Performance passes

Music is a performance art. It's performed, it passes, it's lost. Sometimes it's recorded. I was disappointed that Tom Vincent's concert was lost. Tom is an agile pianist with ideas that appear in proliferation. He plays standards, but these are not everyday tunes and melodies. They are re-visions of great tunes and harmonies, dense with fluency and variation and invention. Fabulous in all senses of the word. Wondrous, animated, exhilarating. He often plays with local-now-Melbourne bassist, Leigh Barker, who's able to follow Tom's exquisite wonderings, perhaps taking a solo on a whim or changing tempo or interpretation on an instant. There's an understanding here and a great capability to use his ear. The first time I saw the two together Tom was leading through long medleys and Leigh was there with him with only the slightest of delays to pick the tune. This concert was more standard, no medleys, although the quotes proliferate. Their drummer was Alf Jackson on the most minimal of kits, just kick, snare, sock, cymbal. It's enough; there's plenty of rhythmic action available and plenty of tone variation, too, using brushes and sticks and rimshots. It's a traditional approach, unamplified bass with gut, unamplified acoustic piano (here a Yamaha U1 upright sounding great) and the minimal kit. Just skills and ears and immense variety and playfulness. Great gig. Too bad it was lost to posterity, but you can't preserve everything.

Tom Vincent (piano) led a trio with Leigh Barker (bass) and Alf Jackson (drums) at Vivaldi.

Having wits

You have to have your wits about you when you play with Tom Vincent. He’s lively, fluid, ever changing. It’s a fabulous experience for the listener but the hot, intense, mercurial ideas that he throws up are a challenge for his musical colleagues. He’ll change feels, go double or half time, ballad to hard bop, polyrhythms to swing, quotes or medleys. It’s exhilarating and a mark of a musical mind with a rich range of feels and tunes on tap. I’m not sure what plans there are behind this. The first time I saw him was in a relaxed house concert where each set was an extended off-the-cuff medley. Leigh was again the bassist, and Mark Sutton the drummer. Leigh has been the bassist each time since. He’s perfect for this role: satisfying tone and unamplified volume, with a rich repertoire on tap, a strong musical personality, a readiness to experiment and a good natured approach to the ride. We don’t hear this jam-developed fluency much these days. It’s a real buzz. It’s also personal. I can’t help but think of Oscar Peterson and those albums playing for his friends. That spontaneity, warmth, intimacy and as noted by Tom himself, that risk taking, is here too. And it’s always swinging. There’s lots of hard swing here. Despite some rabid dissonance and jagged intervals and zany rhythms, this is deeply underlaid with swing. This is the presence of jazz history. I got that from the hard walks, from Danny’s tone and tremolo and Alf’s driving brushes. Skill that’s influenced by the modern, but richly aware of the swing and pre- then bop years. The tunes were from there, too: standards, ballads, bop, Billy Strayhorn, Bird, Monk. Classic stuff and Tom does it with honesty and a nod to following history. This is rich and challenging and a furious ride and a visit to the great jam sessions. The tunes can be short, although these weren’t all short this night. They can be arranged instantly, bass solo, drums solo. They can end on a dime, unexpected and enervating. Tom was picked for the Opera House and to tour with Wayne Shorter, which he did, but I’ll take his furious brilliance in the small club anyday. Leigh is a constant offsider and a star in the role, not just in his flexibility and knowledge, but in the driving walks and the easy soloing. Saxist Danny is “choppy” (an expression used by a visiting classical player meaning he’s got chops). He certainly is, writhing up front over the tenor, manhandling the baritone sax, but also surprisingly fluid on the bass clarinet and with ne’er a squeak. Again, like the jam session, there’s a touch of competition between Danny and Tom: Tom responding to Danny’s solo lines with florid fills or comping with tangentially rhythmic chords. Along with Leigh, Alf is a steady hand, frequently playing brushes with time-honoured grooves, soloing so as to spell out the melody. There’s a rich history here, great chops, dangerous risks. Tom is always a blast. Fabulously entertaining and this night for a surprisingly suited crowd. Apparently they’d visited a Tassie Senator in Parliament House in the afternoon. She must have been at the Budget, but it looks like her office came to the Loft. Nicely done. Spreading the word. A blast as always.

Tom Vincent (piano) is touring with Danny Healey (tenor, baritone saxes, bass clarinet), Leigh Barker (bass) and Alf Jackson (drums) and they played at the Loft.

