Calling the Beat

I was embarrassed that Beat Kaestli had to correct me on the pronunciation of his name, but it must be common. He’s a jazz singer, originally from German-speaking Switzerland, once a scholarship student at Manhattan School of Music and a NYC (now Dumbo) resident of 20-years, so I wouldn’t have been alone in guessing Beat was a nickname (Beat as in Groove). But he’s actually Beat as in Euro-vowels: Bay-at is perhaps closest in a non-phoenetic script. But that’s by-and-by. What mattered was that he was at the Loft, singing two sets with accompaniment from Jonathon Zwartz and Jackson Harrison. There were no drums (although they had played a gig with Andrew Gander in Sydney), but there was groove to die for. This was a clear and crisp sound, unhurried and with groove from the depths. Beat is a substantial man, tall and well built. You could hear it in his full voice as he dropped lower, but he’d also sing to higher notes, always gently formed with soft attack and measured sustain. He sang some scat although not much and it was great when he did it, but I heard his improvisation more in interpretation and phrasing. His lines would move over the beat, before or behind, but it wasn’t an obtrusive thing. I remember reading that Miles studied Sinatra for his phrasing. I imagine it’s a singer’s thing, and being voice, it’s human and unobtrusive. Thinking back, Jonathon was also singing as he soloed, and that was also melodic and unforced. It’s something of voice. Beat also had the loudest finger snap I think I’ve ever heard. Just a sharp, regular, perfectly timed snap that resonated and drove with the rhythm. This rhythm was so strong, what with Beat’s finger snap and Jonathon’s busy and expressive pizzicato. It was his right hand work that defined Jonathon’s playing for me this night, playing around the groove, holding funky ostinatos or breaking up latin or swing with all manner of syncopations. There were fills and runs and various harmonic inventions, too, but the groove was the essence and it was so strong. And that voice that accompanied his bass solos, making for more lyrical and intuitive lines. I just tried it while practising this morning and it worked for me. There’s something special in singing with solos. Jackson had rhythm, too, of course, but his was more contrasting, moving over or against the beat, comping chords, adding tension and lifting complexity. He could be pretty exploratory, and once or twice I lost his intention, but his role was more as the provider of harmonic wealth. Piano is an orchestra in a box, and we got a feast of blues inflections and melodic invention and various harmonic contortions.

The repertoire was obviously songs. Beat mentioned his CDs and took songs from several. One CD is an exploration of European song; another is a return to the American songbook. We got a bit of both and also crossovers. He observed that Americans are easy appropriators (no worries there: it’s a basic means for progress in the arts) before he sang a medley of I wish you love and the Euro original that it was came from. He sang in several languages. He sang lyrics that he’d written and originals by mates. He sang Invitation and L’amour and Besame mucho and Round midnight and Sarah Vaughan’s Day in day out. There was a conflict with the Gods and the turnout was small, but we got a feast of singing and airy groove that I’ll remember with affection. I don’t like to pass up the international and NYC visitors. Here’s one good reason why.

Beat Kaestli (vocals) sang with the accompaniment of Jackson Harrison (piano) and Jonathon Zwartz (bass) at the Loft.

Unsparing energy

Energetic commitment is a feeling I often get when big city visits Canberra, especially big jazz city New York. NYC was again visiting in the guise of the Jacam Manricks Quartet. I got the energy in spades with Eric Mcpherson’s solos, which started with intensity and exhilaration and ramped up from there, but Linda Oh showed it equally although not as evidently as a drummer can. Jacam Manricks was leader. He’s also infused in the Manhattan vibe, but he’s calmer, more crisp and intellectual, although not without a certain extravagance, and Australian Jackson Harrison also took to the excitement, although not with Eric’s take-no-prisoners commitment. Jacam’s music is like his playing: richly informed and of the mind. It launches with long solos and intense crescendos, but it’s not a music of abandon. Jacam is a teacher and holds a high level academic degree in music and you hear it in his care and consideration. I heard it once in an introduction to a tune which was formed from two standards that he’d accidentally merged on a gig. The outcome was a new tune that was a reharmonisation with new melody and which combined the essence of the two original standards. This is not Mingus and the blues; this is more a music of considered options like Shoenberg and his tonal system. There is much logic in music and I hear it here.

And what playing! Eric Mcpherson just exploded on drums. He was sharp and snare-staccato on accompaniment, but was unstoppable in solos. And those strange plastic spatulas for sticks: handles with a flat inverted-V shape for the stick end that he’d swap to change tone, something like stick to brush. Similarly Linda Oh was concentration and commitment, showing her NY-residency of 5 years. A mate asked jokingly how many fingers she had. Certainly, she was busy. I noticed lots of open strings and large intervals: her solo style is efficient and the sound was busier than the fingers needed to be. This was clever playing with a sweeping tonality. Jacam was the sharp, tutored altoist. Absolutely correct; changes spot on the barline; clear thought and the most precise tone; lines dropping around the listener with beguiling ease. This was clinical playing and a lesson in precision: cool and with dignified, even austere emotions. I also enjoyed Jackson Harrison’s staccato but continually responsive accompaniment as it moved bar by bar with Jacam’s alto solos. So, a challenging and energetic night as NYC came in from the (Canberra) cold. It’s always a pleasure when Jacam and his NYC offsiders visit. Jacam Manricks (alto, compositions) led a quartet with Jackson Harrison (piano), Linda Oh (bass) and Eric Mcpherson (drums) at the University of Canberra.

