Plus three

It was the last flourish from Carmen Chan Schoenborn on vibes that gave me a chuckle.  This virtuosic little upward flowing line on the vibraphone borrowed from the CSO and then the look up to find ... the end.  This happens, of course.  Then set had vibes/piano with erhu and Gail's synth with floating tones and Jasmine's bowed erhu (what a lovely sound it can make) and like harmonies and synth and bells and cymbals and some other smaller percussion but it was coming to closure then this lively, perhaps hopeful flourish that had the three players looking at each other and chuckling. Thus is improv, of course.

Carmen had played earlier, too, this time with another bassist, Sam and Joe on drums and Gemma on trumpet and some vocals.  We'd heard bowed cymbals as well as bowed bass and harmonics, plastic bag noises , plucked piano strings and bass and various drones and percussive seed pods (Toca) into a finale of octave vibes, blown trumpet mute and a final bass pizz and bowed cymbals.  I found some a little airy but the bass/drums combination had purpose and power at times to satisfy my less developed ear.

Then another bassist, Chloe Sobek, or at least a somewhat busetto-shaped baroque violone.  That was odd to see.  Chloe also played a set on violin, but I didn't see that.  I can't imagine anyone with a six-string violone  and baroque bow and gut strings and gut frets who doesn't play mediaeval/renaissance/baroque music, so I guess that's Chloe's background.  Here, she played slides and pizz and odd intervals to sounds from around the piano, under the lid, piano-related noises but not from the keyboard with an accompaniment of alto sax with water bottle mute moving to hisses and bubbles of water boiling on hotplate with handheld condenser mic, if I got it right.  Not common in Llewellyn hall, but quite fascinating sounds that we all know but don't think about too often.  Here we can.

Variously, the musicians were Carmen Chan Schoenborn (vibes, piano), Gail Priest (electronics), Jasmin Wing-Yin Leung (erhu), Gemma Horbury (trumpet, vocals), Joe Talia (drums), Samuel Pankhurst (bass), Chloe Sobek (violone), Elizabeth Jigalin (piano, percussion) and Peter Farrer (alto, electronics).  They played at SoundOut at the Drill Hall Gallery.

Words and not

It’s a trivial observation and perhaps an incorrect one, but it seems to me that there’s a real string of introspective trios out of Melbourne. The trio of Fran Swinn, Tamara Murphy and Joe Talia is one. I’m in Melbourne to visit some old mates, the Musketeers. Sadly too true to fiction, Peter can’t make it this weekend – here’s best to him – but Val, John and I are out on the town and it’s not all pizza and footy.

Fran, Tamara and Joe were presenting a tribute to Bill Frisell. Perhaps it’s the water of Sydney or the brilliant sun of winter Canberra (certainly not the chill) that brings out the more extroverted camp. I listen to BF recordings with some trepidation, but I can be taken by the style in person. Fran has that clear concern with sound as pure presence rather than mere harmonic invention, the effect of the distilled, the loops and electronica. Each note seems to take on individual life in this world. I don’t so much hear this approach in Tamara’s bass, although it fits. But bass is usually just pure, uneffected in any way, just responsive harmony and rhythm that outlines feels. So it is too with Joe’s drumming, gentle and responsive and purposeful, unaffected by rhythmic contortions. It fits, and maybe it’s Melbourne way. This time, I heard the trio with singer Jacqueline (Jacq) Gawler. During the gig (it was a gig and not a concert, after all) I had a lively discussion with my mate John about words defining thought, or thought being limited by words. There’s an ongoing philosophical issue here and my understanding is that jury’s out on the issue. But when you hear words as in singing - the clarity of shared understanding versus the pure emotional contact of instrumental music - it seems to me that we make community, we share understanding, with words, and we make emotional control without. So I like plays that become films and fear the power of the visual in films. So Jacq was interesting as she sang, sharing stories and thought. Once with a poem she had written as an ode to Bill Frisell with Fran’s loops in support. Another with a pop song, Shining love by Justin Vernon on Bon Iver (I must avail myself). And lastly, with a community singing exercise on the Kinks’ Summer afternoon. Maybe I’d had a few and mates getting together do sing, but this seemed a nicely social thing to do to finish the night. It’s an eminently attractive song with dark Kinksian social comment, but we can forget that for the community singing. Words are all I have? The discussion continues, but I must say I was moved by the searching emotional soundscapes of BF by Fran and her team.

Fran Swinn (guitar), Tamara Murphy (bass) and Joe Talia (drums) played a tribute to Bill Frisell at Melbourne’s Uptown Jazz Café and Jacqueline Gawler (vocals) joined them for several songs and a poem set to music.