Your favourite circus ride

Tom Vincent came to the Loft last night bringing two offsiders on bass and drums from Holland. Last time I heard Tom was as support for Branford Marsalis at the Sydney Opera House. Nice company! Since then, he’s done a world tour and obviously met a bunch of collaborators in the places he’s visited. An opportunity arose to bring out one pair and this tour is a result. Tom is a quirky, obtuse player. He takes the standards repertoire from the 20s through Ellington and Monk and bop and Coltrane and turns them on their heads with modern, challenging, even extreme reformations. You hear the tune, but it’s contorted, disassembled and reconstructed with the most capricious of substitutions and cross times and melodies. It’s no lazy jaunt in the park, but it’s invigourating and intellectually and artistically challenging. This is not to say there’s not delicious swing or avid bop or soulful balladry. The thing is they are all there, perhaps all in one tune. And often in unexpectedly short tunes that are distillations of essence and of a richly informed but angular harmonic intelligence. It’s a masterful and exhilarating ride if sometimes bumpy. The trio’s name says it all: Morphic Resonance Project.

The band does all this by ear. Tom handed around a l-o-n-g list of tunes (three pages, several columns, very small print) and asked for requests. The whole band responded, no charts, no amplification, sometimes with a little hesitation after a singular lead-in. Naturally I watched Bart Tarenkeen, playing a borrowed bass and master of it. Lovely swings that were so solid and present despite no amplification, walking lines of real interest and solos that sang, sometimes with melody, sometimes freer, sometimes rapid, other times just beautiful, slowly stated melody. Strong, both in unamplified volume (from the right hand and arm that’s the secret of double bass tone) and in statement of the tune. And it was clear he knew these tunes - he dropped into several melody lines during the night. Superb playing. Marc Meeder was similarly swinging and lithe, with several short solos and mostly brushes for smooth swing. They both had to sit back at times to uncover Tom’s very individual interpretations. He toys with time and structure like a solo player would and this can bamboozle a band. But these guys had big ears, picking up to run or walk to the next angular contortion.

What a fabulous display of quirky brilliance! Sometimes loose, often obtuse, but nothing less than exhilarating and an intellectual treat. Like your favourite circus ride but more cerebral.

Tom Vincent (piano) led a trio with visiting Dutch musicians, Bart Tarenkeen (bass) and Marc Meeder (drums) as the Morphic Resonance Project at the Loft.

Cyberhalides Jazz Photos by Brian Stewart

Branford thereabouts

The support act for Branford Marsalis’ tour was Hobart pianist, Tom Vincent with Leigh Barker and Hugh Harvey. I’ve written this band up several times on CJ. They are an interesting trio with real historical jazz leanings, a readiness to play loose and improvise readily, and a great feel for an easy swing. Tom leads whole gigs with no charts and no set list, moving freely through medleys of standards and playing outrageously with the tunes, arbitrarily syncopating and reharmonising as the muse takes him. It’s a rare experience. Despite the location (Sydney Opera House, no less) and the environment (supporting Branford Marsalis), he presented a set with the same degree of reckless immediacy, although he seemed to have a clear Monk theme on this outing. It was brave (he could have taken a safer path) but it worked and he was well received. Well enough for the trio to be called out to play with Branford as part of the encore. Congrats to Tom, Canberra boy Leigh and Hugh.

I've indulged myself with some other pics of the local scene. One is of a small outfit (sax, congas, turntables) playing a bar in the concourse below the Opera House, and some other pics of Sydney.

The Tom Vincent Trio was support band for the Branford Marsalis Quartet tour. The trio comprised Tom Vincent (piano), Leigh Barker (bass) and Hugh Harvey (drums).

Presence of the past

Tom Vincent played the Band Room last night, the night following Sean Wayland. Within minutes of the Tom’s start, I realised how much I’d enjoyed them both, but also how the gigs were hugely different. It was a fascinating juxtaposition. To me, Tom speaks from the history of jazz. One of my mates heard the 1950s, and there were clear references to the era before cool, with a sensibility that said bop but a control and earthiness that was post-bop, but there was also solid and comfy swinging bass and a drum style that spoke of an earlier era still. Jazz history is rich and full, but the modern world can have a short memory. I remember being struck by the strength of this past when I heard Michael McQuaid’s Red Hot Rhythm Makers playing 1920s dance hall music at the Wagga festival a few years back. I still don’t go out of my way for early jazz, but I can enjoy it when it’s well played and it’s not just nostalgia. Tom’s band plays history with an awareness of modernity, thus doing our history justice.

