Album review: Ellen Kirkwood + Sirens Big Band/[A]part

A year and a bit ago, I was privileged to experience a performance of composer/trumpeter Ellen Kirkwood‘s four-part suite [A]part at the Io Myer’s Theatre at UNSW, performed by an augmented Sirens Big Band plus special guests.

At the time the expansiveness of the work’s both theme and execution left me stunned. I wrote “It is a massive piece in every way: challenging to the ear and the mind, highly original (as we know Kirkwood to always be), often cerebral and abstract, all the time threatening to be too much to take in in one sitting.”

Photo: Catherine McElhone

 

Through an aligning of the planets and more prosaic factors, Kirkwood and the Sirens have been able to record the hour-long work and release it for our ears and minds. And what an exquisite recording it is. Everything that I loved about the performance has been captured beautifully by Bob Scott and the team at Studios 301, allowing the dynamics to be fully experienced, and all the nuance and surprise in Kirkwood’s writing to be set in high aural relief.

The (very) special guests are, once again pianist Andrea Keller, vocalist Gian Slater and long-time Sirens mentor, saxophonist Sandy Evans.

[A]part is expansive also in its use of genre – there are tastes and flavours of jazz, Afro-Cuban, rock and contemporary classical music; Kirkwood has taken what she needs to express what she wants to say. 

‘Part 1 – The internet: wonder and malignance’ deals with the gift of the internet but also with its broken promise. A swooshing of Alon Ilsar‘s air-sticks and we are off on a magic carpet ride over the magic kingdom of the internet – the horns beat and pulse like wings as we fly. But as we move on, they become disjointed and more demented and we begin feel that all is not as magic about this gifted kingdom. The piece ends – as all four sections of [A]part do – with a meditative horn chorale, quiet and almost sad in its hymn-like introversion. Yet there is a hint of hope in its human-scale beauty.

‘Part 2’ is on the theme of the refugee crisis, that thorn in the side of our government, and a tragedy for all involved. The ‘otherness’ of refugees is expressed through a Latin groove with Slater’s vocalise floating ethereally over the top. We float on an ocean without end. Keller’s piano solo builds in intensity into the band strutting a militaristic march. Evans’ horn solo is wracked with grief and true pain until all dies down to the bittersweet chorale coda.

‘Greed and climate change’ is the title of ‘Part 3’, reminding us that the latter pretty much exists, in many ways, because of the former. The percussive opening reminds one of the natural world of growth. This morphs into a drum solo which morphs into an incredibly surreal and cartoonish waltz. This is ‘Greed’. The traditional big band writing is superb but drips with sarcasm at we humans endless hunger for more more more. This sarcasm is accentuated by Evan’s hilarious solo which encompasses wrong-key harmonica blasts, bird whistles and belching frog calls along side her jokey sax.

‘Part 4’ is set aside for contemplation. Kirkwood says of this section: “How to process it all? The constant barrage of information, bad news, opinions and quarrelling. And what can we do about it as insignificant individuals? Angst, loss, reflection, determination, rebellion, longing, and maybe a bit of hope.” Jessica Dunn‘s opening bass solo over hazy flute chords sets up the feeling of meditation. A sparkling Keller solo brings in a Kirkwood solo which speaks to us. The hymn at the end of this one is particularly poignant.

In my review of the UNSW [A]part performance I countered my initial aesthetic overload by saying “But what saves ([A]part) from possible overwhelm is that Kirkwood never loses the emotional thread in the music; it is human music and it consistently makes you feel. Sometimes, as with all valid contemporary art, those feelings can be baffling or even plain uncomfortable, but you do feel them deeply.”

After spending some time with this exquisite recording of a work that is as close to a masterpiece as anything I have heard in a while, I second those emotions. The [A]part experience is something rare, very timely and very real.

 

Sirens Big band perform [A]part at Foundry 616, Ultimo on Tuesday 13 November.

The album is available from https://www.earshift.com/ellen-kirkwood-sirens-big-band-apart/

 

Album review: Josh Kyle/Trombone Song Cycle

Josh Kyle‘s new album has me jumping for joy.

Not only because it is music worth jumping up and down about – which it is – but because it also reminds me in the best way that there is still adventurous and exciting music out there, with adventurous and exciting artists seeking it.

For Trombone Song Cycle, Kyle has taken the inspired step of performing with the accompaniment of four trombones around his voice, and nothing else. At first, once might think it risky – a misstep of arrangement or vocal approach here or there could spell murky or misguided disaster.

