Memories of VN

The Front sent invitations to the launch of a photographic exhibition on Vietnam tonight. I’ve been to Vietnam twice and loved it, so I had to go. The photographers were Lisa Styles and Mai Loc. It’s a little exhibition, but it brought back memories of a country I’ve much enjoyed. I’ve presented some pics of jazz clubs in Hanoi and HCM City (Saigon) on CJ in the past, but let this be my indulgence. Photography has been an interest in the past, so indulge me with a few pics from Lisa and lots from me.

My VN views, 2007 & 2009 >
four older men and down

Lisa Styles is an art photographer who lives and works in Canberra teaching photography. She studied anthropology and photography at ANU, and now combines her passion for portraiture and experiencing cultural difference while travelling in South East Asia with her camera in hand. This exhibition showcases photographs taken in the central highlands of Vietnam from 2007 to 2009.

Mai Loc lives and works as a photographer in Nha Trang Vietnam. In December 1997, Mai Loc received a small canon solar power camera as a wedding present. At first, he used this camera to take some photos for his family and around his home town for memories. Then he fell in love with photography and as he loved his country with the beauty of life, he started to teach himself to be better so that he could capture the beauty of Vietnam. In August 2006, he was invited to Kristiansund Norway to exhibit work in the first international photo festival.

Simply unconventional

This was certainly unconventional! That was the first thought I had on attending SoundOut 2010. SO was billed as a one-day festival of free improvisation and new music to be held at the Street Theatre. It particularly interested me with its cast of international performers and sponsorship from two governments/embassies (Norway and Argentina). I attended the evening session. The musicians were presumably gathered with intent and planning, because there was a spread of instruments and styles, and they complemented each other well. The final all-in blow (if that’s a word used in this community) was well balanced with a range of instruments and no doubling up. They were (mostly) pretty staid musical instruments that they performed on: trumpet, double bass, keyboards and piano, guitar. That was a matter I pondered on during the performance: if the sounds and techniques being used are so far from conventional, why are they even bothering with standard instruments? But they were, with frequent bows, mallet blows and the rest. I felt for the poor double bass that got a good whipping and I wondered if the bows used as drumsticks would stand up to the beating, but that was the extreme end of the performance spectrum. All up, it was in good cause and the result was fascinating and certainly worth the visit.

This is a music that demands absorption and release to take in. I think of the Necks, which is not a band I regularly listen to, but one that gradually entranced me in performance. This was different in many ways from the Necks, but both musics are solitary and inward, demanding closed eyes and cleared head. There were drones and slow movements and sounds, but there was also a lot of percussion and suddenness and unexpectedness. No doubt, the unexpectedness was shared by the musicians. I guess many of the improvisations were unstructured and pretty much unprepared (aka jams). These seemed to start laid back, and moved up and down in volume and intensity over time through various merging sounds, and eventually falling to a similarly laid back end. For these improvs, I had the feeling of the world ending, as in “not with a bang, but a whimper”. They were spacey and science-fictional, and at one time I was thinking nebulae and neutron star binaries and expected astronomical images to be projected behind the performers. I was taken in by the slow, interiorised movements, but I did find this approach a bit indulgent. But there was also (some) order, and suddenness and percussion, that were of a different order, and I found it more insistent and arresting. I preferred this approach, but maybe it’s a matter of personality.

