Month: May 2011

Cowbop vrs Warrington

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The Masonic Tavern in Devonport overlooks the Waitemata Harbour in Auckland and the view from there is always easy on the eye.  Last night it was also easy on the ear; in fact as the evening progressed the music developed a distinctly Western drawl.   On Friday night the Tavern hosted two Jazz groups from the USA; the Tom Warrington Trio and the Bruce Forman CowBop band.  These bands exemplified Jazz-infused Americana from differing prospectives and in that variance lay a world of fun.

It is always a pleasure to see the Warrington Band in town and I always seek them out when they pass through (this is their 4th trip to New Zealand as a trio – Tom Warrington, Larry Koonse, Joe La Barbera).  As soon I arrived I spotted Larry the trio’s guitarist (an old friend) and we were able to spend a good few hours catching up and laughing at the outrageous humour of the CowBop quintet (who played the second set).

The Warrington trio opened their set with one of my favourite tunes ‘you must believe in Spring’ by Michelle Legrand’.  For a guitar trio (minus piano) to do justice to this type of highly melodic tune they must keep out of each others way while the guitar and bass execute the right voicings and establish the melody line (implied or otherwise).  This is what good jazz bands do and this band is extremely good.   Joe laid down a solid beat and his brush work is equal to the best in the business.  We heard Evan’s tunes and originals from the ‘Back Nine’ album and it was never less than swinging, intelligent, well executed  music.  All of these guys are stars in their own right having worked alongside the greats of Jazz and their intuitive feel for getting the best out of the music was communicated to their audience.

Like all Jazz fans I could not resist asking Larry later about the various people he has recently worked with and he singled out Alan Broadbent as someone he just loved working with. I hopefully suggested that they should think about recording a duo or quartet album together.  My one regret was not asking Joe about the Pieranunzi/Philip Catherine date – next time.

When F. Scott Fitzgerald said that there were no second acts in American life he had not foreseen the second act on Friday night.  This was cheeky, sassy, swinging, bop-infused countrified music and against all odds it was seriously hip.  American life was re-branded that night and as we witnessed it in disbelief, we participated in the fun.  Bruce Forman is a Jazz legend, as he has been a fixture on the Jazz circuit for three decades now.  Like Larry he has also been at the forefront of Jazz education and has accompanied some of the musics icons.   Bruce is a natural comedian and he really pushed the envelope with his in-your-face CowBop humour.  It is hard to describe adequately in words, as the context was everything, but suffice to say it worked.   There were musical jokes of the highest order and some home grown corn; both delivered from under a stetson hat with a twinkling eye.  The CowBop bands treatment Besame Mucho sat somewhere between ‘Cheech & Chong‘ and ‘Diana Krall‘ and I loved it.    As Bruce said when he began the set:  ‘If you try this music at home I urge you to do so responsibly’.  Packs containing the bands CD ‘Too Hick for the Room‘ were supplied with a bottle-opener connected to a memory-stick – pre loaded ready for illegal downloads.  The sly BeBop quotes were everywhere and they slid in between the cow-licks with ease.   Bruce added as I was leaving “The good thing is, if you hate this music you just give it to your enemies“.

This was a great night out and the intimate setting added to the enjoyment – thanks to Roger Fox for bringing them.

                      CowBop drummer

Random “retweets’ from the jazz planet

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Herbie Hancock Quartet at the Round House, Camden

Image via Wikipedia

This post contains a few reminders of concerts and some feeds from ‘Twitter‘ and ‘Facebook‘. Navigating all of the pitfalls when locating well known personalities on Facebook (copy-cat sites) I located the Herbie Hancock facebook page and posted a link on how much I enjoyed his concert. Soon the singer from that concert Kristina Train posted – and along with her comments came photos of the Auckland Skytower. These appeared to excite people from all round the globe who guessed that the tower was in Russia or else Malaysia. Now two weeks later Herbie has posted a comprehensive itinerary, photos and a thanks message; the ‘likes’ and ‘comments’ posts from 30 or 40 countries show that this has been a huge tour for his band. This sort of interaction on ‘Facebook’ and ‘twitter’ connects me to the wider ‘Jazzosphere’ and I like it.

