The heights

There are times when you are exposed to something of the highest quality and the expanse of an art or whatever becomes evident. Joe Lovano played at the Street Theatre and this was listening to the heights of the improvisational jazz. Just a stunning outing and only enhanced by the intimate surroundings. This man plays his heart out. Two hours of just 6 tunes then a short take on Body and soul as an encore. They work hard, these types. They played some originals in the modern mould, Coltrane's Fifth house and Ornette' s Lonely woman and a few standards. We all know the standards, the cycles and the middle eight, but to hear the subtlety or the expansiveness and exhilaration of a master floored me. The support was Paul Grabowsky and his trio. All high energy, driving stuff. Paul with his Euro/classical influence, all fast with ideas, if to my ears not flowing with the earthiness of US black blues. Dave Beck driving, unrelenting, furious. Phil Rex, too, fast and furious but not without purpose. I loved his playing: sliding intervals, easy thumb positions, stunningly volley-fast with hammer-ons and open strings. And Lovano, the huge presence, building ideas effectively or spewing forth lines. I noticed how wonderfully he could spell chords and create interest at speed, not with dissonance or substitutions but with intervals and merged notes as colour. Just masterful tenor playing. It's been a wonderful international line-up at CJP (Bad Plus, Eric Harland, Stefano Bollani, Ospina Brothers, Joe Lovano). Thanks to the Street for CJP, even if it has me musing on the dwindling smoke of Canberra.

Joe Lovano (tenor, soprano) performed with Paul Grabowsky (piano), Phil Rex (bass) and Dave Beck (drums) for the Capital Jazz Project. The foyer band was foyer band of ANU students: Caitlin Magee (vocals), Johannes Luebbers (piano), Brendan Keller-Tuberg (bass) and Alec Brinsmead (drums).

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.

Openers 1

It’s Friday Night at Wangaratta Jazz Festival. I usually miss this first night and I expect it will be more relaxed, less busy. It’s not too busy despite some big names. It will be busier at the Blues Tent. I’m eagerly awaiting Enrico Rava.

Starters is the Launch Party with invitations from AustralianJazz.net / Extempore and Miriam Zolin. This event featured two further launches. Firstly, of a new set of postcards celebrating the 25th year of the Wangaratta Festival with 25 postcards, one each for and by the 25 annual winners of the Australian Jazz Awards. It’s a multifarious bunch of postcard designs, all provided by the respective winner. Everything from rubber duckies through promo pics to hand drawings and considered themes. Gerry Koster of ABC jazz did the launch. John McBeath, jazz reviewer for The Australian, then rose to launch Geoff Page’s latest book, Aficionando : a jazz memoir. Geoff recounts his love of jazz from age 16, and John observed some of his own similarities. Any jazzer will understand the lure of the complexity and richness of jazz and it was mentioned in this launch. To finish, Geoff read five poems with backing from Tom Botting. Tom’s bass was surprisingly loud and firm toned, unamplified, while improvising on a range of grooves and tunes, Night and day, blues and others. Geoff read poems on jazz themes. I pricked up my ears for one on the community that’s part of the jazz world and Geoff’s mention of our reliable codgers’ table at Smith’s (Geoff, Keith, Brian and me. The table is mostly reliable although we failed last Thursday). Many thanks to Miriam for her impressive and tireless work for jazz in Australia.

Then Enrico Rava was the opening concert. Enrico, in white jacket over black, hair and face pale and flighty, his trumpet confident and guiding, sometimes firmly stating a line with big tone, other times lighter or tongued or tonal or whale screams, frequently releasing quick lines way up into the sky. He was playing with a mix of students from Monash and Paul Grabowsky and Steve Magnusson for one tune each. There were four or five tunes, 6/8 hard bop, a ballad, delicate grooves, a more playful tune to finish. I felt the students weren’t quite the challenge that to raise his spirits, but he played well, instructed and guided well. The students were capable, some surprisingly mature. I liked an early pair of alto/tenor, a later drummer and especially a pairing of trombone/tenor that spoke with real authority [PS, I now learn they were teachers; the tenor sax was Mirko Guerrini / Eric, 3 Nov]. Looking forward to Enrico playing with the pros.

