Blissful textures

I’m a sucker for the textures and richness of a large ensemble, and so it was bliss when the Mace Francis Orchestra played last night at the Folkus Room. It’s a group of 13 players with Mace himself out the front conducting. They are from Perth and are currently touring the Eastern states. The frequent performances show in the sharpness and intonation of the ensemble. And the mateship shows in the good natured banter, particularly impressive given the time spent travelling in a bus up and down the Eastern seaboard.

The orchestra presented two lengthy sets of mostly original charts. The originals were written by Mace, tenor player Dan Thorne, and bass trombonist Tilman Robinson (hope I haven’t missed anyone). The first and second sets started with swing tunes, mostly penned or arranged by Bill Holman in the 50s. Holman seems to be a major influence on the band, and presumably Mace. These were hard, swinging numbers in the big band tradition. They showcased some capable solos and warmed up each set for the more complex, considered works to follow. First impressions were of a steady swing, and some satisfying drum fills, sharp comping by the horns and capable soloing.

As the sets continued, we got into richer, more complex territory. Colourful and moving harmonies, consonant or otherwise. Shifting tonal textures and layered horn lines echoing amongst the various parts of the band. Large dynamic shifts with sudden hits or gradual de/crescendos. The whole resonantly greater than the sum of the parts. Tight, well intoned; more modern, more composed; orchestral. The solos became part of the texture, rather than individualist expressions. They were capable and often very well played; more a conversation between the backing horns and soloist. I sat back at times in wonder. Wonder lust. Some tunes displayed fairly simple underpinnings, perhaps descending scalar lines or edgy dissonance or baroque turbulence. I heard chamber music and Sketches of Spain. Then it all finished with an unplanned encore of Moanin’ and Mingus’ blast furnace emotions. Overwhelming.

What’s more to say? The players were consistently good, but I noticed especially guitarist Tim Jago (a finalist in the recent National Jazz Awards), Callum G’Froerer (winner of a Stan Getz/Clifford Brown scholarship), baritone saxist Mark Sprogowski who blew a storm on Moanin’, and drummer Greg Brenton who just seemed to fit the tunes so neatly. But the whole band played wonderfully, so perhaps I shouldn't highlight names within such a collaborative activity. Mace was selling CDs, but also thumb drives containing pics, links and two live concert recordings in mp3. Not something I‘d seen before, but small and neat, quick to burn and popular.

The Folkus Room did a great job, too. Host Bill introduced the band; he was obviously out of his native folk world and learning the jazz mores. Soundman Kevin ran a quality PA, and his mixing and processing suited the style: not washed out; not loud. I like a PA when you forget it’s there. That’s how it should be, at least for jazz. And I heard band members commenting on $4 pints, so the reasonable prices went down well too. Finally, thanks to a good sized audience that braved a strangely unpleasant Canberra winter night.

In summary, an excellent and inspiring night of improvised and composed music at a high quality level. Catch them if you can.

The Mace Francis Orchestra varies slightly on different CDs and tours, but for this tour it was: Mace Francis (composer, conductor), Ben Collins, Dan Thorne, Alistair McEvoy, Mark Sprogowski (saxophones), Ricki Malet, Callum G'Froerer, Brendan Baker (trumpets), Percy Landers, Robin Murray, Tilman Robinson (trombones), Tim Jago (guitar), Wayne Slater (bass), Greg Brenton (drums)

Bronte gumbo

By Daniel Wild

As soon as the music started, the patrons at the Hippo arrayed their square and circular stools to face the band. The avid listeners remained like this for the night, some nodding their heads, others with head on fist in contemplation. Couples whispered asides about a particular musical moment that had struck a personal chord.

The Miroslav Bukovsky Quintet opened the night with a high energy piece called Shuffle. Like many of the compositions on display tonight, this one opened with guitar, electric bass and drums setting a groove.

In his first solo Bukovsky announced himself like a bugler leading an infantry cohort. He then retreated behind a series of nuanced propositions, like a Greek philosopher enlightening his elect following with some seemingly matter-of-fact thoughts. Then he changed to more regular eight and quarter note lines, before building up the tension by combining regular rhythms with the freedom that had opened his solo. Bukovsky is an adventurous player. He’s not afraid to make occasional adjustments to his tuning valve in order to reach quarter tones and blues notes.

