Songs of love and despair

Rose Costi and Ben Forte performed in the late morning, for the U3A Jazz Appreciation group, in a smallish room in a club around Canberra, and it was a delicate pleasure. Just voice and guitar; no drum machine or electronics. Good solid time feel but pretty sparse for the single note solos. Nice for clarity and lyrics and a duo fellowship. Rose's gentle and thoughtful voice helped, too. No screams, much delicacy, only a few more forced lines. The tunes lent themselves to this, too. Ballads from the standards repertoire. Some were joyous or lively, like Sqeeze me don't tease me or East of the Sun west of the Moon of I hear music or How deep the ocean. Quite a few love songs, unsurprisingly. Some latin, Gentle rain, No more blues. Two sleepy people is just a huge pleasure; Don't explain is Billy Holliday at her more desperate - that one touched home. This was a lovely little concert for a quiet and appreciative and pretty knowledgeable group. Glad I got the invitation, and thanks to Rose and Ben for the great pleasure.

Rose Costi (vocals) and Ben Forte (guitar) performed songs as an unaccompanied duo for teh U3A JAG.

To two greats

Mingus and (Joni) Mitchell. Both greats of their fields and friends who wrote for each other and recorded together. The ANU Jazz Collective presented a concert to give due recognition to these two. They played a series of tunes from each and two originals influenced by them. Rhythm section, four horns, vocals. The Mingus tunes: Haitian fight song, Fable of Faubus, Goodbye pork pie hat; the Joni Mitchell songs: River, Both sides now, and the lyrics she added to Mingus' Goodbye pork pie hat; the two originals, Collective jazz by Brendan Keller-Tuberg and Fields by Andree Thompson. I could easily feel the relationship to Mingus in Brendan's composition given the switches to double time, the bass features and drum hits and collective improv and blues melodies. Brendan did a good take on Mingus throughout in his playing, too. Fields was more open, odd timed, perhaps more Joni-contemplative. I loved the ensemble sound of the four horns throughout: trumpet, trombone, tenor and alto saxes: nicely intoned and some decent solos. Rose Costi took the vocal role and did the Joni songs with considerable panache and involvement. One listener reported tears (Both sides now, I think) and another said she was close to it. I didn't quite feel this, and I was uncomfortable with the slow pace on River, but the singing was very impressive. I could not but love a concert dedicated to these two masters: bluesy, earthy and true. A great pleasure.

The ANU Jazz Collective presented a program called Mingus meets Joni at the Band Room. Performers were Rose Costi (vocals), Anthony Cotter (trumpet), Jack Schwenke (trombone), Hugo Lee (alto), Andre Thompson (tenor), Ben Forte (guitar), Brendan Keller-Tuberg (bass), Alec Brinsmead (drums) and Johannes Luebbers (piano).