Enrico Rava (trumpet) performed the opening concert with students of the Sir Zelman Cowan School of Music at Monash University and short stints with Paul Grabowsky (piano) and Steve Magnusson (guitar).

Jacam and Paul

Jacam Manricks with Paul Grabowsky, Alex Boneham and Andrew Gander. It was the ultimate gig of the Canberra Jazz Project for 2013. Ultimate in several ways: an intellectual treat with virtuosic chops. There’s a spot of Paul Grabowski’s album, Tales of time and space, where, at the end of the blaster, Tailfin, Branford Marsalis exclaims “Great Caesar’s ghost”. That’s what this gig felt like. This was a stunner and the skills were top class; worthy of wooing them anywhere. Jacam, with his lithe, fluid compositions that sit so nicely and the perfect chops with the flowing streams of notes, mostly smooth, strained on call, always lucid in intent and punctuation. This time with Paul Grabowsky, endlessly inventive and a fine foil to Jacam. I wondered if sometimes this overflowing creativity clashed, but to be overwhelmed with skills like this is something I’ll suffer. Alex, as always, strong and supportive and with a sweet solo of 10ths and 13ths and the like, relatively undemonstrative but neatly intoned and careful and studied. Andrew Gander’s tumpy toms and kick, tuned low and throbbing (I’ve noticed this recently with other drummers and I guess it’s a new fad around Sydney or maybe wider) with neat upper cymbals register. I melted from some perfect 4-bar leadin fills in the final tune, Thread, which was premiered in this format. I mostly recognised Jacam’s tunes from his 3 CDs. Ondina (borrowed from a flute etude); Forbidden nuts & fruit, a slow punctuated 4/4 leading into a bass solos and then that busy interplay of piano and sax; Cry from Cloud 9; Mood swing with Alex bravely reading devilish syncopations; Cloud 9 in 5/4. These are interesting compositions: easily syncopated, fitting for Jacam’s melliflous tones and varied chordal movements, undemonstratively virtuoisic. Jacam’s technique is almost too perfect: rapidly repeating phrases that sit so unforced and dissolve into whatever that follows. He’s the son of two classical orchestral musicians, so I guess it’s that technique that shows. Paul hit me in much the same way. I noticed one spot where he was not expecting the solo but switched it on at will, all structured and inventive from the first note. Masterful stuff. This is just Canberra, but this could be anywhere. Memorable.

Jacam Manricks (alto) lead a quartet with Paul Grabowsky (piano), Alex Boneham (bass) and Andrew Gander (drums).

On the Llewellyn stage

Maybe my only time on the Llewellyn stage will be to listen to Paul Grabowski give an oration. Strangely, the location was the timbered stage of Llewellyn Hall, and how big it is! Big enough for an orchestra and choir, of course, which is big. The oration was associated with his grant as an HC Coombs scholar (all praise due to Nugget Coombs) along with the Australian Art Orchestra. Paul is an insightful man, and I enjoyed listening to him, especially as he talked of his relationships with Nookah aborigines that led to the Roper River relationships that I reported here only weeks ago. I have a connection with this place around Kakadu: one of my sons did a school tour to Nookah, so it has some resonance for me. But obviously Paul’s is far more significant.

Paul introduced the talk by asking whether computers and turntables are musical. It was a point of contention in Australia during the culture wars, and the then WA premier cited his own daughter’s violin lessons as proof of the majesty of (straight) music. Paul went on to a very quick tour of European musical history, highlighting that our conception of the orchestra and classical music only arises with the tempered keyboard and the possible harmonies allowed, sometime in the C18th. Not long back. Against this, he noted that electronics have a history dating back to 1920, so ~90 years. But this was background. The essence of the talk was that music is rich and complex and speaks with complexity and with power, of the meaning of life, to all of us, and that music is key to life and must be supported, and students must be trained in understanding of this. It’s an essential.