Bukovsky warmed up on his Harmon mute before the first piece began, but hardly used it for the rest of the evening. Not that he needed to. He has a full dynamic range, can play soft, assertive and sharp, wistful or robust. He also spends a lot of time playing the mellower flugelhorn.

Nor does Bukovksy limit himself to his two horns. Spurred on by Evan Dorrian’s gutsy drumming, Bukovsky keeps two percussion instruments on hand. One is a cowbell and the other some type of large maraca covered in beads. If anyone knows their exact names then please post as comments at the end of the article. Bukovsky doesn’t grab these instruments to have a bit of fun between solos – he gives the rhythm section that extra bit more vitality and encourages cross-rhythmic dialogues with Dorrian. With Bukovsky keeping a steady beat, Dorrian has extra space to extrapolate some slightly ‘out’ drum motifs.

The second piece offered a complete contrast to the high octane performance of the first. It was a slow ballad by Greg Stott. Bukovsky said it proves Stott to be a sensitive type. In other pieces Stott certainly shows that he has the chops of Charlie Christian or Tal Farlow, but he is more than just a semi-quaver machine. His produces a large range of tonal effects on his semi-acoustic guitar, along with quartal harmonies and rhythmic devices. This piece demonstrated that he can play ballads and craft convincing compositions.

John Mackey’s solo in the ballad was particularly refined. His use of space and choice of notes ensure his lines are melodic without being sentimental. The sixteenth-notes are not overdone, but rather ripple the waters. Dorrian’s astute interjections on the crash cymbal emphasise and heighten, rather than intrude. His tremolo on the ride at the end of Mackey’s solo signalled the end of a journey and the awakening of new planes of consciousness.

Only when this new level of awareness was reached did Dorrian break out into ecstatic cross-rhythms in a pseudo-drum solo, beneath the reiterated head played by sax and flugelhorn. We were returned to Earth by a ritardando when Dorrian struck the thicker ends of the drum-sticks on the rims of the toms and cymbals.

The ante was upped again with Dorrian opening the next number with African inspired drumming. The guitarists joined him, Jason Varlet on bass creating a steady ostinato which provided the foundation on which the horns built vast edifices. John Mackey’s solo exemplified hard bop tenor playing and really sparked the audience. Fresh from his Coltrane tribute last year, comparing him to the master is stating the obvious. The rich sound he achieves and his ability to conjure rapid runs at will has to be listened to and cannot be described. Sydney saxophonist David Theak has similar versatility. Mackey’s solo was fast and vigorous and went out like a candle burning to the end of its taper.

The settings on Varlet’s guitar and amp were just right – a hard, round lower tone with softness in the upper registers. His ability to sit on a single chord and imbue it with variety, quick passing notes and dramatic modulations inserted at the right moment makes him ideal bass player for hard modal jazz. It was late in the first set when he got his first solo and it had panache. Varlet communicates well with Dorrian and when either of them sense they’ve gone too for out, a nod and a smile reassures.

Greg Stott’s modal sliding doesn’t change the implied chord but alters the colour and can lend different slants and angles to the solo lines. Dorrian always provides a steady beat at the beginning, but as the tune progresses his underlying rhythms almost become compositions themselves. Great use of texture was made in the openings of these songs. The way Bukovsky’s group can enliven a progression based on a single chord or familiar blues progression should give bands an idea of how to compose simply yet effectively.

Although these were original compositions, executed with precision and vibrancy and played effortlessly, this is easier said than done. The second set displayed similar styling to the first, with added intensity. Compositions by Bukovsky, Stott and Mackey included Bronte Café, Maybe Tomorrow and Mambo Gumbo. There were forays into free jazz during the openings of tunes, rhythmic influences from electronic music, guitar comping reminiscent of seventies fusion. Whether Stott is comping or soloing, his playing is harmonically rich and without boundaries.

At one stage it appeared as if John Mackey had had a haircut and grown shorter, but it was Niels Rosendahl stepping in as guest. When Mackey returned from the shadows the tenors navigated a complex head in unison, note for note. Miroslav Bukovsky has assembled a fine entourage. If and when they tour Melbourne, Sydney (or the world) Canberra’s reputation for producing accomplished jazz musicians is in good hands.

