OWJF2022-11

I went off to the Baptist Church and got something somewhat at the other end of the spectrum, Ray Beadle trio.  This was blues guitar (the goldtop Les Paul was fitting) with keys and drums.  Ray sang occasionally.  This was very professional, neat, not overly adventurous, entertaining. 

Then probably the find of the night, Virna Sanzone with Phil Stack.  It takes chops for both artists to carry this out effectively, just vocals and double bass.  I was entranced with some great singing, professional mic control, great songs and telling lyrics.  And that bass playing.  Phil was adventurous, out on a limb, sometimes not quite finding what he was seeking, but absolutely committed, hugely fluent and dynamic.  This was a joyous and awesome find.  Did they mention it, or did I think it: jazz adjacent.  So true.  Tunes by Leon Russell and latins and Around midnight.  Loved this one.

Big day; getting to the end, but after finding the pub and some company, I would miss it.  To end, I was back to the Lord Anson for Cope Street Parade.  Now, how apt is a jazz festival finishing with its history, New Orleans, Everything you do, Bourbon Street Parade, Nat King Cole, When I get too old to dream, 2 feels all round.  Great stuff nicely played.  I left passing the musos corner at the pub noticing bassists together.  Also an apt finish to a festival.

So how was the festival?  Some great playing.  Opportunities to catch all manner of styles and players, some of Sydney's jazz luminaries and upcomers, all worthy to fabulous, all together in time and space.  Not at all surprising given SIMA's involvement.  I think the town was happy, too, and I know it's due back next year.  Queen's Birthday weekend, 2023.  Keep it in mind and bring your warm jackets.

Ray Beadle, Virna Sansone and Phil Stack and Cope Street Parade played at the inaugural Orange Winter Jazz Festival.  Ray Beadle (guitar, vocals) played with Clayton Doley (keys) and Andrew Dickeson (drums).  Virna Sanzone (vocals) sang with Phil Stack (bass).  Cope Street Parade comprised Justin Fermino (saxophones, vocals), Aaron Flower (guitar, vocals), Ben Panucci (guitar, vocals) and Sam Dobson (bass, vocals).

OWJF2022-10

Emma Pask was a big name in the big room, the Holy Trinity Church.  Nice singing of standards and musical theatre songs, Here there and everywhere, They say it's wonderful and the like.  Classy and popular, if not so much for a more adventurous audience.  No names of accompanists in the program, but she played with piano, Phil Stack (bass) and drums.

Then some locals for this Canberran, the ANU School of Music Recording Ensemble.  Before its "restructure", the School once had a Commercial Ensemble, a Recording Ensemble and a Big Band and they played for the public regularly.  Miro ran the Recording Ensemble.  Members would write material then perform it.  The approach is the same but with John Mackey as leader/director.  This was a hot band, perhaps too hot and racing at times, too excitable, but seriously impressive playing and complex interesting tunes.  Apparently they will be recording and touring in future.  I was impressed.  Again no names in the program but working with John Mackey.

Then another quick visit to the Vampires.  I was wondering if they were that much more confident than the previous night.  I missed the start and couldn't tell, but again, I love these tunes and these grooves.

Then another big name, again in the unbalanced Holy Trinity Church, was Asteroid Ecosystem.  Now this was interesting.  They had visited Canberra and I'd missed them so they were one  reason for attendance at this festival.  It's an odd combination and apparently one that came out of a recording.  Ed Kuepper was the lead guitarist of The Saints and other post-punk and grunge groups; not jazz.  Alister explained that he'd recorded a string of albums with guests, the Alister Spence trio was one and thus this band.  Well, what was it?  A strange mix of improv set to charts and eclectic guitaristic tones and various noise and grooves and bass lines.  I didn't think the venue's acoustics did it justice and after how many bands in two days I wasn't up to it.  But there were some seriously good players here.

Emma Pask, ANU School of Music Recording Ensemble, The Vampires and Asteroid Ecosystem played at the inaugural Orange Winter Jazz Festival.  Emma Pask had Phil Stack on bass.  Asteroid Ecosystem comprised Alister Spence (piano), Lloyd Swanton (bass), Toby Hall (drums) and Ed Kuepper (guitar, electronics).

Olympians

Jamie Oehlers and his band were like Olympians in many ways: strength, training, poise with ecstatic release. This music was muscular and intense and played at the extremes and an incredible opportunity to see what best can be done. But comparisons with Olympics end here when we talk of jazz. $12m per medal says it all. Sport has bread and circuses enough. CJ acclaims the classic measures: beautiful, useful and true. But will the centre hold when the worst / Are full of passionate intensity? An informed and enthralled coterie attends the Loft for a gold-medal performance while billions watch their equivalent in sport and attendant spacey girls and fireworks. It’s two worlds out there and intellect is running for silver and only if its luck holds out. WAAPA under review and our own school given the treatment. But it’s much bigger, too. Not just culture, but climate and more. I’m currently reading an update to Limits to growth. The lion body with head of man is moving, but it’s we who slouch to nowhere. At least our Loft Olympians were naked in their purpose and expression.

