Royals 5b

Then a series of duos and solo performers of various styles and various origins.  VOP Duo was vibrant female voice, piano and backing.  Secret Crush was piano and perhaps steel drum from Belarus.  Some confusion there as musicians sometimes performed in different combinations.  Freedom United was a violin duo with recorded backing out of Ukraine.  Soloists and others coming.

VOP Duo comprised Mia Adityarini (voals) and Rio Oktaucanto (piano).  Secret Crush comprised Natallia Hardzei and Konstantin Hardzei and perhaps appeared as Sebastian Scala.  Freedom United comprised Yuliia Shevchuk and Maria-Viktoriia Parashckok (violins).

Royals 5a

It may be popular, of an apt age and stylistic era (‘60s-’70s, ABBA, piano man, classical ringins), sometimes smaller in composition or bigger on digital backing, but there’s lots of music on the Royal Princess.  The band was The Drop, a covers (party) quintet playing a range of popular musics from rock on, nicely inviting, nicely sung and nicely played.  I was taken by perhaps the best bass tone on board, but also by the repertoire of the likes of The power of love and I wanna dance with somebody.  All obvious but fun and nicely done.

The Drop comprised Katie Mophett (vocals), Peter Mehlia (guitar, vocals), Howie Harwards (keys), Adam Jones (bass) and Will Hankey (drums, vocals). 

Royals 4

There’s always a list of performers on a ship for entertainment in various lounges.  Soloists and duets and pop and occasional classical players.  But the king hitters are the House Band.  They are individually selected; they perform behind the shows; they read the dots; they do gigs in the most salubrious bars on board.  And they may come from anywhere: this time guitarist was form Buenos Aires and they bassist I spoke to had an English accent, I guess.  I had heard them behind Sweet Soul Music reading complex charts with various funky grooves melding into each other and then as a quartet backing a Johnny Cash tribute playing playing country grooves then as a jazz band with a trio front end playing Miles and more.  Presumably they’d played a few other shows I’d missed and there was another Samba gig that I’d also missed.  I did catch their Canadian pianist / musical director playing solo piano in the atrium (the Piazza), the central core indoor performance area on the ship.  I was stunned by the clarity of the take on So what, thumb bass part, restrained and extended minimal drum part, some exemplary solos, a haunting harmon muted trumpet giving just the restraint that defines the tune.  We all play this tune, but it tends to take off.  This was a stunning performance in my mind, recognising the nature Kind of blue, perhaps revisiting the very solos, but I’d have to listen again to confirm.  Close enough.  The front line were trumpet/flugel, trombone, tenor so not quite Kind of Blue but close enough and the feel got it to a tee.  Fabulous.  They played otherwise around the ship, including a poorly attended samba set that I failed to catch.  I love these house bands. 

The Royal Princess House band comprised Jane Milliken (piano, musical director), Alex Arcus (tenor, alto, flute), Chris Harris (trumpet, flugelhorn), Alex Sadkov (trombone), Gabriel Colman (guitar), Lewis Brown (bass) and Gio Rossi (drums).

This is CJBlog post no. 2,900

Royals 3

I was amused that fellow passenger, Singaporean and adult but younger, didn’t know what Motown was as a musical style.   We can take such things for granted.  He was of the ABBA generation but I didn’t think Stevie Wonder was so far before, or even The Supremes or more recent artists like Tina Turner who got in there.  It seems such a formative era for Black funky music that I can’t imagine popular music without it.  But he could and did.  I’d seen this show before but I never tire of the music.  Stevie Wonder got a string of songs; James Brown got one.  This was a production show, so popular tunes neatly merged and orchestrated.  The capable house band visible behind the dancers, with headphones and plenty of mikes and reading charts: a few horns with guitar, bass, drums, grand piano.  I’ll look forward to catching them in a bar sometime.  And a string of dancers, male and female, and several feature singers.  They mentioned names but I caught none.  Perhaps later.  But great fun and great chops.  These shows are the highlights of a cruise to me.