Heroes of Waterloo

Megan and I were in Sydney over the weekend to visit friends. I always try to catch a band, but this didn’t look promising. But then we dropped into a very old, very authentic pub in the “upper Rocks”. Not really sure what the area is called, but go through the Argyle Cut and you pass into a quiet past, away from the rank tourism of the Rocks proper, amongst old tenements, pretty parks, below the domes of the Observatory. The pub was The Hero of Waterloo, and the band was called the Heroes. The Heroes feature an 80 year old woman who was playing flugelhorn as I arrived, and had an alto on the stand in front of her. There were only a few tunes before the end of the set. I caught Girl from Ipanema then a few trad tunes. It was well received amongst a small crowd, and suited the old hand-hewn stone surroundings. And check out the view down Lower Fort Street from in front of the pub. Magic.

Ugly beauty

By Daniel Wild

An evening with Bernie McGann and his Canberra friends, who are As Famous as the Moon, is to be savoured. This was a collaboration of joviality and affirmation.

McGann was recently inducted into the Graeme Bell Hall of Fame – entirely apt, considering that Bell is considered “the Father of Australian Jazz” and like Bell, McGann has done much to keep quintessential jazz movements like bebop fresh. He has imbued it with vitality and an originality that makes jazz players reassess their approach.

The Hippo Bar can be atmospheric, and with Wednesday’s live jazz, makes for a relaxed midweek outing. McGann, understandably, has mixed feelings playing here. Unless the music is full-blown hard bop or acid jazz, the crowd continually chatters and ironically, it is often those closest to the band who chat the loudest and longest. It’s great they’re having a good time, but if they’re going to indulge in riotous laughter, perhaps they shouldn’t do this under the collective noses of the band.

If you want to see Bernie McGann, sans bavarder, catch him at the ANU as part of the Jazz at the Gods series. Perhaps the cool jazz approach of Bernie and his cohorts lends itself to some idle background chatter, but it’s the chatter that should be in the background, not the music. Those in the know sat on the edge of their stools, musing over McGann’s distinct and personal statements.

As Paul Desmond inherited Charlie Parker’s advances on alto sax, so McGann has expanded Desmond’s. How do you describe McGann’s musical language? There are whimsical outbursts, sharp interjections, rapid machine gun flurries, tender reproaches, resigned expressions of love, primal mumbles, guttural conjectures and jocular yelps. And the music remains hauntingly melodic and human. Bernie establishes an intimate dialogue with the listener that makes the audience seem much smaller. He always keeps his audience in mind. His wealth of experience means he has much to offer his listeners and he can condense many years of life experience in a single solo.

Tonight McGann and jazzmen played three songs per set. Each one lasted about 15 minutes and everyone in the quartet had ample time to build thoughtful, rich and satisfying solos. They all took utterances from each other, built on them and offered contrasting ideas. The interweaving of the textures and their varying density meant the music was always morphing, sometimes abruptly, sometimes seamlessly.

The opening number, Tenor Madness, set the tone for the evening: exploration, dionysian celebration and humanism. Dirk Zeylmans offered interesting scalar passages and the spaces he leaves in between statements gives the listener time to work out where he is in the chorus. His style has connections with both Stan Getz and Warne Marsh. He likes to use the bebop device known as … “the bebop”, where a soloist ends a phrase on an offbeat. It is more common today to end phrases on the beat, but back in the forties and fifties, “the bebop” was all the rage.

Zeylmans shows just how different a tenor is from an alto sax. As well has having different registers, the embouchure required on tenor gives the player opportunities to phrase differently and use sound effects, especially on the lower end of the register, that the alto can’t achieve. Likewise, the alto can emit a range of effects that are less feasible on the tenor, such as greater pitch bend. McGann and Zeylmans amply demonstrated the contrasting possibilities of these instruments.

The second number, Little Suede Shoes, is a composition by Parker in Latin style. It was Parker who first brought Latin stylings to the attention of New York musicians. Getz later extended this project. Both McGann and Zeylmans explored the possibilities the seemingly simple head offered, then launched into more elaborate improvisations that reflected their own idiosyncratic approaches.

Both Chris Thwaite on drums and Lachlan Coventry on bass guitar provided a steady rhythm section when the horns were soloing, then were given ample time and space to build their own worlds when they were free to solo at the back-end of the tune. Thwaite’s solos were always engrossing. He never attempts to dazzle the audience with explosive drum riffs, but builds coherence by developing rhythmical motifs.

