Monk meets Metheny

I chose the Vortex for a second jazz night out in London. Loz Speyer and his Quartet were performing “in the key of Monk”. Everyone loves Monk, so it sounded interesting. It's a fairly challenging neighbourhood to navigate, and well out of the centre, but no hassles after working out directions. In fact, a few workers from the local railway station responded to my question about the location of Gillett St, with “Looking for the Vortex? Go down...”. How out of place did I look, I wonder? But I got there.

My first impression was the incongruity of a Monk session without piano, despite the presence of a grand piano on stage. But then I doubt that Monk would have been so limited in conception. Loz led in with Monk's Evidence. It was standard Monk with those staccato rhythms and oddly selected chords. Loz's flugelhorn led nice passages through the chords, sitting on key notes of the chord and finding neat tracks to the next. The guitar was comping with dissonance that I found quite apt for Monk, and bass and drums were sitting with truncated rhythms that seemed just the part. The night continued with other monk tunes and originals by Loz with influences form Monk. I particularly enjoyed Dave's double bass which just seemed spot on for the style. Nice little triplet fills and chord segments that moved up and down the fingerboard. Very elegant and very apt. Andy on drums was not so outspoken, but again seemed to sit in the style with comfort, soft and frequently polyrhythmic. I was a bit uncomfortable with Stefano's guitar. He's obviously a capable player, with devastatingly fast scalar runs on a seven string guitar (an instrument that I associate more with grunge than jazz). But I wonder if I am being a mouldy fig, because I didn't enjoy this mix: a guitar solo with heavy reverb; another with buzzing overdrive; comping to the bass solo with Metheny chords; organ swells. But he was a good player, and would have been a blowout in other contexts. Loz's tunes were decent compositions and had elements of Monk, but were more grounded, not so brilliantly absurd. No surprise because Monk is so unique.

So in summary, it was an interesting visit to Monk and his influences, with good playing and a guitar that was in itself a quirky choice. Loz Speyer (trumpet, flugelhorn) led a quartet with Stefano Kolonaris (guitar), Dave Manington (bass) and Andy Ball (drums) at the Vortex in London.

Lucking out later

Mike Guy told me before the gig that I'd got lucky: I'd chosen a great night to visit the Archduke. The Anjali Perin Quartet was hot: a good choice. By the end of the night, I was swinging and totally in agreement. It was just a pick-up gig. This was not a regular, rehearsed band, but these were wonderfully competent musicians. Presumably amongst the best in London: stunning stuff and wonderfully enlivening. They were just arrangements of standards, some funky interpretations, some lovely swinging walks and bouncing twos-to-the-bar and syncopations, but this was bliss. This is why we follow this music. Emotional truth, collegial sharing, hype-free, and all with a well informed skill-set.

Anjali was once a classical pianist and violinist. She was also a commercial lawyer. Then she studied her masters at a local London jazz school, and now she's been professional for 5 years. She's mature. She's educated and subtle. She's entertaining with patter and good humour. All that a singer should be. She's also a lover of the great singers, Sarah Vaughan and the like, so there is intense involvement that expresses itself in hand and body movements and richly interpreted lyricism. And vocalese, and pitches that slip over the octaves, and arrangements, and even scat that I can enjoy. This is authentic stuff. And the band: such a great rhythm section. Davide, the bassista Bolognese who has been resident in London for 20 years, had a soft and un-edgy tone that was none-the-less always present. Easy and unforced accompaniment and frequent solos that sang. Drummer Enzo, the other Italian connection, sat with deceptive simplicity, but close your eyes, and this was recording quality: easy grooves, unforced fills, sharp yet understated. I felt Ross stood back earlier, but loosened during the night to longer solos and more adventurous substitutions. Powerful playing and open expression. The whole band just leapt to attention from the first bars of the first set, with a busily syncopated Love for sale. Such energy, solid swing and long adventurous latin solos and montuno accompaniments. Then into Yesterdays and Anj's delightful and very black scat and fluid sense of time. Thereafter, Ellington's In a mellow tone, Softly, You don't know what love is, and a more obscure number done by Chet Baker, Do it the hard way. Also Bye bye blackbird moving from New Orleans to New York, Never will I marry, a Sam Cooke's 12/8 A change is gonna come, and that bouncy Honeysuckle Rose, which speaks with the most suggestive lyrics, as we were told. All pretty obvious as a repertoire, but done with energy, tightness, driving grooves and inventive solos.