Royals 2

I’m learning that cruises can be quite unpredictable. I remember one where there had been a coup in Fiji so the prices dropped throughout the Pacific and we went given the kids cost virtually nothing.  This time, our cruise cancelled New Caledonia due to separatist activity over recent months.  I can understand the wish to separate, but it can have costs. (Is that why Australia remain loyal, I wonder, or just laziness and Howard’s manipulation).  Anyway we now have favourable memories of Vanuatu including visits to Parliament, plantation tours and soccer championships and kava and Library visits and more.  Thus it was that we arrived at Mystery Island, Vanuatu, and it was a wonderful day in the sun.  Simple, fairly lazy.  Some swam, I walked the full periphery (it takes ~40mins), had a few swims, chatted variously, and sang with the local welcoming group, the Nepel Unique.  Funny to sing pop-US-country material but we did amongst the more traditional fare, and also some strained harmonies, but this was a classic islander welcoming choir and a great pleasure.

Nepel Unique Choir sang on Mystery Island in Vanuatu.

Royals 1

Royalty reminds me of QEII outside St Paul’s when we drove around a corner at Manuka some time back.  It amused me that she passed through so little remarked. Th same has happened with King C recently and Camilla.  We did just see them passing by.  But then I was off with Mum for a few weeks on Royal Princess, on our family cruise.  Not the first one noted here at CJ.  It’s a time of catching bands and shows and generally reporting to CJ and drinking and eating too much.  Indulgence thy name is Australia; a floating resort.   But I do like the stage shows, especially.  They have capable performers, dancers, singers, incredibly professional staging and lighting, even if the themes can be pretty trivial.  But this last one had me a little flummoxed.  I’m sure the production show (seems to describe a musical evening of uber-popular songs as big productions, all dance routines and costumes and harmonies.  The title was Colors (sic.) of the World and its final ending theme song had lyrics: “The whole world’s coming together now.  Can’t you feel it”.  It’s a hopeful theme but perhaps the show was designed sometime before this era.  Certainly, it matches little with the news I’m watching on BBC News, of Ukraine and Gaza and Trump and climate and more, but let’s just hope it provides a path.  But the show was entertaining: Bollywood extravaganza; tango Aphrodite with The Power of Love; inevitably Time to say goodbye; Brazil and Girl from Ipanema; something on the supremacy of NYC.  Then that final elation of the world coming together.  This morning I saw BBC videos of Russian grenades dropped from drones on innocents.  Befuddling but let’s hope it’s true. 

Royal Princess, Colors of the world

Late night art

 

It was a latish night, late informed, run to the National Gallery and our new and most expensive art work.  It was an opportune outing, actually, and much enjoyed,  not so much for the art work itself, but for the late night crew that congregated there.  I have watched the conversation on this and I feel just a little informed having seen the perforated egg outside the SA Gallery, by the same artist and I think purchased under the same director.  Putting aside the price and thinking what could have been otherwise, I enjoyed the sight at night, lonely as it was, with first up a photographer with his tripod, then another photographer who talked of photographing the security guard, then the security guard himself, then an author.  Otherwise the night was cool and still and the traffic was limited.  I heard of a probable threatened graffiti job on the work by 2 blokes who sounded a little threatening, and how the police were there at very short notice (apparently several cars are located in the Parliamentary Triangle overnight so no surprise there).  And what the 12-hour shift is like and how Canberra is a wonderful, different, educated place.  So true.  And later chatting with Daniel O'Malley about his published sci-fi trilogy starting with The Rook while I promoted my album to be released the next day and thus art breathes art.  Back to Ouroboros.  It was a pretty sight at night, but I was surprised by the rough welds and jagged cuts and obvious internal cabling especially given the regaled hours of work involved, but maybe it's inevitable with stainless steel?  I dunno.  Would I have made that choice?  Well, I wasn't on the Committee but probably I wouldn't have but I am no expert.  I wouldn't have bought the tram, either.  I wonder if those who like the Turrell pyramid would also like the Ouroboros (and maybe light rail).  Neither are bad but I don't particularly like either: they seem to me to be simple ideas expensively created by people other than the artist.  But maybe LL defined the location and size of every hole so there are complexities I don't realise and then I think of Blue Poles and how we are so proud of it now and how that story is similar.  Or maybe I am just a laggard given my claimed collection favourite is a German Renaissance triptych despite enjoying much else when I visit.  Whatever and  regardless of the art, I certainly enjoyed the late night visit and the people I met there.