Coventry’s bass sounded warm and provided an ideal underpinning for McGann and Zeylmans. When Thwaite was soloing, Coventry’s soft and spacious basso continuos were subtle and intriguing. Like Thwaite, his solos sought to build and develop rhythmic motifs, rather than endlessly running up and down scales.

Other songs played on the night were St Thomas, Softly and other Latin tunes. I left before the third set, when the chatter dies down and the musicians have warmed up. I was told by a reliable source that it only got better, but I’d already left as a satisfied and fulfilled listener.

Indie songster

Gian Slater’s concert last night at the Gods seemed to me a hugely sophisticated indie-pop concert just as much as a jazz concert. But that’s as much a statement of the breadth of jazz these days as it is of the concert itself. Why? Firstly, it was sung, and that’s not very common in the jazz I hear. Secondly, the lyrics were passionate and personal, and that’s not common in the vocal jazz I hear. Thirdly, the musicality was a fusion of styles, and not strictly in the jazz tradition, although there were obvious jazz sensibilities all round. Gian was playing with Andrea Keller and Chris Hale. Interestingly, I read an article where Andrea is quoted as describing herself as a “contemporary pianist and composer”*. It was apt for both Andrea’s playing, and for the music on the night, for there were numerous ways in which this night escaped the confines of a style. Let me count the ways.

Gian sings with a soprano voice, often in her upper registers, so there’s a certain whispiness to her voice. I mentioned Blossom Dearie and she said it’s a common comparison. It was with some profundity that we could enter into Gian’s experiences, in the lyrics themselves and the introductions to the tunes. As a male, it was at times an eye-opener to the experiences of women, although we hear suggestions often enough. Musically, Gian sang plenty of complex melodies and some exploratory scat-style lines in improvisation. I found it clearly exposed instrumental jazz lines, but in a less frantic style. It was a pleasure to follow the scalar, chromatic or arpeggiated lines, and guess the underlying scales. To me it was something revelatory to hear in her voice that longer interval that defines the harmonic minor scale. Gian also played with sound, having a little Yamaha mixer and what seemed to be an echo unit on steroids (Korg Kaoss Pad) close at hand. This was enticing, and gave a feel of the studio to the live gig.

I mentioned above that Andrea described herself as other than a jazz player. In fact, the quote continues "I was never comfortable with the term ‘jazz' … I never felt I fitted into that box, because I'm a woman, because I'm an Australian. I didn't grow up listening to jazz but grew up listening to Bach. I didn't have that sound."* This disturbed me somewhat. Admittedly women are not so prominent in jazz, but there are many very good ones. Also I see jazz as a broad, international art-form these days, and we seem to have some great jazz around Australia. Her approach is not in the mainstream of comping/RH bop lines; it’s more expressionist, romantic. She’s classically trained, so there’s another fusion, although there were occasional visits to the jazz mainstream, too. I felt Andrea gave textures and colouration as much as solos, even though solos abounded in the tunes. And she provided several of the original tunes on the night. It was also lovely to see the women on stage. There was something more interactive, responsive in the way they communicated. Gian and Andrea have experience in working together, so there’s a musical closeness, but there was also a personal warmth on stage.

As for Chris, well I told him (jokingly and admiringly, of course) that he did everything wrong! He plays a semi-acoustic bass guitar; it’s 6-string; he plays with a pick; he’s got effects pedals; he fingerpicks and even strums (!). And I loved his lightning fast runs and melodic solos across the full range: very nice playing although quite guitaristic. He also played lap steel guitar for one tune. Strange combinations all round! His tone was middy, but fret-buzzy too. I thought it was chosen, but he explained the neck hadn’t settled after the flight from Melbourne. When I felt the guitar, I could see he must have been fighting it all night. Nonetheless, it was a tuneful, melodic display and welcomed by the audience.

There are other things to note. Gian is a local Canberra girl now resident in Melbourne, so it was also a family and friends gathering. I like them for their intimacy, and we have them fairly frequently in Canberra. It was even a school reunion: there were connections with Narrabundah College (Gians’s school) and the Jazz School (where she did some jazz studies). The tunes were all originals, mostly by Gian, but also by Andrea and one by Chris, so again this made it unique.

So, indie-pop? What’s in a name? It was emotionally and intellectually satisfying music, both lyrically and musically; it was complex and well played, and crossed boundaries freely yet wisely; and it had rhythm and improvisation which, to me, defines the jazz form. In all, I loved it; it was very satisfying and also quite different.