But on hearing Andrew Murray‘s challenging yet simpatico arrangements under and around Kyle’s unique voice and singular vocal approach, one wonders why this has not been done before. You see, the trombone is one of the the instruments closest to the human voice in its ability to slur, bark, snap and whimper. Its range is also very close to the range of the human voice.

Opener ‘Get Out of My Head’ sets the soundscape – Kyle’s long-note melody repeats over counterpoint in the four trombones, setting a tension that releases slowly as one senses the overlaps and cross currents in the harmonic lattice. The result is mesmerising.

Kyle’s falsetto here – the top of a remarkable range – is luminous; there are times across the whole album where it is difficult to say where the voice finishes and the trombones begin. The voice is used often by Murray as a fifth trombone, as where that same falsetto is nested into the trombones on the piece ‘No 5’ . 

The aspiration chant ‘I Can’ (“I can be stronger/I can be higher”) has brassy blare and greasy gliss in unison with the voice. A solo is played over the lightest harmonic gossamer pedal below. I would not like to try to pic the soloists across Trombone Song Cycle, though I think I detect James Greening‘s big spirit here or there and James Macaulay‘s sass on one track, though it equally could be Adrian Sherriff or Jordan Murray.

But the scape is not all indigo dream and counterpoint – the spitting syncopation of ‘The One’ has the trombone quartet setting up a charging rhythm against Kyle’s voice,  the percussive ‘crack’ of the trombone’s bell splitting the rhythm.

Album closer is the love song ‘Song For Meg’, a high point for me. Here the trombones lend a bed of crackle-edged dissonance under Kyle’s hymn-like melody, with the tenderness palpable in his delivery. It is this tenderness which elevates Josh Kyle’s vocal artistry; it is always gratifying to see technique subsumed to emotion and ‘the story’ in an artist with so many years ahead of him.

With its artistic courage and truly inspired approach, Trombone Song Cycle would be the jewel in any other artist’s crown. Yet, I have a strong and good feeling that it is another strong port-of-call in a life that will take Josh Kyle – and any of us who want to listen – to some truly wonderful places.

 

Josh Kyle’s website is http://www.joshkylemusic.com

 

Album review: Colours of Your Love/Ingrid James

With the new album Colours of Your Love, Brisbane jazz singer Ingrid James brings together a unique and multi-layered collaboration.

James has come together with pianist/composer/arranger Louise Denson and the 9-piece Wild Silk Strings Project to create something quite exquisite – 12 songs/arrangements ranging from Satie to Mongo to Supertramp with some lovely excursions into Afro-Cuban, Latin and the ballad form.

The Wild Silk Strings Project is a unique 9-piece hybrid of rhythm section and strings, with some horns added here and there for timbre and solos. Stan Getz‘s 1961 album with composer/arranger Eddie Sauter, Focus, is a touchstone, as I am sure are a number of jazz-plus-strings experiments between then and now.

As with all experiments, some worked, most didn’t – Denson’s arrangements work here beautifully as she appears to have approached them with a clarity of mind and a sharp – pardon the pun, Stan – focus. Also, As Sauter had Getz’s languid tenor to wrap his strings around, Denson is lucky to have Ingrid James’ clear and warm voice to swathe in hers. Gauze-like at times, as on lovely latin ballad, the Denson/James original ‘First Love’, or heat-haze-shimmering as on opener, Erik Satie‘s ‘Gnossienne No 1’.

Nowhere is this strings-by-numbers: Denson’s string arrangement on Mongo Santamaria‘s Cuban driver ‘Flame Tree’ is quite Gil Evans in its dissonances and tart flavours; whereas on K D Lang‘s ‘Constant Craving’ the ensemble behind James’ vocal  draws out the lyric’s yearning through creative voicings. Paul White‘s tenor solo, together with James’ perfectly held reading of Lang’s 1992 song, make us believe it is the jazz standard we always knew it was. 

The pop songs covered on Colours of Your Love are an intriguing choice that, for the most part, work. Supertramp‘s whimsical ‘Logical Song’ is taken at a 6/8 Afro clip, with the beat cut up cleverly to appear as a slow waltz for the middle eight. Carole King‘s ‘It’s Too Late’ suffers from a too-radical rethinking of the melody – the wistfulness of the lyric seems to be lost in the chop and change. Gordon Lightfoot‘s ‘If You Could Read My Mind’ always was a lovely song and always will be – Denson and James’ reading here can be added to the better interpretations of it.

