Steering tight corners

The band is called Tight Corners. Phillip Johnston explained tight corners as the quirky, twisted backwaters of the jazz repertoire that are seldom played due to their harmonic and melodic challenges. I like tight corners and this was great stuff. This didn’t feel laid back or cool. This was strong, sounding joyful and carefree although seriously committed, and also good fun.
Phillip had some wry smiles, when he spoke or after he heard a well-argued solo. Jex looked up every now and then from some intense and dissonant piano and smiled. Jonathon and Niko were not so restrained. Their smiles were big and open and infectious and they both readily looked around amongst the band. They were enjoying the ride and so was I. Nothing here sounds too settled - it writhes and it’s punched out with lots of energy and considerable volume. And certainly none of this is too delicate. So I was surprised to hear some pretty straightforward understory at times from Jonathon’s bass, and fairly straight ride and the like from Niko and solos from both of them that were quite lyrical. All a disconcerting mix. The blurb for the concert quotes Downbeat, no less, as calling another incarnation from Phillip as post-modern jazz. It’s quirky, yes, but pastiche not parody. Pastiche respects; parody denigrates. This is a living music that has deep roots and is played with commitment. Keith located it in the late ‘60s but it’s a stream that goes back decades before that, at least to Monk in the’40s. This is standing on the shoulders of giants. Any field worth its salt has a history. They were playing the music of Thelonious Monk and Steve Lacy and Herbie Nichols. Monk, the great bebop pianist with the quirky sense of time; Lacy, the soprano sax explorer of Monk’s legacy; Nichols, the rediscovered pianist/composer in the same ballpark. Some tunes were recognisable (perhaps vaguely), although more from recordings than from live gigs: Brilliant corners, 2300 Skiddoo, We see, Terpsichore, Step Tempus, perhaps Skippy. Not sure that I recognised a few others, The bath or Bone. I was delighted by Jonathon’s bass, but that’s inevitable. His playing is so solid and reliable as he holds the bass together under some very adverse provocation. I particularly noticed his solo on Brilliant corners that was a model of undiverted lyrical beauty. Niko was easily accompanying but tellingly melodic in solos. Jex had forceful intent, edgy chord voicings and commanding soloistic presence. If anything, Phillip was gentler. They were reading so there was some reticence there and a sleek soprano sax has nothing of the forceful nature of a grand piano. I heard Philip as intellectually firm more than emotionally charged, finding paths of melody through the grooves and the chords. I was excited by this music but I don’t hear it often which is not surprising, because this stuff is hard to play. It’s not called tight corners for nothing. Great gig. Tight Corners performed at Street 2 for the Canberra Jazz project 2013. They are Phillip Johnston (soprano sax), Jex Saarelaht (piano), Jonathan Zwartz (bass) and Niko Schäuble (drums).

Never rains

Actually it was raining when I set off for Phillip Johnston and the Coolerators at the Gods but “never rains” really refers to two international jazz acts in Canberra on one night. The first was Sydney/NYC saxist Phillip Johnston with a support band of Alister Spence, Alex Boneham and Nic Cecire. I just caught one set and what a distinct style it was. To my ears this was a post-modern melange, ironic and frosty and a matter of mind rather than emotion. Phillip played a soprano sax that sounded all the world to me like clarinet, so of another era of jazz and of society: no way you could mistake this for the instrument Coltrane played. I seem to remember the tonguing as clipped, but it was unmistakably unadorned except for a characteristic swing band vibrato when reaching for high notes. The lines he played were simple, clearly stated, ironically bland. It’s more than just a musical style, but a presence, and I felt it in his wit and stage persona. Cool, otherworldly, undemonstrative. Maybe it’s the movies, but I can associate this with the big city, with NYC, with cool underground rock. It fitted that he played one tune called “Shelley’s got a brand new handbag” that nods at funk but that he performed in a NYC new wave rock band called The Public Servants. All dry with distant wit. It’s not something that’s easily received outside its milieu but it’s a noteworthy stream of alt culture and it’s interesting to hear it visiting Canberra from the source. Shelley was not funk, but unison, lightweight melody against composed accompaniments in arrangements of disparate parts and rock grooves. Maybe it’s danceable or suits a cool club scene. This is something different for the Gods. Phillip introduced the show with a solo sax passage called Splat which merged into a calypso-St-Thomas-like tune by Albert Ayler called Ghosts that was all simple chords and joyous melody and cacophony. Then an original with unison scalar snippets then a heavy funk 4/4 than some sparse latin segments and floating Leslie and synth organ amongst other solos. Then Steve Lacy’s Prospectus with complex head and some fast walk. Then Shelley, then an attractive and simple tune by folk singer Michael Hurley (Phillip noted he was not a guitar/strummer) with a characteristic folk/blues sense of time (here 4/4 interspersed with occasional 2/4 bars). Then a final Monk tune, We see, to end the set. I was impressed at how effectively the band read. Nic Cecire just nailed the feels in the most understated way. Alex Boneham is an intensely involved and musical bassist and always a joy to my ears. His accompaniment was impressive and two solos were richly melodic statements that just spoke so well to the tune, not just the chords. Alister Spence was playing organ and this seems a more romantic instrument to me. He had the easy fluency and rapid solo lines but it was the swelling organ chords that spoke to me of gospel and soul more than irony and things of the mind. I doubt that sunny Australia and harboured Sydney can do nihilist irony like NYC new wave (but I’m forgetting Nick Cave). To maintain the po-mo references, I’ll call it an interesting pastiche, but I did feel there was a diversity of approaches here. So it was an interesting and cogitatively enlivening outing. Phillip Johnston (soprano sax) led the Coolerators with Alister Spence (organ), Alex Boneham (bass) and Nic Cecire (drums).

Cyberhalides Jazz Photos by Brian Stewart