* Improvisations: Jazz pianist Andrea Keller, in The Monthly, No. 32, March 2008, p.?. It’s behind a paywall, but you can read the full text in Google's cache.

Joy of standards

It was a drink with Megan and some mates rather than a listening session, but I thoroughly enjoyed Aron Lyon, Bill Willams and Ed Rodrigues playing Sunday afternoon at the Belgian Beer Cellar in Kingston. Dave Rodriguez has built up a busy schedule of weekly bar gigs for his trio, but he’s gone off to Europe and Aron’s filling in.

This is a standards gig, but the tunes are not too obviously played. There’s a real complexity, a constant, rich interaction between the players and musicality galore. The bass line is anything but pedestrian, with interesting, responsive lines alternating through syncopation and fast and steady walks. There are also the prescribed lines where required: Bill’s bass lines on Round Midnight were spot on and I’m sure I’m heard them before. Perhaps it was a transcription exercise. Aron’s lithe and fluent with a thin, sharp tonality rollicking over the rhythm section. Ed’s drumming is gentle and responsive. There are plenty of solos all round, but equally the accompaniment playing is richly improvised and strongly interactive. The tonality is stated, but it’s subtle. The tonics and fifths don’t always sit on the 1s and 3s. The melodies pass through and over the bar lines. The comping is melodic, diatonic, but rambles freely from the tonal centre, to imply tonality rather than declare it. There are implications of soft, Bill Evans fluidity in all this. This is sweet, complex, rewarding music, and it revives your love of the standards repertoire.

The trio is playing at the Belgian Beer Cellar in Kingston each Sunday afternoon. The beers are luxury (I don’t recommend the one with fresh cherries, but they say you should try everything once) with prices to match, but entry is free. The trio also play other venues each week. Check out the CJCalendar under Dave Rodriguez Trio. Really lovely stuff.

Stax, Memphis, TN

The Stax Academy Band visited Canberra today and brought a touch of Memphis soul and popular music history.

It’s a great era of black pride, luscious grooves and powerful, gospel-infused voices. Stax was a famous record label of the period. It’s now closed, but the premises are used for an academy (sounds to me like a high school/college in Canberra terms) with a music theme, and serving a local inner-city community. In the words of the promo, “the Stax Music Academy … uses music education as a tool to mentor primarily at-risk inner-city youth”. Honourable work, and the result is good, down to earth, entertaining music. The Stax Museum of American Soul Music is also associated with the Academy. Looking at the brochure for the Museum, I can see that Memphis is a place to add to your tour. There’s the Stax Museum, but also Gracelands down the road, Sun Studio, a museum to Rock’n’roll and the National Civil Rights Museum. Interesting.

The band played with verve and enjoyment. In the black soul tradition, there were strong voices, dance routines, infectious rhythms, horn lines and the like. The tunes are mostly ones you recognise even if you can’t put a name to. They also did a tribute to Australian music, which was a bit incongruous and not particularly soulful, but it went down well. It was a medley with tunes by ACDC, LRB and others, and of course the inevitable reggae-ish “Land down under”.

The music was infectious, but sadly, Canberra didn’t do it justice. Llewellyn Hall is a BIG space, and it needs a decent PA for amplified music like this. It provided one that would be more than adequate for a bar or wedding (perhaps 500W per side) then proceeded to mic drums, bass, guitars, horns, vocals, the lot. There was also no foldback in front of the main vocal mic, but maybe they were monitoring in-ear. I missed most of the horns and keyboards, vocals got lost amongst a heavy, muddy rhythm section, and I even struggled to hear some lead vocals. The bass and bass drum must have sucked up most of the power when they kicked in. The problem was obvious, and it was a topic of conversation in the foyer after the concert. It wouldn’t even cost that much to fix: a few more wedges and more powerful, full-range front-of-house speakers (and a decent PA tuning job) is probably all that’s needed. I don’t envy the mixer fighting with the inadequate equipment. Sad; we can easily do much better. But it’s well known the music school is skint.

But the concert was fun, the players were keen and the music infectious. Thanks to the US Embassy for sponsoring the tour. It’s a nice bit of cultural promotion. They are not the top players (it is a school band, after all) but they are enthusiastic and perfectly capable, and the tour serves both performers and the audience, and the music makes such great memories. Nice one.