The Ouroboros by artist Lindy Lee is in a public space at the National Gallery of Australia.

Battling orchs

It was a night of big but very diverse sounds.  First up a considerable classical orchestral concert by the ANU Orchestra, long enough to deserve an interval.  A few very popular pieces but also somethings new.  Mozart Symphony no.40 Gmin is everybody's but still a great, inviting work.  There were a few movements of concerti, one of clarinet by Weber and the first movement of the famed Elgar cello concerto.  There was a Glanville Hicks Sinfonia de Pacifica which sounded more Asian than islander to my ears and Megan's and an original by a current student, Bartholomew Bunk Alpha and Omega.   I liked this one, clear in intent and capably conventional in structure and obvious in stating the start and end, the alpha and omega.  And a few short but massively popular heavyweights, Copland Fanfare for the common man, with the brass up and behind our heads and the strings looking from stage to upper gallery, and Sibelius Finlandia to end.  A concert of considerable depth but popularity and nicely played with lines clearly expressed if a little reticent at times; nothing unexpected.  Then off to the Athenaeum for a further hour with wines in hand and the chance to clapping the solos with the ANU Jazz Orchestra under Greg Stott.  First up were a few latins and sambas and an interesting contemporary tune nicely using bass bowing at one stage and into standards with vocals, Somewhere over the rainbow and Night and day and an end with Dizzy Gillespie Manteca.  Decent solos and particularly interesting from the percussion/drums section and some lovely, satisfyingly sharp and meaty ensemble work and one deep bari solo which was well done but will always amuse regardless.

A night out in Llewellyn with the ANU Orchestra under Rowan Harvey-Martin and the ANU Jazz Orchestra under Greg Stott.

no.9 no.9

The Pots album no.9 is released today, 25 October, on Spotify, YouTube, Apple etc and my fave Bandcamp.  The title is Indulgences and it aptly features a somewhat decrepit angel on the cover.  The reference?  "The damnably bad government is gone but its replacement has little imagination and small ambitions. So what to write about? That's the challenge and, thus, forgive the indulgences".  Six tunes of which two with lyrics; five from my hand and one fabulous Bach counterpoint to settle the journey.  Please have a listen.  The full album is streamed on most sites.  Special thanks to Annabel who innocently prompted this new album.

Indulgences / The Pots is the ninth album by The Pots. Have a listen...

The Pots on ...

• Bandcamp > https://thepots1.bandcamp.com/
• Spotify > https://tinyurl.com/2p9252z4
• YouTube > https://tinyurl.com/ym2zj9t5
• Amazon Music > https://tinyurl.com/ssp43jv4
  

Also on Apple Music and many other streaming sites

In the meantime, I got a press release for the launch of Remind Me Not To Forget / Tamara Murphy and The Golden Tone Retrievers released 18 Oct 2024.  Just for fellow bassist Tamara I promised to mention the launch here.  So .... Featuring Tamara (bass, vocals) with Fran Swinn and Theo Carbo (guitars) and Maddison Carter (drums).  Not strictly jazz but heavily jazz influenced pop/rock/electronica/folk. Launch gig (for those in Melbourne) is at Northcote Social Club, 1pm, Sun 27 Oct.  Best of luck, Tamara.