Tom leads the band with considerable fluidity. Last time I heard him, he played unending improvised medleys that challenged his offsiders to stay with him. This time he played a repertoire. But he moved rhythms and tempos radically at times, taking the band in sometimes unexpected directions. And he led with calls or imploring gazes or solo piano introductions to set the scene. His playing can be whimsical and obtuse and there’s plenty of dissonance, and these are modern sensibilities. So although it speaks to the past, this music is not a museum piece; rather, it touches an earlier era with respect and intelligence and a modern consciousness. Eamon McNelis on trumpet was a wonderful foil to Tom’s piano and I enjoyed his playing immensely. He was formal, with nary a note or arpeggio or scale out of place, for harmony or pitch or tone. I expected he was classically trained, but he corrected me. He’d had 2 years of classical training, but it was other influences that formed him: he mentioned Eugene Ball and Wynton Marsalis. His tone was pure and classical: accurately formed and pitched and bell-like in texture. Here was the calm and measured formality to respond to Tom’s elusive and elastic lines. Ex-Canberran Leigh Barker provided the bass line, and it was fully acoustic, meaning unamplified. Tom noted this, and said it changes the presence of the whole band. Certainly playing double bass without amplification is rare. It must limit the volume of the band, although I didn’t notice it was particularly quiet. Leigh gets impressive volume, perfectly adequate to match drums and trumpet and the Yamaha grand. And it was a rounded, soft bass that lent support with well chosen lines. Hugh Harvey on drums was the stylist that most said pre-bop to me, with soft kicks highlighting infrequent accents, and shuffles and brushes and steady snares. It fitted nicely and avoided prominence.

I think they played a few originals: some unexpectedly short, just a melody and that’s it. But mostly it was the standards repertoire: Willow weep, Cottontail, Cherokee, Straight no chaser, Foggy day, Ellington, Monk and the like. They played Coltrane’s Resolution in an interpretation which was challenging by being out of era. But I felt their strength was these earlier materials that they played with an understanding and vitality and approachability that brought them to life and was free of nostalgia. It was an uncommon pleasure. Tom Vincent (piano) led a quartet with Eamon McNelis (trumpet), Leigh Barker (acoustic bass) and Hugh Harvey (drums).

PS, After writing this, I listened to Tom Vincent’s Blood red CD, and I find it’s different again from this performance. It’s a trio set recorded live for the ABC, with mostly short, original tunes, and a very modern piano trio sound. From the first tune with the fourths of McCoy Tyner, it was unexpected. Tom is certainly an interesting and varied player.

Exclusively for my friends

Tom Vincent and his newly minted trio played for a house concert for family and friends, so the reference to Oscar Peterson and the Exclusively for my friends series is obvious enough. Tom’s a pianist, after all, although in a much broader and fluid and more modern style than Oscar. But the sound in the room was clear and crisp and reminded me of the sound of those records. And it was a fully acoustic outing: baby grand and unamplified double bass with the volume to (mostly) match it with Mark Sutton, who can be quite powerful when he chooses, and Tom who was hugely and dramatically dynamic and often just plain loud.

And it was a wonderful performance. Tom led with a mashup of standards and jazz tunes, mostly unannounced and picked up with stunning facility by Leigh and also by Mark (but then drummers can do that more easily: no chords). There were plenty of Monk tunes, and some soggy standards like Foggy day and All of me, and they played Jitterbug waltz, which is a favourite of mine. There was some modern stuff there, too. Coltrane’s Love Supreme got a toe in with Resolution. These were all mixed together so that I overheard Carl quip “another seque; we must have heard 300 tunes tonight”. An exaggeration, but this was stunning fluidity and playfulness and a readiness to cover the waterfront of jazz history. But the witticism and capability had everyone chuckling as another melody appeared unexpectedly.

And it was not just masses of tunes, but also massive fluidity over all parts of the music: rhythms moved all over the place. Polyrhythms between hands, bass line triplets and delayed lines, drums capably moving with all this. Melodies that were dissonantly sideshifted or restructured lines with the same form but altered intervals and pitches. A pianist noted that Tom has a big hand, so could play big, unusual chords in his left hand, but they were extensions and colours that we were hearing, as well as intervals. Busy and dynamic and expressive and playful. A wonderful night, in from a very cold Canberra night, with an open fire, exclusively for friends.

There was also a free jazz intro from Jono Lake (piano) and Shane Spellman (trumpet) and householder John Wilton sat in on drums for one tune. Sorry, no pics of Jono or Shane. I also caught Leigh and Mark playing with James LeFevre when I was out and about in Manuka the following afternoon. I’ve put in a few pics of that, too. I only heard a tune or two, but it was lively and capable. And Leigh’s parents, Bill and Celeste, were there with a few friends of mine: small world.

It was a fabulous night. Tom Vincent (Hobart-based piano) led a trio with collaborator Leigh Barker (acoustic bass, ex-Canberra, now based in Melbourne) and first-time member, Mark Sutton (drums).