Where’s Satin Doll

I bought a CD download for the Marc Hannaford trio after their Loft gig and discovered an introduction by Jason Moran. This is good company. There were not too many people at the Loft for Marc’s gig and the start time was skewhiff due to travel and availability of gear on loan and the rest, but the gig was a great pleasure of abstruse compositions and instrumental vivacity and intimate presence. Marc mentioned that the second set felt like playing in the lounge-room and this was true, but the intensity and complexity were not something for relaxation: this was more for intellectual and emotional stimulation. I’m intrigued and dumbfounded by just how they do this. To my ears, these are the sounds of fine music of early C20 classical, the dissonance and intervals and intensity. I heard bassist Sam playing piano before the gig. His piano also sounded of that era and I asked him what was behind that music. He played a few basic chords underlying his improvisation, just three note chords perhaps based on fourths, and talked of how he interpreted it rather than of scales or harmonies. I talked of it with Paul dal Broi in a break and we decided the notes are clipped (not always true) and the lines tend to staccato, there are sequences and long intervals, and I always think of the symmetrical scales (diminished and whole tones), but perhaps the attack or note formation is one key. It’s not non-harmonic music, but it is dissonant. It’s also composed. The first set was a medley lasting about and hour and when it finished, Marc listed five tunes that they’d played. Similarly, the second set was two tunes over about 30 minutes. The solos merge with the heads in this music. It was only at the end that I became aware of a recurring head, when bass and piano left hand came into alignment, but even then I wondered if this was just particularly responsive improv. Earlier, I’d noticed Sam stop to find charts so that was obviously the start of a tune. It’s easy to just fall into the immensity of concept and energy of performance. I found most value when I did just this: close my eyes and open my mind. The written melody that I caught was quite similar to Marc’s solo lines, but distilled and clarified; but picking these heads is nothing like identifying Satin Doll. Jason Moran was positive but undescriptive when writing of Marc’s music. It’s got reams of influences and references but it’s also complex and challenging and something quite personal in conception. Best to just close eyes and go with the flow. There’s a hurricane blowing outside but it can be calm and revealing at the eye if you go with it. Marc Hannaford (piano) performed with Sam Pankhurst (bass) and James McLean (drums) at the Loft. And just for interest and further astonishment, all three of them were playing on borrowed instruments.

Cyberhalides Jazz Photos by Brian Stewart

Same as it ever was

They say the classical composers used to improvise, so maybe Marc Hannaford’s solo piano concert at the Loft was an experience like that. It was intimate, with a smallish audience encircling the piano - lots of closed eyes and quiet attention – and it was something very special and also quite unusual. Marc improvised two sets. The first set was based on an infinitely rising Bach canon dedicated to Frederick the Great and a Scriabin second movement based on seventh intervals.
The second set was formed over Jelly Roll Morton, Bud Powell, Messaien and a return to the Bach canon. Each set was a medley of tunes and improvs based on those tunes and each lasted about 50 minutes of intense and varied solo playing. The tunes were well worked. I hadn’t even realised it was Bach that Marc was playing until he introduced it post-set. I’d heard polyrhythms and dissonance and four-note solo phrasing and lyrically changing harmonies and stolid pedals with overlying morphing harmony and chord clusters and anticipations. So this comprised all manner of improvisatory techniques, but stylistically I heard it somewhere in the first half of the twentieth century; I thought Debussy or Ravel. I chatted with Marc in the break and he agreed: 20th century, French or Russian, not German. In the second set, when I knew to listen for it, the Bach became obvious although still well transfigured. And the stride and other jazz styles were obvious although also recast. There’s a deep understanding and commitment required to come so close to such pieces. It’s an understanding of the essential structure and themes of the composer that allows this improvisation. This is more than just the dots. His playing is actually hard and insistent rather than delicately formed classical. It’s an exploration rather than an interpretation that he offers and it’s essentially compositional in its concerns. Marc also mentioned that he doesn’t like being limited in style. He introduced the concert saying he may play from the 14th century to today. Certainly, he played as far back as baroque and stride and his post-modern inclusiveness is a thing of today. It reminded me, too, of the strength which the Music School had with its collocation of classical and jazz streams. I talked with jazz trumpeter Alex about practising Elliot Carter and transcribing and that also crossed these boundaries. It’s all sound and these are all Western forms and they are actually heavily influenced one by the other (although more jazz by classical, given timing). This was fabulous and almost unique in my experience. I was enthralled. Marc Hannaford (piano) played solo at the Loft.