Muscular it was. From the first notes, the volume and power of it floored me. Phil working the strings. It’s hard to tell on stage, but I noticed later he was a tall man. It fits. Tall men fit the acoustic bass. He’s strong. He works the strings. The fluency is there, but also the great tone, from a pristine looking bass with just a discrete Realist pickup. Truth in the timber. Jamie writhing with busy lines and some terrorising tempos. Jacob engaging skins with spurts of exact fills and rolls with jagged jazz responsiveness and fusion-toned punchiness. For some time, Tal seemed quieter, bent over keyboard searching for comping chords and denser, more dissonant harmonies, but then he’d lean back and watch the others, particularly Jacob, to match hits, or launch into another solo of perpendicular tonality and take on the tune head on. Several of the tunes were Jamie’s. Smoke and mirrors was the fast and furious opener. One new and as yet unnamed tune had the simplest call and response melody supporting rabid solos. A ballad called Open door was a workout in long intervals, 7ths, octaves and others, with the most delicate piano. Innocent dreamer was in 13/16, which Jamie helpingly described as ¾ with a stumble on the end. It’s the description of an experienced teacher and quite easy to follow with that hint. I tried to count Fun police but with less success; was there 5/4, maybe 15/8 counting as 4-3-4-4; probably other tempi. The borrowed tunes were Jobim’s Portrait in black and white, which was slow and sparse and punctuated by insistent, plucky bass. They played Little Willie leaps from the Charlie Parker bop songbook and it was suitably breakneck-fast and with touches of bop lines but mostly harmonised with a more modern ear. There was a Cedar Walton tune and a rabidly effective and fast take on Ornette’s Blues connotation. I thought I grasped something new by listening to his Polkadots and moonbeams. Now, this is a standard with chords and turnarounds and slow swing rhythm, at least how I’d play it. But Jamie’s take was distilled to a floating drone and Bb bass pedal with constantly mutating chords of varying dissonant colours rolling over. Closer to late Coltrane than Cole Porter and a lesson in contemporary reimagining of the standards. Suffice to say I found the whole gig thrilling with Jamie’s big and hard tone and fevered lines, Tal’s obtuse, disjointed, anarchic and (to borrow from Andrew Ford) illegal harmonies and sprays of notes and atonal chord sequence, Phil’s hard-edged tone and rapid-fire pizz and rock sensibility and Jacob’s rock/fusion attack and mix of openness and decaying rolls. This was muscular, ecstatic, gold-medal jazz from the first notes. But who’s to know? Everyone else is at the stadium for the circuses. Not much bread at this end of performance spectrum.

Jamie Oehlers (tenor) was touring with Tal Cohen (piano), Phil Stack (bass) and Jacob Evans (drums) and performed at the Loft.

Bass awards

Bass is the instrument for the National Jazz Awards at this year’s Wangaratta Jazz Festival. I'm not there, but I’ve just listened to the finals on ABCFM JazzTrack. The finalists don't seem controversial: Sam Anning, Phil Stack and Ben Waples. All are worthy players. I know the first two from several performances in Canberra. I’ve heard Ben, but don’t feel I know him as well as the other two. The judges were Mike Nock with Craig Scott and Jonathon Zwartz. I’m interested to see if I agree with the results this year. I was at Wang last year and came to a different decision from that of the judges. But they were capable judges, so it just shows the personal nature of such things. I have various thoughts on this year's performances and I’ll only give the smallest summary here. For the record (written before I hear the results), I would give it to Sam Anning for intellectual adventurousness and harmonic richness, second to Phil Stack for exuberance and drive, and third to Ben Waples. I'm not too keen on competitions like this and all three are all capable players, but life is like that.

And the results are ...

First: Phil Stack, Second: Ben Waples, Third: Sam Anning.

Congrats to all three, irrespective of results, and to the seven others who performed over the weekend, and who we didn't hear on the radio. Also to the great accompanists, Sam Keevers (piano) and Simon Barker (drums).

Floriade (Too much on, 1)

There’s been so much jazz on recently it’s impossible to hear everything. If you have broader interests (film, theatre, poetry, politics), it’s literally impossible. Yesterday I managed a visit to my luthier, then catch James Morrison at Floriade, and AFATM at Folkus, and missed John Mackey’s Saxessions at the Street Theatre due to a family booking. It’s been like that all this week and looks like continuing for some time. Blame it on Spring and our prolific Jazz School, but also on our intelligent and surprisingly prolific little city, Canberra.