But this is all devil’s detail – what I do love about Colours of Your Love is the overall feeling of breeziness and sunlight. Even though nowhere near a bossa nova album, I can feel the ozone off Ipanema and feel my skin warmed by it’s tropicalia. The yin is Ingid James’ eminently listenable voice – devoid of histrionics or flash, clear as a bell and velvety – and the yang is Louise Denson’s apt and sharp arrangements of the tunes – and of course the talents of The Wild Silk Strings Project themselves – all coming together so impeccably well.

Ingrid James’ website is https://www.ingridjames.com

 

 

Album review: Kate Pass/Kohesia

Some wonderful music continues to come out of Western Australia. There is definitely something in the water over there.

The latest in a long line of exciting releases is Kohesia, the debut album of bassist/composer Kate Pass‘s Kohesia Ensemble. The Ensemble’s sound and Pass’s compositions mix jazz timbres with Persian (Iranian) sounds and melodic concepts (I choose to think of it as Persian rather than the more modern Iranian because this music seems to speak with a voice that summons timeless and multi-hued, multi-patterned visions).

However, Pass’s compositions and musical palette are far from mere exotica – in fact, the conversational mix of Western and Middle-Eastern musics could not be more timely, with the current world schisms and tensions between the two cultures. To hear these voices side-by-side, talking and twining together is an almost political call for hope – one where neither side sees the other as the “other”.

And that is the gift of Pass’s writing – the range of ways she mixes the two disparate and quite unique timbres together: on ‘Journey to A Faraway Place’ she fuses Ricki Malet‘s trumpet and the ney (wooden flute) of Esfandiar Shahmir into an intriguing hybrid voice over arco bass; on the 5/8 groove ‘Point of Departure’ the same two instruments answer each other, as if in a conversation that spans the centuries across a barline; on opener ‘Nahafsi’ the tenor sax of Marc Osbourne is answered by Mike Zolker‘s nasal yet sinuous oud.

The writing fits the phrasing and execution to the mood: ‘Nahafsi’s microtonal grace notes pull against the hem of the melody; the changes of ‘Origins’ are either folk changes if played by the ney, or jazz changes when the tenor takes over. 

‘Schplur’ reminds one of a Horace Silver hard bop groove – a groove which holds up just fine under the oud solo. Pass’s intelligent and soulful bass improvisation here is informed by her compositional skills in its shape and momentum. Drummer Daniel Susnjar pins the whole performance down with customary taste and fire. Susnjar also produced Kohesia, as well as enlivening the album with his superlative playing. His solo over ‘Schplur’s faux-montuno and his jabbing and jibing comp under Chris Foster‘s sparkling piano solo on ‘Origins’ are high points.

Kohesia has been nominated for a slew of awards and The Ensemble have been invited to play major national festivals. It is no surprise: from Elle Deslandes‘ and Reza Mirzaei‘s beautiful and apt package design down through the album’s production, mixing and mastering, Kohesia is excellence, pure and simple.

The poem inscribed on the inner sleeve is by 14th century Persian poet Hafiz. It reads: “We’ll crack the Heavens’ vault in half and hew a wholly new design”. With Kohesia Kate Pass has created a fascinating new voice by less violent, but just as powerful, means: this music comes from a heart that seeks beauty and a heart that seeks peace.

Kate Pass’s website is https://www.katepass.com

Kohesia is available from https://katepass.bandcamp.com/releases

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: Andrew Dickeson/The Song is You

Hot on the heels of drummer Andrew Dickeson‘s recent collab with US horn player Eric Alexander – Is That So? – comes his new one, The Song is You. Where Is That So? went for the classic tenor/piano quartet template, on this new album Dickeson has gone for the more minimal sound of tenor/guitar, lending the music a more astringent and modernistic texture.

Pic by Karl Powderly

Of course Dickeson is much more than simply a drummer. A writer-arranger and mainstay of Australian jazz for years now, he is an inspiring figure and one within whom Jazz classicism burns bright. Any occasion Dickeson is also the bandleader is always an event. This album, built around the visit to Sydney of alto/tenor player Nick Hempton from NYC is no exception.