Cyberhalides Jazz Photos by Brian Stewart

This is personal

Second sets can often be the strongest, and that’s how I found the performance of Jeremy Rose last night at the Loft. It was actually a slightly strange night with a small audience and a band that must have been a bit disappointed. But I noticed during the second set that the band was different: more settled, unpressured, warmer, quieter, more free-flowing, easier grooves and interactions. Given little audience, you can play somewhat to yourself. There’s still some obligation, but it’s more intimate and personal, and anyway the audience was musos so they understood.

This was a CD release tour and the music seemed to be all from the pen of Jeremy. It was a wide range of originals in various times and honest styles, feels and melodies. Well placed with passion, but also with location. Immersed in history, within the great modern tradition and touching on early modern, and located in place with clear references to Jeremy’s Scandinavian connections but also with new world energy and brashness. “Never wear red pants at a bull fight” was reminiscent of Mingus in tune and title, alternating between bass riff and walk, with a bluesy overlaid sax. “Prelude” was a smoothly flowing introduction; “In transition” was boppy modern against a rapid walking bass; “Avant garden” was in 14. Jeremy introduced “My space” as influenced by a composition teacher in Oslo who was interested in maximising ideas from melodic fragments considered as horizontal lines. The outcome was a 4-bar melodic snippet that mutated harmonically in 3/4 time. I enjoyed the harmonies in this music: gently moving and an interesting chordal base for solos.

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.

A cut above

From the first notes it was evident that this Hippo event was special. Jacam Manricks took a very tarnished alto from his case, and the dull lustre said commitment and experience. He blew a few notes, and they said practice and preparation. He wondered aloud if this was a listening audience. Well no … Hippo is always noisy and chatty, except maybe at the end of the night when the clubbers have departed. But, with the support of Australia’s Contemporary Music Touring Program, he had a powerful quartet of players, and he blew through it with that committed, searching playing that we expect from that jazz mecca, New York.

Jacam has been based in New York for 7 years, after a few years in Sydney, but he’s a Brisbane boy. Danny Fischer, on drums, is a NY-based Melbournite. They both turn out with a swagger and visage which is obviously not local. It’s the same style that was evident with Don Byron’s Trio. Joining them were Brendan Clarke, bassist, Canberra born, bred and trained, and Jackson Harrison on piano. Both Brendan and Jackson won their respective instruments at the Wangaratta Festival’s National Jazz Awards. No slouchers here.

We got what we expected. There was fabulous, intense, closely responsive playing all round. Original compositions and richly reharmonised standards; long complex melodies and charted bass lines in accompaniment; constantly changing implied chordal movements; simple changes that occasionally emerged amongst the reharms; a buoyant extravagance of improvisation. I heard Jacam’s solos as exploring pitch structure and intervallic options within harmonies in a modern bop-influenced style, comfortable with long eighth-note passages which morphed into 16th-notes on call. Jackson seemed more dissonant to me, and perhaps more pensive; I thought I heard more substitutions or chromatic lead notes. Brendan accompanied with a busily moving left hand, dropping lovely but unexpected syncopations freely, and sounded with a soft underlying tone. Danny drummed with a marked smoothness in his movements and soloed with a sustained 16th-note pattern which mutated around the kit then ended with long sustained pattern that held tension but dimmed oh so gradually over time. There was a general feeling of comfort, a lack of struggle with fast playing against presto tempos which was evidence of their abilities.

There were several originals by Jacam. I think it was Super size slippery stick that was I got rhythm under the covers. You could feel the cyclic movements, but the melody was long and complex and the harmony was recreated and richly embellished. There was another that appeared to start as a ballad and later took on a march-like presence with snare drum rudiments but in 9-time. Olivia, a friend from the Jazz School, counted the drums and bass playing in 9/4 and 9/8 so they crossed every two bars. Another tune, Number one, developed into a free extravaganza. The title of another tune, Fours and twos, suggested an intellectual approach to composition, and had choruses ending with a massively quick little unison run. They also played a few from the fake books: Monk’s Introspection and Coltrane’s Satellite and finished with I hear a rhapsody.

Megan mocks me as finding every event as fabulous. I know I take a positive approach and for that reason I call these posts “reports” rather than “reviews”, but this really was a cut above and in a style which is current, and both emotionally and intellectually satisfying. How I long for NY.