Can I say more? A wonderfully entertaining but also intellectually satisfying outing for a pickup band of informed and tasteful and heavily grooving musicians. Anjali Perin (vocals) led a quartet with Ross Stanley (piano), Davide Mantovani (bass) and Enzo Zirilli (drums).

Lucking out in London

We've left the kids behind to look after the dog, and it's another jaunt to Europe. This is a family visit, with Megan and Mum, so I don't expect to get to much jazz, but I always try to hear something in any city I visit. For the first outing in London, I certainly lucked out. Not just for quality but also for coincidence.

Firstly, you should know there's a wonderfully purposeful and comprehensive listing of jazz in London which is available online and in print from a few jazz centres. It's unceremoniously called “Jazz in London”, but it's a gem. Twelve pages of small-print listings of gigs from a range of venues, both better and lesser known ones (Ronnie Scott's, Pizza express, 606 and Vortex come to mind as better known). My first thought was, what a scene! I was overwhelmed with options. In the end, my time and knowledge of the town was limited, so I chose one with two bands, free entry, on the tube and near our apartment, and at a time that fitted family and tourist outings. Either I lucked out, or this is a scene like I can't imagine! I've now decided it's a bit of both.

The venue was Archduke Live! It seemed pretty modern, swish and tame on entry, and the first duo initially seemed fairly subdued and lounge-bar-ish at first. But listening with my ears instead of eyes, I realised the very complex vocal contortions, and the lovely movements into and out of dissonance by the pianist. Then vocalist Zena James introduced her offsider as Mike Guy. I thought I knew that face! Mike Guy trained at the jazz school in Canberra, moved to Melbourne and and now resides in London. I wrote him up when he returned to Canberra for a visit and performed at Trinity with old mates a few years ago. We chatted. He's now busy 6 nights a week on Keys 2 in Thriller, the Michael Jackson musical which is now playing on Shaftesbury Avenue. You probably know that London is a centre for musicals and they congregate around Soho and Shaftesbury Avenue. It's big business and there are something like sixty of them on at any time, and they can go on in the same theatre for years. It's a big business for capable reading musicians. Mike's had this gig for the last 18 months. He'd called in a sub for the night to back Zena. Mike told me of his subs: one was keys with Level 42; another toured with household names. Very impressive.

Back on the gig, the tunes were soft and restrained in volume with a range of standards and pop tunes. Michael Jackson's Human nature is so good it has to become a standard. Otherwise, Body and soul, Old Black Magic, Nat King Cole and the like, and an end on a tune composed by Zena's father, a bluesy 12-bar called Peace of mind. “It's been a long time / playing with my mind / I can't find / some peace of mind”. This was the opening act, as a duo, and entertaining eaters, so it was not raucous. But Zena's singing was busy with delicious jazz complexity and softly voiced, although, for me, a bit too excited on the heavier lyrics like Body and soul. I only heard a few tunes and what with ordering beers and looking around, I forgot to note Mike's style in accompaniment, but he was wonderful in solos in the comfortable but intelligent way he departed from underlying chord statements to explore substitutions. A lovely performance and a great start to the night. Zena James (vocals) performed a duo set with Mike Guy (piano) at the Archduke.