The Song is You takes an eclectic approach, evidenced (pardon the pun) by the Monk opener ‘Trinkle Tinkle’. Thelonious’s knotty tune is relished by the group with Hempton taking an authoritative solo over Monk’s anarchy, and Dickeson’s drum solo playing in and out of almost random-sounding melodic fragments. The wit and sense of fun in Dickeson’s arrangements across the album is a joy.

‘Moonlight in Vermont’ takes the unusual approach of Hempton playing the ballad head, solo,  across a Cuban rhythm on high-tuned toms. It is dislocating and vaguely surreal until the band enters, with Ashley Turner‘s cooly considered bass solo a highpoint.

The rarely heard Cedar Walton tune ‘Shoulders’ moves with a robust swing allowing guitarist Carl Dewhurst to really dig in. It is a pleasure to hear Dewhurst again, now that he is back among us. Over the last few months I have heard him play electronic experimentalism, blues-rock and rockabilly. But, listening to his solo here, I can be sure there is a special room in his musical soul for classic jazz guitar, unadorned and blues-soaked. His solo on ‘Shoulders’ is constructed with a clear trajectory, as the fluid single note runs turn to surprising chords dropped in as the band heats up.

‘Blues for Riyo’ is everything a spontaneous blues should be, with Dewhurst and Hempton conversing in an almost telepathic vocalese. Hempton’s tenor tone is beautifully round here; shades of Ben Webster, perfect for the blues. As on the ballad track, ‘You’ve Changed’, the band shows it can do shade as well as light with impeccable taste.

This light and shade comes across on the Bernie McGann home-grown beauty ‘Spirit Song’, Dickeson handling the skipping 3/4 rhythm deftly. But shade is put aside on the album closer ‘It’s You or No One’, a triple-time bop cooker where Dewhurst and Dickeson trade swift and spirited fours, while barely breaking a sweat.

Dickeson’s startling arrangement of the  title track, the Kern/Hammerstein standard ‘The Song is You’ is the highpoint, to me, of the album. A few weeks ago I heard Sydney vocalist Kate Wadey perform it in a relaxed and intimate setting – and I was reminded why a beautiful and enduring tune it is. Dickeson’s take has the tune morphing from 7/8 to 4/4 with rhythm hits, then moving to a 3/4 waltz figure which ritards – not only does this complexity work seamlessly, but Hempton solos easily over it, before the band settles on a driving swing.

With The Song is You Andrew Dickeson has once again produced a work that moves forward while holding to the tenets of tradition in the music. The strength of the jazz past runs through everything he does, while his inspiring and inspired spirit makes it live today.

The Song is You is being launched ay Sydney’s Venue 505 on Thursday 6 September.

Andrew’s website is http://www.andrewdickeson.com

 

Album DVD review:Dave Panichi/Paradigm

In November last year, well-travelled (musically and geographically) composer-trombonist, Dave Panichi recorded Paradigm live in a NYC studio with his New York Jazz Orchestra.

He has put it out as a DVD, which is a special treat as it is a thrill to watch the band work through these nine electrifying arrangements. All pieces are Panichi compositions with the exception of  ‘Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans?’ – but this 7/4 modern take on the standard also has the Panichi stamp on it.

‘Simple Song’, the second piece in after ‘Footnote’ (a stunning opener in parts reminiscent  of Jaco‘s ‘Liberty City’) is dedicated to Panichi’s mentor Bob Brookmeyer, which explains so much of what makes Panichi such an innovative and fascinating arranger:  the intricate mesh of lines and textures, sections playing off against each other only to coalesce before splitting again. It is all about movement, like the complex interlocking gears and cogs of a watch. Drummer Dennis Mackrel shines here: on brushes for the intro and with sticks further in.

Title track ‘Paradigm’ is a 7/4 groove that has plenty of twists and turns in the writing – Rich Perry‘s tenor solo plays around and against these with great ‘ears’ and ideas.

‘Ruby’ could be a classic standard – it has a strength of melody that makes one feel we have known it for years. Panichi’s solo could not be more apt in colour and tone – ‘composer’s advantage’ to a degree, but he is a warm and soulful player who never puts a foot wrong. 

‘Manhattan’ is a piece of history – performed over 500 times since its 1982 composition – including performances by the Buddy Rich Band as well as all major US festivals and two dozen Sinatra concerts. Its a swinger with an impressionist heart – the piece breaks down in the middle to a lovely feeling of tone-poetry, to be slowly pulled back into tempo by Bruce Barth‘s kaleidoscopic piano solo.