The first performance was by Kim Myhr, Jim Denley, Eivind Nordset Lønning and Clayton Thomas. This was ethereal sounds: brushes on guitar body, bow on bells, mallets and string slaps on bass. Constant, unearthly, sci-fi music; eerie and intense and little defined. The second was real time processing piano and electronics by Gerardo Morel. An incessant 6/4 pattern defined the base, with an overlay of truncated notes at ill-defined times and crackling tones (I thought of hi-fi noise that you’d hate to hear, but all sound is valid in this context) and perhaps ADSR synth tones and percussion sounds and piano free of a tonal-centre and ending in a pale, repeating, effected word: “Never”. The third performance was by Zypce on percussion with pianist Adriana de los Santos. They played several overtly political works with titles like “Even distribution of wealth”, “Social control” and “No taxes, no …”. These were obviously scripted with charts and accompanying sounds (voices or orchestration or drum machines) and unconventional instruments (metronome, amplified turntable, prepared piano, strung wire) and even some conventional piano playing which was quite unexpected. I loved the stunning cross rhythms and complex, scripted interactions and I was relieved to hear the conventional piano. This was my favourite performance: more structured and composed, pertinent and political, entertainingly dynamic and I guess just closer to home. The last group performed another distant and quiet and secluded piece, interestingly with piano accordion and an odd wavelike wind instrument and guitar and those unearthly bowed bells. Then one by one, the other players stepped up to finish the night with an all-in blow. Everyone together with more mallets and bows and altered instruments (eg, flute body with sax mouthpiece, or sax with stretchy, rubber mouthpiece thingie or number-plate bass) and standard instruments played unconventionally (eg, breathing through a trumpet or almost anything on the double bass). I sat there with pleasure but also some bewilderment and even mirth, convinced that there was humour amongst the seriousness. Overall, I feel the whole was attractive and involving, and at its best was deeply satisfying.

An encounter at the end of the concert was appropriate. I saw someone writing up notes, so assumed she was a reviewer, perhaps from the local paper. No, she replied, so I asked if she was going to use her notes. Yes, she replied, she was a philosopher of science. Mmmm. I don’t see a strong connection, but perhaps it’s there. This music was like that: like everything and nothing all at once. Now there’s a philosophical question to ponder.

The performers are SoundOut 2010 were Adriana de los Santos (piano, objects - Argentina), Cameron Deyell (guitar - Canberra), Clare Cooper (guzheng – Berlin), Claudio Calmens (electric guitar, objects – Argentina), Claudio Koremblit (visuals – Argentina), Clayton Thomas (double bass Berlin), Eivind Nordset Lønning (trumpet – Norway), Espen Reinertsen (tenor sax – Norway), Gerardo Morel (computer, sampler – Argentina), Jim Denley (wind instruments – Sydney), Kim Myhr (guitar – Norway), Richard Johnson (wind instruments – Canberra), Zypce (percussion, sound objects – Argentina).

Princely polish

It’s not every venue that can satisfy a performer when, at the sound check a few hours before the gig, he requests a Bösendorfer grand to replace the Yamaha. But this was the Band Room at the ANU School of Music, and the changeover and the associated tuning happened for the gig to go ahead on time. The fact that it was even requested is evidence of the style of the night. This is ECM Euro jazz, so honky tonk is out, as is thundering and abandoned playing. This is delicate, controlled and intelligent music, obviously influenced by the classical training and traditions that are common in European jazz players, although still clearly in the jazz idiom. Not third stream, but not torrid either.

I last heard this band when they appeared as the backing trio for Thomas Stanko a few years ago at a private embassy gig here in Canberra. This time, they were touring for Sydney and Perth Festivals, and presenting their individual piano trio voice. It’s formal and considered, and despite a few pop tunes, is in the mainstream of modern European playing. I think Keith Jarrett and to a lesser extent, Dave Holland, when I hear them, and they played tunes by Keith Jarrett, offsider Gary Peacock and Carla Bley. But they also played Prince and they’ve recorded Bjork’s Hyperballad, so partaking of a current theme of reinventing the standards repertoire with a new generation of popular tunes. I like all this. And I liked the band, very much. I wasn’t the only one.