Introducing MFO

MFO is the Mace Francis Orchestra who will soon be visiting Canberra on tour from their distant home, Perth. Introducing the MFO is the title of one of the CDs Mace sent me. And it’s good. It’s exciting to see that ensembles like this are booming around Australia. Sadly, they are expensive to tour, so we tend not to have too many as visitors, especially from as far away as Perth. This opportunity is coming thanks to various government sponsorships (including from “soundtravellers”, a project of the Australia Council).

Mace Francis is Lecturer in Arranging and Composition at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA). He also composes, arranges and leads the MFO, a jazz orchestra of 12+1 players in the style of Maria Schnieder and the like. This is capable playing, and the charts are richly arranged and so sound sweet. The music is variously pensive or dramatic, sometimes explosive (Where’s his sepcin?) or even threatening (I thought horror movies in Lemon Water). The orchestration is complex and rich, and Mace obviously enjoys the sounds of the various parts interwoven or moving in sheets of textures and colours. There’s also comfort with time, with a few odd time signatures from the rhythm section and frequent difficult syncopations amongst the various horn parts. And the band does its bit with good tight, well-intoned ensemble playing.

Mace also sent me a live recording made at Bennett’s Lane in 2006 when they toured the Wangaratta Festival and the eastern states. This included several tunes by alto player Dan Thorne, so the band’s not limited to Mace’s writing, as well as tunes by Thad Jones and Mingus. Moanin’ by Mingus was typically ecstatic and featured that lovely baritone sax sound along with shouts of encouragement and hand claps as befits Mingus. Apparently, the band has extended its repertoire to play charts of key big bands in jazz history, so perhaps we can expect a bit of a history lesson when they visit.

Looking forward to the opportunity of hearing another Jazz Orchestra, especially from such distant shores. MFO appear at the Folkus Room 8pm, Thurs 10 July. $15/12. Recommended.

Mace Francis' website

Soundtravellers website

Old Canberra out

It’s been a string of opportunities to hear Wayne Kelly before his departure. The last was Sunday afternoon at the Old Canberra Inn. The Inn is mainly a blues venue, but it’s relaxed and genuinely old with its timber slab walls, so good for a get-together of jazzers as well as an easy-going jam session. Wayne had been inviting people to this farewell session so there were lots of friends to join in, some unusual combinations to form, and some new names to meet.

The host band was Wayne with James Luke and Wayne’s brother Gavin on drums. James was playing his usual busy, playful style across a range of musical forms. Great playing from a local bass identity. Wayne was similarly spirited as he worked his way through blues and jazz and funky rhythms. Gavin played a laid back blues style and was obviously enjoying the outing. John Mackey and trumpeter Dan McLean sat in, along with Fedoran vocalist Angela Lount. A later combination took names from the local blues stable. Gaye Reid led a band with James Luke, Chris Thwaite on drums, Leo Joseph on piano and Chris Tomasyk on blues harp. There were several pianists there on the day who might take some of the work passed on by Wayne. Paul dal Broi didn’t play, but John Black was about to get up as I left (“too drunk to play, but not drunk enough to know it”). I understand my mate Daniel Wild got in a few choruses on piano before I arrived, too.

I got the call from James Luke to sit in, so got to play a few tunes with John Mackey, Gavin Kelly, Jim Latta and Wayne. It was solid swing and I was adjusting to a different instrument, but I played OK and got in one solo which was a bit extravagant (not inappropriate for such a session). Off to the side, I could hear a cavalcade of notes from John working his way through (pre-)Coltrane changes on the bridge of Have you met Miss Jones. Good fun.

Niels Rosendahl was there too, although sadly without his sax. He’s just recently returned from London. Such is life; we come and we go, I guess.

It was a relaxed and entertaining outing for lots of the jazz scene around town. Much enjoyed. Wayne’s not off for few more weeks, so maybe you’ll catch him somewhere around town before then. Report your sightings to CJ :->

Support Jazz @ Folkus

It was a poor showing at the Folkus jam session this month, despite having James LeFevre’s interesting and involving band as host. Folkus will need more interest and support if it’s not to go the way of the sadly missed White Eagle. So, form your jamming groups and come along. Perhaps try to organise a jam band for an upcoming session using CJ on Facebook. Whatever, get along and support this initiative.