On the count … 1,2,7

Quinsin Nachoff played some very demanding and difficult music at the Gods for its first international concert. I found it hard work until I closed my eyes and went with it. So did the players, who were new to it and obviously counting and reading dots and difficult structures. The band was touring before leading up to an appearance at the Melbourne Jazz Festival which seems a great idea given the complexity of the music. Brenton spoke afterwards of Schoenberg and of narrow and discordant harmonies that need care and readiness to carry off. Geoff heard hints of Albert Ayler in Quinsin’s upper register. Certainly the players were up to it. Peter Knight was a revelation on trumpet, reading the most difficult intervals and times and soloing with lovely tone (even old-style at one stage with a plunger mute) and easy style. Marc Hannaford also did a great job, including covering the bass on left hand. I thought the band would have benefitted from a true bass player: the sound would have been more full and the rhythms more articulated and developed. But poor Marc had a big job with bass and soloing given this difficult music and he did it wonderfully well, concentrating hard on charts and playing lines that sat sweetly and with little dissonance. I was amused to see Raj Jayaweera mouthing the count at times; the music was like that. He had a lovely touch that drew a very solid tone from his borrowed Gretch kit while playing fairly understated but effective accompaniment and solos. I heard Quinsin’s soloing as varied. Sometimes intellectual and technical, with long lines that passed in sequences up and down the tenor’s range, and other times more melodic but with longer, more challenging intervals. His compositions were detailed: changing times, big intervals, odd syncopations, some lovely and quite unusual ballads. I was interested in some classical allusions, especially Sisyphus. In Greek mythology, Sisyphus rolled a rock up and down a hill, and the music did the same, doubling time several times from slow to frantic and back again then doing this again and again: an interesting exercise and a worthy tune. The night was like that. Difficult, demanding music for both performers and audience: cerebral but satisfying when you took it in. Not easy, but listening back to my recording as I write this, a very satisfying modern outing with some impressive playing.

Quinsin Nachoff (tenor, composer) led the Australian Forward Motion quartet with Peter Knight (trumpet), Marc Hannaford (piano) and Rajiv Jayaweera (drums).

Free at the Front

It was the far reaches of jazz that attracted me to the Front for Melbourne’s mandala. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but there was no bassist, so it was an unusual combination, and the descriptions were intriguing: “where improvisation and composition interact”, “like a dog with a bone”, “avant-guard sensibilities … Headhunters moments … post-modern blaze”. Sounds good, and it was.

This was a trio of drums, guitar and piano, with trumpet as special guest. Music that morphs throughout, as different instruments search for a new exposition, or sit and explore a riff awaiting development. The trio had played together lots, so there was closeness and responsiveness and expectation; a level of comfort with very demanding but undefined musical outpourings. Miro on trumpet waited a little more to hear the grooves and harmonies, but his playing was spot on for this band. (I was thinking: the Europeans do chaos superbly!) Trumpet seems so apt for this freedom, floating or flying sharp and clear over the energetic understory. Ronny on drums could be furious, loud with a sharp snare, rabid rock or other grooves, then descending to cymbals and percussive sounds. Geoff remained calm, but was fast and loud and tingling with his sharp Telecaster tone, sometimes echoed or otherwise effected. Sometimes a guitar solo, sometimes in the low registers with an e-bass mentality, sometimes string tones or even explosions of a guitar neck dropped a few inches into his lap. No damage to the guitar, but a clear challenge to the mainstream. Marc was wondrous at times, classically concentrated and straight backed, starting one tune with minutes of rhythmic searching on the slightest of melodic ideas: a tonic to a minor third. His piano tone (was it a Rhodes tone?) was breaking up with power at times. Othertimes, bell-like for contrapuntal passages at 4 or 5 octave intervals between left and right (he seemed to like these), or deep when taking a bass role, or ecstatic with lengthy, rapid modal solos that raged over hard rock grooves and guitar hardness, perhaps with that souring trumpet wailing above. This was music that morphed constantly, free, rabidly energetic, loud, frenetic, but always displaying chops and sensibility despite the instantly formed expression. Pure improv; no charts. Just sounds sprayed around and reacted to. What did they play? It was fully improvised so no titles, but I can report that they performed four improvs over two sets. It’s not for the faint of heart, but if you know the language and hear the patter, it’s a thing of passion and beauty.

