumb positions, but the music was obviously new to him and he was having to work hard. Similarly David Rex, who sat in on alto for around four tunes, read some devilish syncopations but also dropped out occasionally. Syncopation is hard reading. I heard him early on as flamboyantly, perhaps excessively, fast and furious, but then a tune later in the night had him slower and more settled and melodically inventive with an intriguing dissonant and rhythmic contrariness and on listening further to his sprees of notes I found structure and melody, so nice.

This was a concert of return to home and family and friends and trio format, with his own tunes and some ring-ins, but always with his distinct broad-brushed colour and insinuating latin awareness. Contemporary jazz is all over the place and I remain staunchly catholic in welcoming it all, but the colourful latin-tinged earthiness of Feral Junior’s mate remains close to my Spanish heart. Barney McAll (piano, puppet) led his Non-Compliance Trio with Frank Di Sario (bass) and Danny Fischer (drums). David Rex (alto) sat in for a few tunes.