Hot and stormy

I forgot how much I like jazz in noisy, steamy bars. Last night was Hippo with a band pulled together by Rohan Moore and featuring the front line of John Mackey and Matt Handel with visitor Hugh Barrett and returnee Raf Jerjen. I’ve been hearing lots of music recently in quiet environments, often new compositions, all essential and purposeful. Hippo is not like that. It was once our major jazz venue and featured touring acts, then it had a break and it’s back to local performers for the Wednesday night jazz session. But it’s always been noisy and that annoyed many serious touring performers. It’s always been at heart a cocktail bar, so chatty, steamy, sexy, even if it featured serious jazz and accepted the listener audience. But it seems to me that vibrant jazz can thrive in this environment. Performers can let go, play hard or dangerously, make a few clunkers and it doesn’t matter. They can essentially play for themselves and enjoy it. It’s not for everyone all the time, but to let go on the modern standards with a set of admirable players, it’s a blast. So it was with Rohan and mates.

The repertoire’s one I know from many of John’s gigs: hard burning ‘50s/’60s Coltrane and the like. Sentimental mood, Miss Jones, Invitation, Giant steps and the like: all to be expected and all great foundations for letting go. There was one Miles fusion, too, which I recognised but couldn’t name, which changed the feel but was performed equally impressively. These are just great players. John and Matt were like brothers, although quite different in speech. John letting go with streams of 16th note passages teaming over the tune, not particularly dissonant, but disorienting in the extremity and profusion of his fat, tenor notes. He surprised me, too, with a few solos of open, three-note sequences and intervals that seemed something stylistically new and that I hadn’t heard from him before. Matt’s alto is voiced higher, of course. The tone suggests bop and I heard Bird in some, but this is essentially more modern. Still spelling out chords with licks and playing with sidesteps and sequences and dissolving into flourishes. But when the two horns spoke harmonies together, this was another experience. I laughed at a habit they had of tenor playing high and alto playing a lower voice: what a good sound. But how easily they chatted back and forth through their instruments! That’s why I say like brothers: different as brothers are, but essentially in tune. Powerful and fluent stuff. Amongst this, I heard Hugh taking a tempered and traditional path, running chords in long strings of eighth notes with an easy fluency consonant tonality. I was intrigued to hear this quintessential jazz piano style after Tate Sheridan’s richly chordal classical style of the night before. Both these styles exist in jazz these days, but they are worlds apart. To some extent, Raf also provided a jazz/classical comparison with Rohan Dasica (also the night before) but the difference was nowhere near so obvious. Since leaving the Jazz School and indulging in NYC and classes with the likes of Pattitucci and Mraz, he’s playing so, so strongly. There’s a real traditional solidity and confidence in this playing, good tone and presence, rock solid swing, constantly varied walking lines, funky fills and extensive thumb position solos. Really nice and really solid. And there’s sheer joy in his playing: open smiles, jokes with the band and the rest. I’ve noted this with several truly committed players after they’ve left the school. The best settle down to professional life and recognise just how much of a challenge this level is, and they settle in to a lifetime of ardent practice. My guess is Raf is doing that and it shows. Rohan was the one who gathered this band. I’ve heard him on several outings and was mightily impressed by his compositions in his Songbird project, where he moved well outside swing and standards. But he was comfortable and determined in this context, too: a calm and steely presence in the corner and one who could be explosive in accents. His presence reminded me of Art Blakey: eyes and awareness and determination.

Giant steps isn’t something new but it’s classic and overwhelming when well performed. That’s what this concert was like: old favourites, modern standards and a revelation. John Mackey (tenor), Matt Handel (alto), Hugh Barrett (piano), Rafael Jerjen (bass) and Rohan Moore (drums) blew a storm at Hippo.

Colour against the dark, part 1

It was a double bill at the Loft: Rohan Moore’s Songbird Project followed by the Alex Raupach Dectet. By the end, I was stunned by the invention, creativity and sheer hard work to get together such a complex program. I find every jazz session in Canberra at the moment is tinged with emotion – dread or sadness at loss or even anger. It’s all related to the Music School changes, of course. So it wasn’t surprising that I left feeling it’s downhill from here. Someone mentioned there will be no teachers, at least no specialist teachers of instrumental studies (an hour a week with someone outside the school just doesn’t count in this context) and the joke in witty reply was that this is the perfect teacher/student ratio: infinite, ie, no students, no teachers. Black humour abounds. But black sets off colour, so how was the concert? Intelligent, mostly original, varied and skilled. What we love in jazz. But these were two very different bands.