The Andy Campbell Trio introduced the night, but I only heard the last bars of the last tune. Just enough time for one blurred pic.

Mandala is an improvising trio from Melbourne comprising Ronny Ferella (drums), Marc Hannaford (piano) and Geoff Hughes (guitar). Miroslav Bukovsky was the special guest at the Front Cafe.

Bloody cold night, hot jazz

Carl Morgan and Marc Hannaford each led trios for the latest White Eagle session. They shared a bassist and a jazz school. But otherwise these were very different outfits. Carl’s trio presented standard tunes with go-ahead bop playing. Marc was more the modern, compositional, creative end of jazz. But both gave us highly competent and interesting presentations.

Carl’s trio was Carl Morgan (guitar), Mark Sutton (drums) and Mike Majkowski (bass). This was a straight-ahead jazz outfit. There was at least one original by Carl, but otherwise the set was made up of renowned standards including Recordame, Coltrane’s Lazybird and Wayne Shorter’s Black Nile. Carl is well regarded at the jazz school and is developing into a masterful player. He uses a crisp, clear tone, perhaps with a little reverb, but otherwise uneffected. It allows lots of easily-understood scalar and arpeggiated runs and sometimes abstruse chordal backing (hints of Scofield, of course). And he also shows a more lyrical side at times. Mike capably held clear harmonic structures in walks and syncopated backings, and played several rhythmically strong solos. I particularly liked the fast and highly rhythmic solo passage to start Black Nile. Mark provided strong support or drums and some clearly stated solos. He was the oldest and presumably most experienced of this trio, and I feel it showed. The young guns like their fingers on the trigger; the wisdom of age is somewhat more restrained. Same as it ever was. And it’s great to see the tension. So, Carl’s trio gave us a very interesting, capable, straight-ahead performance.

Marc Hannaford’s was a very different trio. Partly because it was four piece for some time, when Miro joined in. But mostly because the music was so different. The band was Marc Hannaford (piano), Mike Majkowski (bass), Alex Masso (drums), sometimes with Miroslav Bukovsky (trumpet).

This was more modern, compositional, exploratory. I think the pieces were all compositions by Marc himself. I saw some charts, and they were pretty sparse, but they had underlying complex concepts, harmonies, ideas that were informing them. Apparently two tunes were based on rhythm changes, but throughout the night, I only heard one limited passage of perhaps 16 bars that was obviously these changes. And apparently Giant steps was hidden in there somewhere, but I never picked it up. (I wasn’t the only one to miss it). What I did hear was some interesting melodies with sometimes odd or broken times, obtuse bass lines, open and punctuated drums, ongoing fluidity and interactive changes of style including occasional free playing and some fabulous piano and trumpet soloing.

Marc introduced the tunes with titles like Beaver in the hallway (this was one where the title actually seemed to match the tune), Mustard cucumber (Mike’s favourite sandwich; sounds good; must try it), Dark pants, Fortunate incompetence, Cubist no. 7 (hidden rhythm changes; in retrospect, the cubist reference is apt). I loved listening to Marc’s piano solos. Fast, fluent passages broken in little snippets of a bar or two, or occasionally longer lines. Sometimes I heard modern classical; perhaps he has some classical training. Miro joined for several tunes. His playing was quite different, more bop-influenced. Again, great playing, and this despite being new to the charts. Both Mike and Alex formed a superbly effective component of all this. Alex was closely following the others’ playing. It was fairly soft volume- and touch-wise, but mobile. Mike changed style throughout, but his walks most interested me. His note choices capably obscured the underlying chords, to give that seemingly undefined tonal centre that makes for modern jazz.

Sadly, too few people attended. They missed some great performances. Also, the piano needs some work, or at least a tune. It was a pretty honky-tonk version of Marc Hannaford that we heard. But despite this, it was another great night at White Eagle.

Marc Hannaford's MySpace site