Jazz in London

Seeing the gig the same

Michael Galeazzi of the Java Quartet was telling me of a mate and PhD studies in music. He was investigating how different performers in a band see the same gig in different ways. It’s an interesting study, and I guess any highly trained performance art person must have experienced it. Jazz can be quite an emotional roller-coaster, but it’s part of the commitment and fascination and seriousness of it all. The time the band was in accord, after this Java Quartet gig at the University of Canberra, as was the audience. This was a great gig. Michael was up front, happy and joking and enjoying every minute. The percussion section (here I include the beatboxer along with the more obvious drums and tabla) were throwing challenges back and forth and revelling in the different sounds and styles of each of their instruments. Greg on piano and Matthew on tenor were laconic and cool but their blissful interplay said it all. This was the first gig of the tour to launch the Java Quartet’s new CD, Rejavanation, and the quartet was accompanied by two of its CD guests, Morganics on beatbox and freestyle rap, and Bobby Singh on tabla. It’s something I like, this fertile, cross-cultural experiment. It worked a treat and the band’s response just confirmed it.

I wondered if rejavanation hinted at rejuvenation, because there were a series of tunes from older JQ CDs that had been reimagined for the new CD and this concert. The album cover describes each tune by a style: trance, ambient dub, boom bap, etc.. The CD’s press release explains the music as a component of Michael’s Master studies at the Sydney Con, exploring “notions of hybridity through contemporary hypnotic landscapes” through the “meditative aesthetics of contemporary dj/dance culture and Hindustani ragas”. Intriguing and different, interesting beyond the jazz field, and obviously entertaining for the band. Because getting back to the band, they were having a great time.

Firstly I noticed the wonderful rhythmic feels. Drummer Mike was intense at surprisingly low volumes, then letting go at the end with double kick pedal; fabulous interplays between the complex tika-tak of the tabla and jazz drums and even vocal percussion; the way the beat squared up for the beatboxing from the more swung jazz segments. Then the simple, repeating melodies accompanied by moving chordal harmonies or echoing piano lines and the rippling piano and fluttering tenor bursting into full blown sax solos over intense and busy grooves. And the frequent bass solos on a Whitehead SASE that were sharp and edgy, but surprisingly deep in the recording I made on the night. Not at all strict jazz, but obviously jazz informed, and one branch of where it’s heading as it touches on other valid forms. Solos that just appeared from a band that has played together for years, and shows an unspoken interplay. There was even a ballad in there, a deeply felt, sparse thing of synth swells then sax then a touch of percussion. The whole was structurally and chordally simple, but subtly mobile and with an underlying percussive intensity. And it was even political, perhaps more validly than the current election. I missed most of the rap lines, but caught a few that spoke of Brisvegas: “Visions, valleys, concrete”; and refugees: “sometimes / we find / that time”, “sometimes / the best form of attack / is defence” and then a rap in 15 languages.

It was an intriguing jazz for a modern ear, and a mix of styles for a modern world. Great stuff. And very much enjoyed by performers and audience. The Java Quartet are Michael Galeazzi (acoustic bass), Greg Coffin (piano), Matthew Ottignon (tenor sax) and Mike Quigley (drums). Their guests were Bobby Singh (tabla) and Morganics (beatboxing, freestyling).

Tapping and musing

We’re struggling with venues and audience for jazz in Canberra at the moment. Maybe it’s our cold winter nights, but poor Aaron McCoullough and his Elements Quintet were at the blunt end of it. There were some locals at the Front, but I reckon I could count on one hand the listeners who attended specifically for the gig: Gordon, and me, and a few other possibles. Too bad, because they missed a thoroughly entertaining and lively performance.