Songbird Project is a quartet in standard guise: tenor, piano, bass, drums. Rohan Moore leads from drums and composed all but the first tune, Nunu by Avishai Cohen. Given that Rohan’s a drummer, I wasn’t surprised by rhythmic games and oddly timed hits and polyrhythms and varying time signatures but I also found some decently satisfying melody that repeated neatly and arrangements that fit well with the band. This was not head/solo/solo/head. Piano and sax got a number of solos with the band, but pianist Tate also played alone in the middle or to start a tune, playing wide ranging stylistic variations, dropping into stride or diminished substitutions. I am generally taken by piano, but Tate is clearly a name to watch, huddled and beanie-clad and stylistically catholic. Max took a supportive role in this outing, but his one solo was delightfully softly-toned and playing nicely with rising and falling lines. I still think of Miles in terms of his stay in NYC (because of FB updates and some subsequent chats). I enjoyed what I thought were ‘70s influences in his playing: deliberate melody, varying intervals over extended ranges, long flourishes, occasional cut tone. Rohan was outspoken in solos and harsh in one tune dedicated to the ANU (a metal tune called Fury). This is emotionally tender ground. But there was also lyricism in a ballad dedicated to lost love (If we ever meet again), lively rollicking attractiveness (Misconception) and feathery lightness contrasting with syncopated hits (Marion’s rooftop). This was some skilful playing, but what I most took from it was maturity in composition and arrangement in a contemporary style. The band’s name sounds more like girl folk duos to my ears, but this was serious and skilled contemporary jazz. The Songbird Project was led by Rohan Moore (drums) with Tate Sheridan (piano), Miles O’Connell (tenor) and Max Alduca (bass).

Back from the Coast

Jazz Quest text by Nevin Temby; Merimbula pic courtesy of MJF

I missed the Merimbula Jazz Festival and the Exceptions playing at the Loft, but I caught McEvilly / Tarento / Kim / Moore at Hippo and it was decent consolation.

Firstly, the Merimbula reference, from my mate Nevin:

Merimbula Jazz Festival marked the first Open Jazz Quest, where non local under 25s could compete for $500 first prize, $300 second and $200 third prize. The Lakeview Hotel hosted the event and generously provided the prizes. The competition aims to promote excellence in jazz performance by offering not only a highly competitive performance platform but also cash and contra prizes to help young musicians further their musical careers. Fourteen entrants from around Australia performed to a very receptive capacity audience during the festival, with the modern jazz ensemble ‘The Exceptions’ catching the adjudicators interest on the night. First prize went to Tate Sheridan (paino), second to Joe McEvilly (alto) and third to Scott Temby (trumpet). / During the photo shoot the following day, the organiser explained to the guys that the current board is very interested in promoting the modern genre for the festival. Great news for festival goers.

Congrat-ulations to the band. As for the Hippo gig, I very much enjoyed their detailed, busy and skilled take on the standards. Joe surprised me with some rich substitutions and chromatic sequences, but he also performed with a lovely melodic sense. Sometimes playing slow and setting themes, one time stunning me with the most subtle intervention against Daniel’s excitable guitar. Daniel’s playing truly sets a scene. He’s physically frisky and it shows in his playing: busy, jumpy, contorted, inventive, over-provided with ideas. It’s intriguing and anything but relaxing, so I was a bit taken aback (although very pleasantly) by his complex but gentle guitar chordal intro/outro to Darn that dream. Jordan was on electric and I loved his hard tone and expert chops. He’s got easy knowledge to the highest frets and great fingerwork and an easy ability to drop into and out of solos and off times and fours with Rohan. I’d only seen Rohan play in a more restrained context. Here he was still serious and steady, but often enough busy and fun, like his few bars of melody played with tuned elbow on snare skin. It’s a great party trick that I’d seen from Ari Hoenig and he did it with confidence and panache. But this outfit also had an impressive presence as a band. I noticed in the way they moved grooves together, passed solos, understood conventions. These guys are presumably playing together every day and it shows. I particularly noticed when a blues degenerated into an undefined one-note holding pattern then fell back into a walking swing at the end of the 12 bars, but I’d seen the same mutations elsewhere. It was obviously improvised and very neat work.

Joe McEvilly (alto), Jordan Tarento (bass), Daniel Kim (guitar) and Rohan Moore (drums) played standards at the Hippo Bar.

An exception

I don’t remember why I missed last year’s Exceptions gig at the Jazz School, but I was glad I got to this one. The Exceptions are a new generation of students. I like to watch each generation as it comes through, with its different interests and skills and influences. I knew some of these players from previous gigs but what interested me was, as Eric Ajaye said in introduction, that they compose so they have something to say. And their compositions were impressive. When they started up I first heard latin, then a Tom Scott-like attractive commerciality, but as I listened there were altered jazzy blues and Scandinavian minimalisms and funk and rock feels. These were convincing tunes and well arranged even if the variation in styles suggested they might be still finding their musical way. The playing was capable, too. Scott and Jordan were fairly well known to me before this gig. Scott’s trumpet impressed me with considerable maturity in his melodic solos, sometimes simple and bluesy, but authoritative. Jordan’s an impressive bassist; his slap is tight and sharp, his electric solos are fluent and mighty fast, and he’s now added the double bass to his stable. I particularly enjoyed Tate’s piano. I heard tonal and scale running, smooth and loquatious, and occasionally northern Euro meditative. Joe was thoughtful in alto solos and and neat in melodies and was worthy of more dynamism. Rohan took a few solos, but was mostly neatly supportive. These were capable compositions that bode well for an expressive but also attractive and sellable band sound. Well enjoyed.