New faces

There was a time when I knew all the faces at the Jazz School.   They used to have plenty of events in the band room for smaller groups and the three large ensembles Recording Ensemble, Big Band and Commercial Band, and various gigs for smaller bands including staff and occasional visitors doing workshops.  Then there were the ructions and I also did more playing, jazz and classical, so was less available.  But I was surprised how many new faces there were at the Jazz and Contemporary Ensembles concert in the Band Room.  New faces and new names and a few that I knew from Molly or Smiths.  Nice to see.  Nice to hear, too.  There were five groups under the auspices of various staffers, Con, Lachlan (x2), John and the Recording Ensemble under Miro and John, ranging in size from 7-14 and in experience, 2 x 1st year, 2 x 3rd year and the Recording Ensemble which I assume is open by audition.  I enjoyed it throughout the ranges but obviously the groups get more adventurous and practiced with more years.  I also liked that there was so much inviting music and such a surfeit of vocals and harmonies.  The first group had concentrated on Joe Henderson and there was a lovely Lush life with the words to elucidate the heartache of the music.  Lyrics can be a key to me.  Then the next with several Stevie Wonder tunes, opening with the inevitable Sir Duke with three-part female harmonies, and then a few deeper ballads and a final Isn't she lovely.  The second ballad was Softy (as in the morning sunrise) in a deep 5/4 groove. Then the third group opening with There will never be another you with paired female vocals the finishing with an odd but intriguingly slow rendition of Well you needn't.  OI think it was this one that spoke of the soloistic approach, not too bull-at-gate but more considered.  Then the fourth with Invitation and Wayne Shorter.  And finally what must be the feature of the night, the Recording Ensemble playing a funky Les McCann Compared to what and finishing with a thrilling take on Joshua Redman Jazz crimes of many harmonies and challenging, changing melodies.  What a thrill to go out on!  I'd recognised various faces, Pete and Mereki and Elisha and Aidan and Oliver and Oliver and Jamie and perhaps some others and saw new notable faces and basses.  Several Fenders of course and a Melbourne mini double and a Stingray and a lovely fretless and Peter's unique Ibanez.  He'd told me he was playing a 7-string but no way I expected the Ibanez creation that he played, incorporating 3-string fretless with 4-string fretted.  It was the Ibanex Ashula SRAS7: only from Ibanez.  Fascinating.  So much enjoyed with new faces and a few other discoveries.

The Jazz and Contemporary Ensembles concert was in the Band Room at ANU and featured 5 bands and students of various years along with the Recording Ensemble.  My apologies to any I missed in the pics.

Forza Italia

Wesley is hosting a few visiting international pianists of late and I am lucky to be hearing and recording them.  This one was a work of wonder.  All from memory.  Bach Italian Concerto Fmaj and Liszt La Sonnambula de Bellini and a Scarlatti fugue as an encore but perhaps most spectacularly, two C20th century Italian composers that Andrea Molteni has recorded: Luiga Dallapiccola and Goffredo Petrassi.  From the first notes of Bach you could feel this was different, clear and sharp and precise and never a hesitation, at least if not consciously chosen.  Just stunning, convincing playing.  I could understand why he managed a quote from Ashkenazy on his home page.  But the tunes from Dallapiccola and Petrassi.  Andrea has recording 3 albums including the complete works of these two composers.  And they were fascinating.  Contemporary, edgy rhythmic contortions, mighty dynamics, diverse harmonies, but also attractive, fascinating and essentially musical.  Not all contemporary music feels that.  Andrea has travelled widely in Europe and Asia and is playing various Australian cities and the Brisbane Music Festival and will return for a longer concert at Wesley 7pm, 1 Nov: recommended.  Just fascinating and seductive to be quite so exact.  A stunner.

Andrea Molteni (piano) performed Bach, Scarlatti, Liszt and Italian contemporary composers Luiga Dallapiccola and Goffredo Petrassi at Wesley.

Eight seasons

It cost me a gig but it was a worthy substitute.  This was the strings from the Canberra Symphony Orchestra directed by concertmaster (sic) Kristen Williams playing the famous Vivaldi Four Seasons interleaved with Piazzolla's response.  We all know various of the themes from Vivaldi and if I heard right, the Piazzolla was a direct response to Vivaldi and anyway we know the popular tango-styled Piazzolla tunes out of Buenos Aires.  It was a popular program and obviously considered apt for lots of young ones, although the ones near us didn't seem particularly interested, but so be it.  It's good to get them along and they were old enough just to fidget rather than cry.  I was surprised that each Vivaldi season had 3 movements.  I should have known, but I wasn't the only one, with the first movement of each season getting a good applause. It was usually the feature movement anyway.  The playing was lovely, rich and full and unusually big.  This was the strings of the CSO so I guess there were more players who would normally play this piece, certainly more than baroque groups usually sport, like AHE or ACO.  I counted 8xvln1, 6xvln2, 5xvla, 4xclo, 2xbs, plus the director-cum-soloist on violin, so it was a big sound and it neatly filled Llewellyn, which can be cavernous for smaller groups.  I enjoyed the playing and was convinced by the take the Piazzolla.  CSO is doing plenty of varied programs now.  I guess this is the first strings section that I know of.  BTW, two basses on stage even if only one in the program, Kyle and Emma.