Aaron leads from the drum kit, but he’s a drummer with a sense of music beyond rhythm, and I like that. He provided several of the compositions, tunes that were standard in the modern sense of head and solos and chord progressions, but arranged into medleys and changes that sometimes surprised and left lots of room for solos. Aaron and the band play with real energy and drive, and it was mostly in this go-ahead vein that the solos were performed. Aaron himself took frequent solos, solos that arrived without warning and just naturally extended the driving and forceful style that accompanied all the tunes. To end they played a Branford Marsalis tune, In the crease, and I thought that Aaron must have seen Branford with that rabid drummer, Justin Faulkner, on his recent tour. Not as extreme, but Aaron had the same sort of hard and energetic approach. Daniel on piano and Pat on trumpet were similar in their full bore commitment, playing very fluent, long and sustained 8th notes runs, mostly sounding to me as diatonic, embellished with unexpected little rhythmic and melodic twists. Bassist Michael was grinning with glee at the energy and excitement of all this. I understand. Bass is such a big and involving instrument and I find myself similarly grinning at times when things are cooking. This side of things sounded to me of seventies jazz in the hard bop tradition: unison melodies and Rhodes accompaniment and driving rhythms. But there was also another side, which appeared when saxist Claire played. Claire had a very different approach, reminding me of the restrained expressions of Wayne Shorter. She variously played alto and soprano, with a tone that was soft and non-metallic, fitting with the malleable structure and effective dissonance of her solos. Much more the pensive note, the twisted fill, the torrential flourish. She was quieter, too, where the guys were loud and impulsive. All entertaining, all impressive and both sides worthy of the listen: tapping with the guys and musing with Claire.

There were originals from virtually all members, and a few non-originals: Travellers by Aaron Parks, a piano trio piece by Robert Glasper, and Branford Marsalis’ In the crease. There was busy syncopation throughout and just a little swing, and I counted at least one 7/4. This was a spirited performance and that little audience was very appreciative by the end. Let’s hope that appreciation is enough to keep the bands coming.

The Elements Quintet was led by Aaron McCoullough (drums) and comprised Aaron with Claire McCoullough (alto, soprano sax), Pat Thiele (trumpet), Daniel Gassin (piano) and Michael Story (bass) at the Front Cafe.

Something quirky this way comes

The Circus came to ArtSound again last night, ie, Lakeside Circus. It’s always a work of madness and extravagance, and some really interesting and searching playing. I’ve written on their last performance at the Front. Read that for more in depth comments. This time, I only caught some of the broadcast and got to the studio for part of the second set. Again I noticed those clever, Mingus-like arrangements, but was also taken by the soloing, which was not so much virtuosic as intervallically intriguing, and some strikingly contradictory piano playing at times from Jono that just clashed like the titan but resolved into new and satisfying themes. Jono is generous about his work in all this, although he takes an obvious and impish and committed leadership role while playing. His take is that he starts with an idea, and the arrangements develop from themes and lines played in practice, which he then further charts. Whatever, it’s very impressive writing. Another quirky saturnalia from Jono’s musical acrobats.

Lakeside Circus played for Friday Night Live at Artsound. The Circus is Jono Lake (piano, compositions), Shane Spellman (trumpet), Andrew Fedorovich (alto sax), Max Williams (tenor sax), Patrick Langdon (trombone), Alec Coulson (bass) and Mark Levers (drums).

Brass’ere too

I was down at the Kingston Markets to buy some cutesy, crafty pressies and there was Brass’ere. Not walking, but at least acoustic and loud and, well, brassy. A far nicer background than non-descript pop or a radio station. Just a few pics.

2 of 3x2

Oh my god! How different can two piano trios be? I wrote of Alister Spence yesterday. Today I write of the Ben Winkelman Trio. There’s a city difference (Spence/Sydney and Winkelman/Melbourne) and maybe there’s something to that, but I heard this as a difference of period and generation. Spence was modern; Winkelman was post-modern. Both were fabulous, but hugely different.