I arrived late, so missed most of James’ set. What I heard was worldly, relaxed and inventive. Kane was missing on bass, so Ben had a doubly demanding job having to cover the bass lines on piano, but even so it was comfortable and capable. The band will be playing for JazzGroove in the next few months, and they’ve described themselves thus: “original material drawing upon a smorgasbord of influences encompassing Jazz, Dance, Blues, Funk, Latin, Hip Hop and gypsy music of the Balkans … characterised by its contrast of intricate, extended arrangements with open, loose blowing sections”. Nicely put. No wonder I like it.

Kooky Fandango also did a short set. They impress me as having a pure, light, precise tonality. Their music is a mix of jazz and latin, and even some blues at times, and is precise and flowing and open. Peter plays a hugely clear tone on his 6-string Alembic (Series 1, no less!), and even takes on a guitar-like accompaniment role at times, and I think that’s part of the open sound. They play a sweet and pleasant, but grooving and interesting music; just perfect with white wines on a warm Sunday afternoon.

I got to play a few tunes, initially with James’ band, then with the addition of the horns from Kooky Fandango and a nice bongo player for a solo and some additional rhythmic complexity. It’s easy to play with such trained players; it all just falls together. I especially enjoyed Evan Dorrian on drums. He offered smiles of encouragement along with some very smooth drum solos that were very clear expressions of the underlying tunes. I also noticed how James worked as a leader. Having a leader can really pull things together. He’d just casually lean over and say a few words like “sit on that”, and the form of the piece just fell into place. Nice one.

I think the next session will have original music from Dan MacLean and I’m hoping for my Toucani to be there for a short set. Looking forward to it already. Get out and support Jazz @ Folkus.

Jazz at Folkus jams are held the third Saturday every month, 2-5pm. Entry free for players; otherwise $12/$10. Folkus Room, Serbian Club, Mawson. Queries contact Cameron Smith 0422 842 605

Wayne’s world

Wayne Kelly took control of the studio at ArtSound for this week’s Friday Night Live. It was pretty much the last opportunity to hear Wayne before he departs for a stint at the Venetian Macao, a 5-star resort/casino. I checked out the website. The Venetian is one of those mock-casino affairs, with its own Ponte Rialto and Campanile. But then, given that the original Campanile di San Marco collapsed in 1902 and the current replacement was completed in 1912, perhaps we can think of Macao’s version as almost as authentic. The entertainment is similarly impressive, with Cirque du Soleil bookings now open. We’re losing our local master pianist to the commercial glitz, but I’m sure he’ll do a great job in good company. Wayne will be playing with local Jazz School graduates drummer Nick McBride and bassist Scott Dodd and a US sax player.

Back to the studio. Wayne played two sets of original tunes that he had penned, and he’d gathered an excellent quartet to perform them: Eric Ajaye, Con Campbell and Sam Young. Eric arrived with minutes to spare after his regular gig at the Kurrajong. He was in top form with his smooth, glissando-rich, driving style and melodic solos. Con Campbell is a Jazz School graduate from the time when the school was at Manuka, in the very buildings currently used by ArtSound. He’s now based in Sydney and the experience shows. There were some expressive melodies and he let go for some blaring and harmonically adventurous solos on the up pieces. Sam was tight and swinging and kept a watching eye on the others throughout. He took a few solos too, passing around choruses on swing or taking charge against repeated motifs in a more modern style.

If you know Wayne’s CD, you’d recognise several of the tunes. There was hot swing (Dr Kirkland blues, So what’s the number), afro-latin grooves in a modern jazz setting (For the time being), arabic scales (King of kings), ballads (Mt Conder, Alone, In my quiet hour). There were also several stylish dedications to pianists: one was a quirky Monkish piece named for the time it was composed (1st of Feb 2004, 3.35 A.M.); others were obvious from the titles, hard swung Dr Kirkland Blues and sweetly melodic Mr Hank Jones. This was a strong set of satisfying compositions that Wayne has built up over the years.

Wayne introduced the sets with tongue-in-cheek humour in the jazz style. There was restrained laughter in the studio at times, and good and satisfied thanks all around at the end of the session. This was a good natured crew, and the comfortable but challenging playing just brought out the good will.

Best of luck to Wayne for this adventure, and thanks for the excellent broadcast. And remember to check out ArtSound if you’re free on a Friday evening. Eric Ajaye has a broadcast coming up in August, and many of the best student bands are playing over the coming months, as well as local live recordings from the ArtSound collections and some European concerts.