Along the way, was a sideline on the nature of jazz, as “an utterly romantic form” and “the great night music”. It speaks to the essence of dance and procreation, and thus essentially to life, as well as being the “marrying of the intellect and passion” (this rings true to me), involved as it is with the talk of “feel” and a pulse that ignores the barline. Paul noted that you don’t talk of Chopin with words like “feel”. He didn’t go too far down this path, but he did argue for improvisation (apparently, amongst classical students, only organists still study improv) and new awarenesses in classical music such as for intonation.

But by the end, he was making great claims for music (or often, between the lines, for jazz) as power, beauty, expressing the inexpressible, and such. I can feel his passion, but this is not an uncommon argument for any number or arts and even other pursuits that are more worldly. “Music never lies” was one such claim. It’s got me thinking, but it’s a big claim. Certainly, music, both jazz and more sedate, is a thing of beauty, emotion, and even love and procreation, and thus, perhaps of power, but my guess is that it’s just one such thing. Clearly it’s nobler and more life enhancing than the baser pursuits such as for riches or footy. But there must be other enobling interests, like literature or sculpture, or further afield, like astrophysics, or even chess when played with conviction. So I can agree to some degree even if I question the extent of the claim, and I certainly value his observations of gamelan intonation and aboriginal song cycles and the like.

There’s a lot here that I haven’t recounted: passing mentions of John Cage and Stockhausen’s bakelite knobs and harmolodics and his discovery of his own voice and the importance of the gramophone in recording improvisation and the like. It was an interesting and thoughtful talk and a very different way to experience a renowned jazz musician. I hope for more such talks. Paul Grabowsky presented an ANU public lecture with the title, The Complete Musician.

Visiting Roper Bar

It was quite minimal, quite droney, quite miasmic, quite intuitive and internal. Crossing Roper Bar was a combination of Paul Grabowski’s Australian Art Orchestra and four aboriginal performers, the Young Wagilak Group. The work was Crossing Roper Bar. It was sponsored by the HC Coombs Creative Arts Fellowship. It lasted 40-minutes and comprised a series tunes/grooves, largely without a break. I earlier noticed strains that I recognised (was it Hancock or jazz-rock Miles?), then there were clear grooves that were predetermined, and signals leading change, as well as constant taps of clapsticks in various simple, cutting rhythms, and less common didjeridu accompaniment. The rhythms were king, so bass and drums were key. These were Philip Rex and Nico Schauble, so very capably presented. There were colours and textures and occasional solos from reeds and trombone and violin, tinkling piano and keyboards making appearances but not prominent, and guitar also tinkling or texturing. Then the front line. This was obviously very different: those incessant claps, droning vocals that touched on Western scales but moved and bent into a very different sense of tonality, sometimes vocals in some sort of harmony that sounded satisfying but not understood by my ears, the didj, of course, but also that sharp, animal- or bird-dancing, the heels and toes that rock and tap and slap so precisely, the body and arms that snap from position to precise, repeated position. It’s something white Australians know of and even feel to some degree, but not something we make. The joyous but incongruous juxtaposition of bodies and cultures at the curtain call made this painfully obvious. But the good will was also obvious and welcomed. This is a cross cultural event, even if it’s a product of one country. We need it, although I for one don’t particularly understand it.

Australian Art Orchestra performed with the Young Wagilak Group from Ngukurr, Arnhem Land. The AAO performers were Paul Grabowsky (piano, keyboards), Tony Hicks (saxes, flute), Niko Schauble (drums), Philip Rex (bass), Steve Magnussen (guitar), Errki Veltheim (violin), James Greening (trombone, pocket trumpet). The Young Wagilak Group were Benjamin Wilfred (yidaki [didjeridu], bilma [clapsticks], vocals), Roy Wilfred (bilma, vocals), David Wilfred (yidaki), Wesley Wilfred (dance, vocals).