James Morrison was playing for Floriade, and it was a magnificent, sunny day. Floriade is a mass of colour in people and flowers, and it’s featuring plenty of jazz through the weeks. Today was James Morrison and band with Emma Pask at Stage88. I hadn’t heard JM for decades, so I was interested. When I arrived I found a huge PA and a fabulous band comprising some of the best musos in Australia. This is not challenging music, so they seemed a bit underutilised. But it’s always good to hear this quality, even if they’re playing Bye bye blackbird or Route 66 or (I shudder) Tea for two. They even took requests at one stage. At least I liked Shadow of your smile: it really is very beautiful. Blaine Whittaker is a favourite of mine, and he played some lovely bop-influenced solos on Cherokee and elsewhere. James Muller never looks interested (even in artful contexts like Mothership Orchestra) but he was continually throwing in little blissbomb fills, as is his way. He never seems to take long solos, but you just melt when you hear his lines: lithe, smooth, inevitable, chromatic, dissonant, he’s truly international. Phil Stack is a great player, and did a wonderful job on everything, although rather tamer than the session with Zac Hurren recently at Hippo. Emma Pask sang strongly, was a pleasant character, and did some very good Ella-style scat. James Morrison was excellent of course as the multi-instrumentalist (trumpet, trombone, piano on the day) with Dizzy-ingly fast (and authentic) bop lines and high notes. John, his brother, played drums. Emma and James had a droll patter going for the masses, and it gets them good work. Overall, it was pretty soft, but wonderfully played. Just the thing for people who don’t really follow jazz. They certainly went down well on the day. So, madly professional and capable, but tame.

James Morrison wasn’t the only music in the park. On the way in, I heard Dan and Debbie playing a sugu from Mali on various African drums. Sounded great, as African drum patterns do. They were obviously enjoying their performance. Presumably, the sugu is a pretty complex rhythm to maintain, because they beamed when they finished it. I also caught that lovely Australia Fair Street Organ that appears in Canberra each year for Floriade. It’s an antique bellow-driven organ with tunes controlled by complex paper rolls very much like big pianola rolls. It’s uber-cute, and it has a fabulous repertoire of show tunes stacked away in shelves. Catch it if you can, or perhaps buy the CD! You can only fall in love with this puffy blast from the past.

Not for the fainthearted

Zac Hurren’s Trio arrived at Hippo last night with some fierce playing all round. I wrote of MFO recently as blissful. Blissful is not the word for this, but emotionally charged it was. Descriptions like hard, demanding, unflinching, challenging are more apt for this art.

The trio is chordless, comprising sax, bass and drums. This clears the air and leaves space for individual expression and equal roles for all players. It’s a demanding task master for all performers and audience, but exhilarating with the intensity and free flowing nature of the sounds that emanate. I’ve heard various sax trios and they all have this air to some degree, but Zac’s compositions, influences from free jazz and few standards, just highlighted the intensity. This is take no prisoners; commitment to the fore. Not the cultured, self-controlled, witty, civilised world of the American popular song. This is the earthly struggle of primal screams, jungle calls and primitive drums. Obviously, there’s plenty of training to required achieve this, but the emotions are blatant, on display. Zac’s music is like this.

But there were some foundations that were recognisable. There was at least one blues, although with a wealth of substitutions and varied turnarounds, and there was a standard: Sophisticated lady (no surprise the standard was from Ellington and not Cole Porter). There was Joe Henderson's Inner Urge and Monk's Nutty and the night ended with Lester Young’s Lester leaps in. The playing throughout was high intensity, rhythmically jagged, harmonically multilingual, constantly mobile and communicative. Zac introduced each set with a solo passage, then into melody then into solos. He may have a rounded, full tone on early lyrical playing, but quickly descended to screams and extravagant speed and feverish tonalities. He’d leave space at times, and bassist Phil would fill these gaps with his own deliciously precise intonation, long intervals, equally jagged but accurate lines. There was a bop-like conception of triplet fills early on, and straighter 8s and rocky feels later in the night, but all precise in groove and melodically purposeful. Perhaps a bass solo would ensue, or perhaps Zac would re-enter his solo. Evan would engage with the others, especially Phil, in conversation, and make a solo statement of his own. His was an open feel, wooden rather than metallic, with busy, loud but creamily-thudding kick drum. Even the swapping of blues choruses with drums was not obvious in this context, although plenty correct (except for a heel used to damp the snare at one stage: an unconventional technique!). Where Zac and Phil were jagged and unexpected in conception, it seemed to me that Evan was inclusive in melding this surrounding whirlwind of passion. Whatever, the band sat well despite high levels of intensity and rawness.

On a lighter note, I got to thinking that jazz can be a very economically efficient music! Lordy, jazz players sure can play lots of notes. Maybe we should take that to government for more grants. They like performance measures and evaluations: number of notes per player per gig; low CPD (cost per dot) = high efficiency. Economic man hits the yartz; passion satisfies the bean counter. But I jest! After all, Coltrane had it pretty right with Naima, and his CPD would be pretty low there, although he’d make it up on Giant Steps.

But more seriously, Zac Hurren led a seriously challenging and very capable band which impressed immensely. More proof, if needed, of the vivacity and quality of jazz in Australia’s present cultural quilt.