Album review: Any Last Requests?/Mark Lockett

New Zealand drummer Mark Lockett‘s remarkable trio with Joey Johnson and Jakob Dreyer grew almost organically out of the earth. Saxophonist Johnson met Lockett while he was playing in NYC’s Central Park; bassist Dreyer joined after a subway jam; a passing café owner offered them a residency which grew into five days a week for several years – with people yelling requests, and the band playing them, often learning new tunes on the hop. Voilà! – a three headed improv machine was born, in the most human way.

And it shows.

On the trio’s recent album, Any Last Requests?, the trio span well-loved standards as well as hardcore jazz tunes – all with the variety, dexterity and telepathy that only a group forged in the NYC fire can. Each of the three brings everything necessary for three to become one, in aspiration and in execution.

Opening standard, Irving Berlin‘s bittersweet ‘Remember’ is taken at a loose swing, with Johnson’s horn setting up its unique voice, with some particularly lovely phrase ending and surprising timbral effects.

But it is on the next two tunes – Herbie Hancock‘s ‘Drifting’ and Wayne Shorter‘s ‘Deluge’ – that the three open up wide. The joyous bounce of ‘Drifting’ is smattered with a beautiful rhythm section conversation under the tenor – improvised hits, off-beats and flurries of double-time, which always connect to the improvised line above and, through that, back to the original head. All connects, all breathes together. As it should be. 

Shorter’s Arabic-tinged ‘Deluge’ has bassist Dreyer suggesting the harmony while never setting it in aspic. The flow is the more important aesthetic, with the result being that, at times, the harmony seems to fly off in more than one direction at once. Like Charlie Haden with Ornette Coleman‘s group – an obvious touchstone for this piano-less trio – Dreyer’s taste and drive ensures a ground, but never a solid, bogged one.

The triple-time take on the Jules Styne standard ‘Just in Time’ wraps a blazing performance around a Lockett solo that encapsulates all that is good about his playing. The invention, dynamic sensitivity and – of ultimate importance in a sax-bass-drums trio – the melodic approach, is stunning. Lockett is a rare drummer – I could try to explain all the nuance, but you need to hear him to grok it all.

The lack of a chord instrument is one of the most exciting things about this particular combo format  –  as with Ornette, the freedom can often make one gasp for breath. But it can also have its challenges, such as the Ballad. Here the performance of the lovely ‘My One and Only Love’ is taken at such a slow pace, without the glue of chords – both horizontally and vertically – that at times it threatens to stretch itself to snapping. But it doesb’t – the trio holds it right to where it should be. Quite something.

Any Last Requests? serves up a palette of many colours, considering the limited timbal range of horn-bass-drums. Sam Rivers’ ‘Beatrice’ is driven by Dreyer’s funky bass; ‘Shiny Stockings’ is taken at a lovely hazy lazy lope; album closer Sonny Rollins‘ ‘Valse Hot’ plays with the 3/4 time signature in very which way.

The title of the album is taken from Lockett’s question to the audience at the end of one the trio’s café hits where they played any shouted standards – “Any last requests?”. I, for one, am a little sad this particulate hit is over.

 

Any Last Requests? is available from https://marklockettmusic.wixsite.com/johnsondreyerlockett 

Mark Lockett’s website is http://www.marklockett.com.au

Album review: Geoff Achison/Sovereign Town

With his new album, Sovereign Town, blues triple-threat artist Geoff Achison has created his most mature work yet. A stunningly virtuosic blues guitar player (all the way back to his days with the legendary Dutch Tilders) as well as an evocative and soulful vocalist and one of our finest roots songwriters, Achison has reigned everything in on Sovereign Town in order to tell the story, plain and simple, straight from the heart.

Inspired by the history and human struggle of Victoria’s goldfields (long abandoned when Achison played among their mullock-heaps and yawning potholes as a boy growing up in Malmsbury), Sovereign Town reflects the landscape and the humanity in its largely acoustic soundscapes and atmospheres.

Opener ‘Skeleton Kiss’ has a beautiful rising line of harmony that moves the song, and the listener, into some dramatic places.

‘Miniature Man’ showcases Achison’s intensely felt vocal on a simple acoustic tune, helped along by the growl of Andrew Fry‘s upright bass. Achison’s vocal has, in the past, been often overshadowed by his remarkable guitar work, but across Sovereign Town he has chosen to pull back the storming guitar for a mellower feel – notwithstanding, his pearlescent tone on ‘Miniature Man’s solo is quite gorgeous.

The three instrumentals here are vehicles of true guitar virtuosity – not for their chops, though the finger style workout of album closer ‘Coolbardie Sunrise’ would twist many lesser player’s fingers into knots – but for the moods they convey and how they ‘speak’ to the listener, without words. ‘Misha Bella’s jazz guitar slink conjures blue and indigo and smoke drifting upwards from a cigarette. The gut-string ‘Hand of Faith’ is pure atmosphere – conjuring the shadows of a Moorish church in Spain. 

The title track, ‘Sovereign Town’ is a crisp country shuffle and an example of wonderfully evocative songwriting – through words and music a landscape is painted. Achison’s fluid solo reminds one of Dickey Betts‘ approach to country guitar – tangy blues and jazz figures twist in and out of the sweet country lines.

Fry and drummer Dave Clark shine on any of the varied feels Achison’s songs throw at them – from the chugging groove of ‘Rescue the Past’ to their transparent and empathic playing on the slow blues ‘World of Blue’ – the latter containing a highpoint of the album: Achison’s slide solo, an eerily ‘vocal’ performance drawn out of the guitar by a master. Liam Keely‘s Hammond organ is beautifully balanced throughout – surging when it needs to, almots invisible when it needs to fade back (check the gossamer tones behind Achison’s guitar on ‘Hand of Faith’).

Geoff Achison has always extended his music beyond the coastal fringes of the blues, while never losing the spirit of the music he loves. Sovereign Town moves out to all directions known, yet the compass needle never wavers. A mature and meaningful work by an artist who is certain of the story he needs to tell.

 

Sovereign Town is available from https://www.geoffachison.com/musicstore/