Ben’s obviously classically trained, showing that light touch and ease that comes from exercises and etudes. He also based two tunes on themes from C20th classics that he’d been studying: Ravel and Messiaen. His trio comprised Sam Anning on bass (originally Perth, but now Melbourne) and Ben Vanderwal on drums. It’s a rhythm pairing I’ve long admired. But why the po-mo? Post-modernism is an ironic mix of genres and styles, as against the seriousness of the modern and its rational humanist belief in progress. Here the po-mo showed as a melange of styles that were combined with great competency, but also lightheartedness: stride, latins, tango, swing, brought together with odd and changing time signatures, and extensive, wildly syncopated arrangements. There was a lot of written work in this - unison lines, complicated ostinato passages, changing forms and themes - and the solos similarly held a style then moved on, aware of difference and toying with it. I think the tunes were all originals from Ben’s albums: Spanish tinge, Steppin’ 2, Vampires, Five Odyssey and Seven Odyssey, Dislocation, Maxine stomp, and others. The names mean little without the albums. Dislocation was a gloriously sparse ballad with a solo by Sam to die for. A few others grew with long crescendos. Otherwise, they morphed playfully. Ben was the leader. Well spoken as presenter, and well voiced on piano with a gentle touch and moderate volume. Ben was not overly rapid, but he explored ideas without technical restraint, coolly and thougthfully rather than heart-on-shoulder emotionally. Sam’s such a lovely player. Terrific fluency, tone that’s present and not edgy, long runs of long intervals and arpeggios over several octaves, sharp right hand syncopations that patter with 16th notes. And solos that glowed with purpose. Ben V’s another varied character. He’s not so much a groove merchant as a lover of jumbled sounds. It’s seldom that he maintains a steady groove; rather there will be rat-a-tats on woodblocks or cowbells, or rudiments on any of the standard kit. He’s got an intellectual approach, knowing his rhythmic options, but he also presents an earful, sometimes sounding of jazz history with even patterns to match the strides or stomps they accompany. I remember him similarly playing with tones of window ledges, glasses and the like years back at Hippo.

This night that was so different from the previous. 3x2 has been quite a revelation; a marvellously diverse and intelligent offering. Thanks to Street and the bands, and I hope they do similar things again. Ben Winkelman (piano) led a trio with Sam Anning (bass) and Ben Vanderwal (drums) at the Street Theatre 2.

1 of 3x2

It was a ride of great variety when the Alister Spence Trio played at Street Theatre. Alister was playing the first of two concerts by piano trios at the Street. It’s a worthy innovation. They will undoubtedly prove to be two high quality and challenging outings (the 3x2 series). The audience was not large, but reasonable, and the band was presented formally on the theatre stage. Alister was playing with Cameron Undy and Toby Hall. Cameron was sitting in for Lloyd Swanton who normally plays this gig.

The music started as avant-garde minimalist, one or few repeating chords with subtle changes: almost ambient: intriguing and inward-focussed; sparse bass and ringing tuned percussion. Within a few tunes we were in free territory, with richly dissonant piano going the clappers, with busy bass and drum kit. This was more my territory: grand piano moving easily through dissonances; wonderfully rounded bass tones well into very comfortable thumb positions; lovely cross rhythmic drumming. This was authentic to the form and very capable, powerful playing. Cameron was doing a wonderful job, reading some very complex lines and soloing with clear and purposeful lines. It was an obvious challenge. He showed it in his concentration. The performance was well worth the respect that Alister expressed. Then into a break, and a second half that changed again, to some delightfully lyrical pieces. Still the unexpected rhythmic patterns, but melodic lines that were very pleasing. This was chord running in a ballad sense, rather than bop. Their capabilities in this format were as impressive as earlier. Solos from piano and bass moved from the melody, but were always eloquently relevant to it. Piano and drum solos and grew and grew as long crescendos. Also interesting were the improvised introductions to some tunes against sampled glockenspiel or prepared piano. Alister’s piano were intellectually satisfying in free excursions, lulling in minimalism and expressive against the balladic styles. I also noticed his leadership, where the slightest of nods of glances introduced section changes. Cameron was wonderful in taking on some very syncopated unison lines and carrying them off, and his solos were eminently suitable for the context. I’m always impressed by drummers who know pitch as well as rhythm and Toby played pitch on glockenspiel. But it was really in the drum accompaniment that I most enjoyed his playing. I closed my eyes and found his rhythms and fills and grooves sat with ease with the rest.

The highest quality of playing on music that ranged widely, from modern ambient minimalism to free to ballads. Intriguing and engrossing. Alister Spence (piano) performed with Cameron Undy (bass) and Toby Hall (drums, glockenspiel) at the Street Theatre.