Dedicated to Panichi’s son, ‘Max’ is the most remarkable piece here – startlingly dissonant and boisterously propulsive, it is a capricious ensemble line all the way through. The trumpet and tenor solos of Scott Wendholt and Walt Weiskopf  dance beautifully across its web of textures.

Closer ‘Pyldriver’ – dedicated to Sydney bandleader Ralph Pyl – rolls on a rock groove under blazing brass. Guitarist Pete McCann kicks in the distortion and takes off on one of the most exciting performances of a thrilling set. Drummer Mackrel shows he is a master of the arcane art of big band drumming – his solo is by turns conversational and tough.

Panichi has created something wonderful in Paradigm, this collection of current and earlier works. It is a must for anyone who loves jazz and modern jazz orchestra arrangement – with the bonus of the visuals. Do check it out.

 

Paradigm is available from http://davepanichimusic.com

Album Review: Andrea Keller/Five° Below Live

Being a prolific artist and being a surprising, ever-original artist – despite much evidence to the contrary – need not be mutually exclusive.

Pianist/composer Andrea Keller continues to surprise, as well as being one of our most consistently prolific music makers. Her latest project is the ensemble Five° Below and their debut is the six-track teaser Five° Below Live.

I say ‘teaser’ as this is a preview of a larger work slated for 2019 which will include saxophonists Julien Wilson and Scott MacChonnachie. ‘Teaser’ it may be, but it stands firm and strong as a work in its own right. For this Live album, Keller has intriguingly limited it to rhythm section instruments, with startling results.

The two bass players – Sam Anning on acoustic and Mick Meagher on electric – plus drummer James McLean and guitarist Steve Magnusson, plus Keller herself on piano reimagine a collection of her previous works across a range of styles.

‘Fern Tree’ from 2013’s Family Portraits grows from a textural piano pattern with Keller’s solo morphing from Charles Ives to some real rock’n’roll, before the double heartbeat of the two basses rolls out the joyous dance of Magnusson’s guitar. ‘Of Winter, Ice and Snow’ moves glacially, with guitar swells and sharp shards of piano making this, magically, seem more weather than music. Such is its enveloping and mesmerising atmosphere.

The mood across Live is largely pensive and dynamically introverted, so the track ‘Grand Forfeit’ leaps out like an animal. Beginning with ominously grinding guitar and electric bass feedback it suddenly surprises with a jagged asymmetrical riff over which Maganusson howls and gnashes. His guitar solo is red in tooth and claw, reminiscent of King Crimson‘s Robert Fripp at his most brutal.

‘Warm Voices’, originally from 2013’s From Ether, lulls with double bass chords and percussion moving and out like the sea; the piano is ebbing waves and the guitar is distant clouds on the horizon – the picture the ensemble builds is exquisitely balanced and blissfully hypnotic.

Andrea Keller stretches jazz into whatever she wants here – as a composer, musician and visionary, she always has. Using many of the most noble aspects of modern jazz – its curiosity, freedom and genre-inclusive nature – Keller enriches and expands the form. It is always a thrill to see where she goes next.

Five° Below Live is available from https://andreakeller.bandcamp.com

Andrea Keller’s website is at https://andreakeller.bandcamp.com

Album review: Ben Marston & Hugh Barrett/Unfound Places

For a week I have been trying to find time to write my impressions of the new Art As Catharsis release Unfound Places. What I realise I really needed was space.

Even moreso, I needed this sunny mid-Winter Sunday afternoon, with everyone out and me alone in the house. For this new music from Ben Marston and Hugh Barrett is made for the mid-Winter Sunday afternoon of the soul.

Shaped by Barrett’s acoustic and electric keys, and Marston’s trumpet and laptop manipulations/atmospheres the music is evocative of places and faces just out of reach – the haze of memory rather than the data of recollection. There is a difference and this exquisitely conjured music is its soundtrack.

Soundtrack is the lazy genre-classification Unfound Places calls to mind, only because of the quietly cinematic breadth of tracks such as ‘The Quiet Hero’ (a very Eno title in its entirely accurate vagueness) – which grows and grows imperceptibly over a slowly meshing laptop texture. The pacing of the improvisations/compositions is deftly handled by the two, as the works’ often fragile skein of notes and underlying harmonies rest like fine glass on the air.

Opener ‘The Crisp Breath of Dawn’ has Marston’s trumpet pealing ominously/joyously (the moods are shadowy) over deep textures – his tone is not stridently Morricone yet also not quite as folded-in as Jon Hassell. Eno and Hassell of course come to mind, yet only in the most positive way, taking nothing at all away from Marston’s and Barrett’s vision. 