From my son in SF: ‘Can’t wait for the Jazz hall to be completed and of course the Fillmore which is legendary! How had I not realized that it is here?
We stumbled upon the historic area today once famous for being the home of the Beat generation; much of what Kerouac writes about in the Dharma Bums is centered here. It’s maintained some of its original flavor—much like Haight-Ashbury has with the Hippy movement—though more as a shrine. I’m with Hunter S. Thompson on this one:‘

“… and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back”.

From Twitter: Passion 4 Jazz – “singing#Jazz is chiefly a matter of developing a stoical disregard for decent food, decent lodgings & a decent home” Barry Ulanov

From Twitter feed; MusicLtdRu – “Marty Paich – Jazz West Coast 1959 – recent issue – twitter link j.mp/kvltb3.”      The joy of a fresh Marty Paich album – bless Twitter (jonjaz)

Remember tomorrow (Friday 27th) it is the Devonport Gig – Tom, Joe, Larry & Bruce (see earlier post)     Next week on the 1st at the Bruce Mason centre – Alan Broadbent – Roger Fox band.

San Francisco and Kiwi connections

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My son and daughter in law have just moved to San Francisco and the goodbyes have been hard.    I watched them go through the departure gate with very mixed emotions – pride at what they had achieved and the inevitable sadness of a loving parent waving goodbye (my son is the CTO and co-founder of an IT company expanding into America).     He reminded me that Darien and I would have two good excuses to visit them as often as we could – family reunification and world-class Jazz.

He is right because San Francisco is one of the worlds great Jazz cities.   The city is at present building one of the worlds biggest dedicated Jazz centres.    It will be the first such centre in America totally dedicated to Jazz performance and education and it is expected to become a world-wide tourist attraction.    San Francisco is the home of the SF Jazz Collective and this amazing group is formed around Jazz Festival time each year.  They feature the compositions of one artist each year and to augment the already stellar lineup they invite a few top rated Jazz musicians to fill the guest spots.   This year they feature the music of Stevie Wonder – whose music is increasingly attaining Jazz standard status.   The bass player is Aucklander Matt Penman; who went through the Auckland School of music a few years earlier than my son.   Matt now plays at the top levels of Jazz and he tours America (and the world) with Jazz super-groups.   He is a core member of the SF Jazz Collective.    I have posted a link for this years San Francisco Jazz Festival which starts this week.    I would certainly pay good money to see the Eliane Elias quartet and that is on tomorrow night.    There are a number of free concerts and many headline acts (seeing hip-chic Ricky Lee Jones would be cool – remember her – married to Tom Waits once).     The big item will inevitably be the SF Jazz Collective though.    I will post a link to their site – so that you listen to a SFJC clip – Stevie Wonders ‘suspicion’.

This city is the home of the famous ‘Yoshi’s’ Jazz club and the Fillmore East (Miles and our own Mike Nock entertained huge audiences of hippies there).    There is a great Festival in mid summer which is in the Bay area – the ‘Fillmore Jazz Festival’.  This is a free festival dedicated to jazz and food and it occurs around the weekend of the 4th July.     I hope to keep you posted on these events as I will be attending vicariously – I have just appointed my son as a forward scout – ‘our man in SF’.