Marcin Wasilewski was richly harmonic on piano, free to move through keys and dissonances, but disciplined and tempered in his approach to the keyboard and his fine little melodic lines. I noticed later in the night, as the volume lifted and there was a bit more abandon, that he was disappearing under the drums, so he’s presumably not a loud player. He’s more a player who feels every key. Not to say there were no dynamics (there were) but they were circumscribed. Slawomir Kurkiewicz played a Czech-Ease travel bass with those soft Velvet strings for good, solid modern syncopated lines and just one walk that I noted during the night. It was close rhythmic playing with the piano, with a few very good solos, but I particularly noticed the reliable intonation. Perhaps it’s evidence of more classical training. Michal Miskiewicz was using borrowed drums, and I found some of the tom tones to be a bit woolly, but he played with consistently changing rhythms and again a closeness with the others. To me, it was this closeness that was the highlight. Rhythms that moved through the players, in contrast or in sympathy, with that underlying syncopation from the bass. It wasn’t clearly swinging, although I guess there was some swing there, but more patterns of dotted notes and straight triplets and quavers that hinted of the classical charts I only attempt to sight read. Tunes and improvisations that display a Western classically-informed conception of how to place notes in time to form melody.

The stage presence was of a type with the seriousness of the music. Marcin just once spoke to the audience to list the tunes they’d played, and this was short and I missed most of it. He spoke English well enough (trust the Europeans to be so international) but this was a serious event we were offered. It led to a quiet and subdued night: more highbrow and perhaps less enjoyable than it could have been. But the crowd was good, the venue was intimate and quiet (and well provided), the music was accomplished, and ArtSound was there to record and later replay on some Friday Night Live. So this was a wonderful performance, if quiet and absorbed. A good sign for jazz in Canberra and worthy audience to keep us on the touring circuit.

The Marcin Wasilewski Trio comprised Marcin Wasilewski (piano), Slawomir Kurkiewicz (bass) and Michal Miskiewicz (drums).

Power finale

The fifth and final concert for my AYO program was another orchestral concert. The Tuckwell Chamber Orchestra, the Alexander and Bishop Orchestras preformed almost their final fling for this year’s National Music Camp to one of the biggest audiences I’ve seen at the Llewellyn Hall. This series has created quite a stir amongst Canberrans. I understand these camps are held in Canberra on alternate years, so we can expect another big week in January 2012. Looking forward to it already.

The Tuckwell Chamber Orchestra commenced the program with two very different pieces. The first was another early, stately piece, Purcell’s Double dealer. It was written to accompany a Congreve play of 1693 that spoke of lies, deception and adultery, but this stands proudly on its own. The form is a lengthy overture, followed by eight shorter dances and airs of differing feels and time signatures. The Tuckwell performed it in an unequal temperament, which perhaps challenged some players but suited the style. The Tuckwell also performed Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis. Tallis was composing around 1570, but this was a piece of 1910 so, despite the themes of Tallis providing the starting point, I heard this as romantic: shimmering violins and emotive crescendoes; imploring violins and expectant cellos; sweet melodies that spoke of a more recent era than Tallis’s. I despair of musical borrowings for film and TV (Carmina Burana and Nescafe is my most annoying connection), but this reminded me of films, perhaps Lawrence crossing a desert. Suffice to say I preferred the authentic early music of Purcell. The Alexander Orchestra followed with my favourite music for the day, Webern’s Passacaglia in D minor, Op. 1. It’s a student work that preceded his serialism, but still it must have been challenging at the time. It started with pizzicato and within bars had exploded into power and volume, to retreat with a string-smooth recovery, only to take off again like a rocket, and again, and again. Was it four times? Brass had a nice role here, not surprising given the volume and impulsiveness of the loud passages. I was writhing in my seat from the extremity of it all, and crushed as if with extra G-forces. Fabulously excessive and brilliant and overwhelming. Loved it! Last was the Bishop Orchestra with Richard Strauss’ Don Juan, Op. 20 of 1888. This was a bit earlier than the Webern but an era away in history. I had expected volume and passion, but there was nothing like the complexity and excitement of the Webern. It was plenty loud and emotional, but I felt this work spoke to the past, whereas the Webern spoke to the future. I heard dances or horses galloping through the woods. In fact, at one time I pictured ‘60s cowboy-Roman epics and galloping gladiators. Perfectly well played, but just not so thrilling.

So ended my week with the AYO. It was wonderfully educative, both for them and me, and emotionally satisfying and an intellectual treat. Thanks to all. No need to ensure everyone had a good time, because the excitement and commitment and enjoyment of the players and the staff (and the audience) was manifest. Looking forward to 2012.