The Exceptions performed at the first of the annual series of student gigs at the Jazz School. They are Joe McEvilly (alto sax), Scott Temby (trumpet, flugelhorn), Tate Sheridan (piano), Jordan Tarento (electric, acoustic bass) and Rohan Moore (drums).

Botti as in goatie

Is it Botti as in goatie or Bottie as in tottie? I’m Italian so I was of the tottie (or Totti) persuasion, but the radio (ArtSound and ABCRN) was using Botti as in goatie. To my surprise, Chris Botti was to appear on Life Matters on ABC RN and the theme was toast: he’s such a traveller that he hadn’t toasted a slice of bread in 10 years, or for that matter, cooked anything. An itinerant troubadour, I thought, not sure I’d like that life. I like my morning toast with honey or perhaps jam. But my mind wanders further. To me, goaties signify beatnicks and the ‘50s and Maynard G Krebs and cellars and cool jazz and bongos and post-bop. Very cool. Is Chris Botti cool?

To my surprise, he was. There was considerable soft-pop in his show, Ave Maria with the longggggggg trumpet note, string pads, Nessun dorma (always stunning but who can trust such easy emotions), sexy suits and frocks, even a contortionist rock-cum-classical violinist. And lots of name dropping amongst the stage patter (Sting and Herbie Hancock and Rolling Stones and Grammies and 4.5 presidents). But that’s the style. This is not music for the initiated. This is jazz crossing over to popular styles so that’s all to be expected. It’s a tough market out there. There was also some decent funky playing, several Miles tracks, some great soul singing, a fabulous trumpet tone and some very lithe and clean lines and a certain amount of dissonance. It’s the same argument we had over George Benson and similar to those over Herbie Hancock and Bob Dylan. Yeah, the state of the art is somewhere else, but this approach spreads the word, brings in an audience (not that many will end up with the avant-garde) and fills theatres and stadiums not just clubs. And he didn’t just play standards with hot solos like some popular jazz names. This was a show. He went into the audience; he played to a 4-year old at his first jazz concert; he brought up an unexpecting student drummer, Rohan Moore, who had been at his workshop at ANU the day before (and treated him well); he chatted and involved the audience, and even infiltrated some jazz lore and history.

The repertoire was mixed opera-pop and standards. Ave Maria, Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, Cinema Paradiso, Nessun dorma. All infectious songs if often syrupy, but well-known and you can’t help but fall under their spells. The standards were equally attractive and mostly balladic - My funny valentine, Willow weep for me, The look of love, When I fall in love – done with funky energy or deep melodrama but always as showpieces. And Flamenco sketches from Kind of Blue with a very nice bass solo and an introduction that taught me something about Miles and Kind of Blue and that tune. As I said before, the trumpet was full and rounded and clear and rich with reverb and CB had impressive technique. Pianist Billy Childs was a lynchpin and played some very sophisticated jazz solos, although I couldn’t hear him too well. He was left of stage and I was right, and I’m guessing the PA was stereo. Andrew Ezrin on keys, Mark Whitfield on guitar, Carlitos Del Fuerto on bass and William Kilson on drums did commendable jobs and seemed to be having a great time. This band has been together for 7 years and there seemed to be real enjoyment on stage as well as a bit of tongue-in-cheek showmanship. I liked that. The features were Caroline Campbell on violin and Lisa Fischer on vocals. Caroline was sexy in a body-hugging evening dress that clung to her every frequent movement (pant pant). It’s all part of the show along with Chris’s natty suit and the shaved heads and some Jagger-like revealing leather. I don’t know violin, but her classical solo in a gypsy-like piece was well intoned over long intervals and all four strings at speed and certainly impressed me. Lisa was great soul singer with a large range, gospel inflections and a mic technique that was a revelation.

OK, so it’s not the bleeding edge, but there’s room for CB in my jazz universe. I’m happy to call Chris Botti cool. Chris Botti (trumpet) led a very entertaining jazz show band with Billy Childs (piano), Andrew Ezrin (keyboards), Mark Whitfield (guitar), Carlitos Del Fuerto (bass), William Kilson (drums) and feature front-liners Caroline Campbell (violin) and Lisa Fischer (vocals). Rohan Moore was called up for drum duties on Nessun dorma.