Local Jazz: Gigs Auckland & nostalgia

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When I was a teenager there were some cool Jazz clubs and quite a few good Jazz gigs around this town. That was a long time ago and as the 60’s advanced the clubs either vanished or quietly morphed into popular music venues. Everybody has to earn a living and rock audiences were more likely to feed a club owners family than Jazz audiences. 1960’s Auckland produced its share of good musicians like pianist Alan Broadbent, vibes player Lachie Jamierson, trumpet player Kim Paterson and many others, but when the venues disappeared, the better musicians either dropped out of sight (and got a ‘real’ job) or moved to bigger cities overseas where Jazz still thrived. There was a long period when it was difficult to find live Jazz in Auckland and the fault was certainly not with the musicians – it was with the audiences. Visiting artists sated jazz fans appetites to a point, but it could be a very long time between drinks. An enterprising group of locals ( John Good, Frank Collins and others), banded together and organised a NZ tour by (USA) West Coast pianist Pete Jolly and bassist Ralph Pena. These were high risk enterprises and in those days the flights from LA or New York were arduous. It was a long way to come for small financial return and these were essentially labours of love (and often acts of generosity by the musicians). As the 60’s and 70’s passed local musicians such as Phil Broadhurst, Frank Gibson, Julie Mason, Edwina Thorne and Murray McNabb stayed the course; playing in whatever venues became available.

Any Jazz fan who has gone down a darkly lit side street, found the neon sign, descended the winding staircase and suddenly been overwhelmed by the atmosphere and sounds of an intimate jazz club will never forget it. These dimly lit, warm toned jazz bars are the stuff of legends and happily they still exist (minus the smoke). In New York, Paris, Rome, London, Barcelona, Montreal, Melbourne and Sydney they have not only survived but are an integral part of the city brand. New York would somehow be diminished if there was no ‘Birdland’, ‘Blue Note’, ‘Village Vanguard‘ or ‘Smalls’ (plus the many dozens of others).

Auckland has a few venues where live Jazz can be experienced and I am going to add more links to those venues as I find them (in the side bar of the blog-‘gigs guide’). A recent addition to the Auckland club scene has been the ‘1885 club‘ in Brittamart Street downtown. There are also regular gigs at the Masonic Hotel Devonport (Roger Fox) – sign up to ‘Event Finder‘ or ‘NZ Gigs Guide‘ for up-to-date information. We were upset to lose the upstairs ‘London Bar’ and the Auckland ‘Jazz & Blues Club’ has had to move after a long tenure at the Herne Bay Tavern. They now meet weekly at the Point Chevalier RSA -1136 Great North Road, Pt Chevalier, Auckland. Another place where great gigs can occur is the Auckland Massey Campus (under the auspices of the ‘School of Jazz Studies’). There are also groups of individuals who meet regularly to play jazz, talk about jazz and tell Jazz stories over a glass of wine. FOJ (Friends of Jazz) has been one such institution) and the newly formed ‘The Jazz Loft‘ is another. To find out about the latter email me on jonjaz@ihug.co.nz. Lastly there are Jazz Pub gigs and while some are regular events many are quite sporadic – follow ‘Event Finder‘ for these.

I have included a clip of local Jazz saxophonist Roger Manins playing at a pub gig.   My plea is that Jazz lovers support these local artists and clubs – its use them or lose them.

Italian Style

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In an already crowded field of great contemporary Jazz pianists, the Italian Enrico Pieranunzi is a stand out. He is regarded as one of the best Jazz pianists in Europe (and beyond) and his career has been on a steady upwards trajectory for decades. American and UK reviewers have mentioned him in the same breath as Evans and Jarrett, but his stylistic range probably encompasses a broader scope than either of the above. He is an adventurous musician who will frequently take himself outside of his comfort zone and then return effortlessly to the achingly beautiful melodic tunes that are his mainstay.  His long-standing trio with Marc Johnson (bass) and Joey Baron (drums) is well-known, but a number of other trio, duo and quartet configurations work equally well.  Like many great musicians he has an uncanny knack for locating top quality sidemen and he gives them ample room to breathe on their own. While I love his trio work with Baron and Johnson – who wouldn’t like those two – my personal favourite is the ‘Live in Paris’ trio. That all European trio comprises of Andre Ceccarelli (drums) and Hein Van de Geyn (bass); who are simply astonishing on this recording. The three work as if with one mind as they stretch time and rework standards and Pieranunzi tunes in ways that defy belief.