The music is not all mist and shadows – ‘Rock the Boat’ seems to have a rhythm and bass line until you realise the keys-bass and laptop tics are just a pattern of texture, unique among the many unique textures each track is played across.

‘The Northward March’ brings to mind the Bowie (and Eno) of Low‘s ambient side – its European sorrow evoking ‘Warsawa’ and bleak history with Hassell-harmony trumpet and the trudge of block chords. Birds fly through sleet overhead. Black birds.

Too often, open-ended works such as Unfound Places push melody down below other compositional qualities – maybe because the bold statement of melody threatens to nail the music down too tight, or can pull up an emotion that is too clear-edged, and the spell is broken. Marston and Barrett don’t shy away from melody – check the blues lines on ‘Sleepyhead’, blues lines which stray into Moorish noir – in fact they use melody, across Unfound Places, to amplify and expand the emotional palette, rather than constrict it.

It is beautiful work.

 

Unfound Places is available from https://benmarston.bandcamp.com/album/unfound-places

Art As Catharsis’ website is at http://www.artascatharsis.com

 

Album review: James Macaulay/Today Will Be Another Day

I recently had the sinful pleasure of hearing traditional jazzer Geoff Bull in full flight with his energetic band, The Finer Cuts. The ribald energy of the band, especially when the horns went tutti, had that anarchic joy shout that is one of the great charms of early jazz.

Even though the aesthetic is markedly different, I hear that same anarchic shout on the second release by Melbourne trombonist/composer James Macaulay, Today Will Be Another Day. That said, maybe the shout comes from a similar place to Bull’s, as Macaulay also performs with his own traditional jazz group, The Lagerphones.

Today Will Be Another Day was recorded in Tokyo with a dream team of Melbourne and Japanese musicians. The band rumbles out of the gate on opener ‘Mashigo Jukja’ with stabbed piano from long-time Macaulay cohort Aaron Choulai leading the charge into a dense thicket of horns. The texture thins into sinewy Ornette Coleman freedom, with trumpeter Ben Harrison playing some stunning virtuoso passages. Harrison’s playing across the album is a stand-out – he pulls sounds from the horn that startle in their abrasion, vocal-like textures and imagination.

The warm shadow of dear departed drummer and guru Allan Browne continues to lie across Australian jazz and Macaulay’s beautiful reading of Browne’s ballad ‘Prednisolone’ is a touching tribute to the man. The only cover here, its arrangement is build from the heart up and deeply affecting. 

The rhythm section of ex-pat drummer Joe Talia and Melbournian Marty Holoubek on bass are a delight throughout – at times they kick it, perfectly interlocked on the groove, as on spicy tango ‘Chicken Liver’ (Scott McConnachie‘s alto a knockout here); on other tracks they play almost entirely free or in complex dislocated rhythmic counterpoint. Holoubek’s extended solo on vehicle ‘Freedom Jazz Girls’ is mesmerising.

‘Freedom Jazz Girls’ also features the bass koto of Miyama McQueen-Tokita. The instrument’s exotically evocative voice gives the polytonal ‘Square Dance’ a feeling of, oddly enough, rural blues guitar – its slides and moans mirrored in Macaulay’s exceptional slipping-and-sliding trombone solo.

The two chorales here both have a pang of nostalgia (that bittersweet sister of homesickness). ‘Tokyo’ is rain-soft and impressionistic, Choulai’s piano perfect in its wistfulness. Album closer ‘Spring Chorale’ – a collaboration with singer Lisa Salvo – has the added emotional lift of three part vocals. It leaves you on a cloud.

The title track, ‘Today Will Be Another Day’ (named not for a Zen Buddhist aphorism but taken from a mysterious T-shirt slogan) encapsulates all that is good about James Macaulay’s playing, writing and musical vision. Over its 12 minutes it moves from Ellingtonian dissonant blues (and aubergine blacks and moody indigos) through various tempos and feels; all built around two duos – one of alto sax and bass koto, the other of trumpet and piano. Its cohesion reflects the intelligent cohesion of its parent album.

And that anarchic joy shout, while not always jumping out, is definitely always grinning in the background.

 

Today Will Be Another Day is available from Earshift Music  https://www.earshift.com

James Macaulay’s website is at http://www.jamesmacaulay.com.au