The Canberra Symphony Orchestra strings played Four seasons by Vivaldi and Piazzolla at Llewellyn under Kristen Williams (violin solo, director).  Low enders were Kyle Ramsey-Daniel and Emma Meixner (basses).

Bar, afters

Upstairs from Smiths is McGregor Hall, a concert venue, an art gallery and a bar-cum-performance room.  I'd seen Dirk listening in on Federico Casagrande and also noted a double bass in a bag on the stage in the bar before that gig so I was not at all surprised that Flynn was playing with a trio in the bar.  It was just a small event, but the bar is a pleasant place and the playing was capable.  We weren't staying but I got to hear a few solos on standards.  This was tenor, bass and piano from some of our youngest local players: Flynn with Evan and Arland.  Nicely spelled out solos expressing the changes; much enjoyed if only a tune or two.  I must say I was amused by Evan's copious head of hair that cascaded over his face in solos.  I had hair of similar length in my hippy days but straight with nothing like his curly profusion.  Now it's just grey...  Enjoy it while you can!

Flynn Marcus (tenor), Evan Teece (bass) and Arland Shaw-Crocker (piano) performed in the upstairs bar above Smiths.

Paris and the Dolomites

In many ways I didn't quite know what to expect from this gig.  It was a last minute thing, given we had arranged a dinner but then Andrew an Collette attend jazz so they were amenable changed plans for an early dinner and a guitarist at Smiths.  And James had some impressive CDs with Federico so was promoting the gig.  Even the room was new.  This was in McGregor Hall, the upstairs performance space for Smiths and in the end Nigel was running both rooms and the bar upstairs.  Despite dinner we were early and interrupted Federico warming up, but all was well.  The turnout was too small, despite support from the Italian Embassy, and that Federico was playing at Brisbane and Melbourne Jazz Festivals and had won a guitar award at the Montreux Jazz Fest with George Benson heading the jury and attended  Berkley on a scholarship and graduated summa cum laude.  And James doesn't give faint praise so I expected something good, even if not in a band context.  Federico was playing a white strat with an extra pickup and a neatly arrange semicircle of effects and pedals in front of him and headphones  for monitoring.  From the start, this was intriguing and beguiling and wonderfully fluid.  Layers of lengthy loops laid down so subtly that you almost didn't notice the development.  That extra pickup was to feed the low E-A strings to an octaver for bass lines, often simple 1-5s or outlining long and complex harmonic structures, that got added to with repeating riffs or chords or moving arpeggiations then perhaps another layer and a melody or solo with the whole so mellifluous that the role of melody or solo was unobtrusive, just musical.  A sound that was edgy and alive, perhaps high gain, demanding of consistent fingering technique, all finger-picked throughout.  Given the small audience and a few musicians and followers we got chatting, on stage and off, so the distance just disappeared and the musical purpose became all.  Chats of jazz and classics, technical and artistics, emotions and intellect, mates in Paris, jazz training in Sienna.  Federico is Italian, from Treviso, living in Paris, having a strong connection with the Dolomites.  James knew him from recordings with Steve Swallow and Enrico Pieranunzi and more.  He stunned me at times with richly varied harmonic movements playing with long intervals and scalar snippets, malleable structures, unusual and intriguing, spidery fingering laying out fascinating melodic movements, and that constant variation of tones and layers, busy but subtle.  We'[d discussed jazz as standards and bop so he dropped in a very broadly imagined version of Stella that only became obvious after several minutes, and then a take on the Sound of silence.  All in this new space/old room with a nice little column PA and a balcony and too small an audience.  A fabulous but also deeply inviting event.  Thanks to all who took part and obviously, especially, to Federico.

Federico Casagrande (guitar, effects, loops) performed solo at McGregor Hall, above Smiths.