When Pieranunzi first became known outside of Italy his playing was often described as Evans influenced and at the time that seemed a fair assessment. After listening to his considerable discography I am not so sure, as some of his early work gives a nod to McCoy Tyner and even Hancock.  There is little of Evans in his early recordings with Chet Baker or Art Farmer and by the time he had recorded his first album with Charlie Haden he was uniquely Pieranunzi.  His energy and innovation seem boundless and for the last decade and a half he has been recording in a variety of settings.   His recent ‘Domenico Scarlatti‘ album is a case in point.   He plays the baroque master with fluency and yet with a subtle improvisational edge.    He manages to make the rendition sound both ultra modern and yet true to the traditional improvisational mores of the day.  Only a very skilled Jazz musician could pull this off so well.

If I were to recommend albums I would have to start with the magnificent double album ‘Live in Paris’ (Pieranunzi, Hein Van de Geyn, Andre Ceccarelli) – Challenge label.   Also the double album ‘Live in Japan‘ or ‘Ballads‘ (Pieranunzi, Marc Johnson, Joey Baron) – Camjazz.  Other gems are his recent duo album with Marc Johnson and ‘Alone Together’ , a quartet with the stellar line up of Philip Catherine (g), Hein Van de Geyn (b) Joe La Barbera (d) – Challenge.   Two recent albums where he is not the leader are also well worth the effort; ‘Oslo‘ with Terje Gewelt, Anders Kjellberg – Resonant Music and ‘The Kingdom (where nobody dies)‘ Mads Vinding (b), Alex Riel (d).  They can be purchased on iTunes for around $18 each if you are impatient to own copies.  Amazon also holds a good range of Pieranunzi albums but when they occasionally run out of stock the second-hand albums often fetch huge prices until a reprinting of new stock occurs.  These are popular albums.

Larry, Joe, Bruce & Tom – found.

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I just found this notice on the Auckland Event Finder web-site.     A double billing starring the Tom Warrington trio (Tom Warrington, Larry Koonse, Joe La Barbera) and Bruce Forman who have all been to New Zealand before.    Larry and Tom feature together on the earlier clip I posted from the ‘Bruce Wyble’ tribute concert in LA.

Masonic Hotel – 29 King Edward Parade – Devonport  – 27th May 2011 – 7 pm – 11:30 pm

– Door charge   Adult: $25.00 – Student: $15.00

‘The ultimate double bill.

Direct from the USA – The Tom Warrington Trio. Featuring Tom Warrington – bass, Joe LaBarbera – drums and Larry Koonse – guitar. These three have performed with some of the biggest names in jazz. Buddy Rich, Woody Herman, Freddie Hubbard, Tony Bennett, Bill Evans, Cleo Lane to name but a few.

Bruce Forman – Pinto Pammy and Cowbop 
“It’s hot, jazzy and has a drawl!” –San Francisco Chronicle 
Mix swingin’ grooves, thrilling riffs, sweet and hot vocals, acoustic western sensibilities and tons of fun and you have only begun to describe Cowbop. Formed in 2003 by internationally acclaimed jazz guitarist Bruce Forman, the cowboy jazz and western bebop band has toured extensively throughout the world, exciting audiences with their unique and infectious brand of music. The band’s collective experience crosses the spectrum of American music, from the hottest jazz and the coolest swing to the fiercest bluegrass and most down-home honky-tonk.

Comfortable in diverse settings, from Carnegie Hall to roadside taverns, the band always hits the stage with an electrifying and entertaining assortment of music and frolic. Along with Bruce Forman on guitar, the band features PintoPammy on vocals, whose talent and the experiences range from big band swing, old-time country and musical theatre, and fiddlin’ Phil Salazar, who lights up the stage with his world-renown swing, Americana, bluegrass and jazz stylings. Put that on top of a rhythm section of Alex King, bass, and Jake Reed, drums, that are as swingin’ and rockin’ as rodeo bronc, but as sure-footed as a prized pack mule and you get Cowbop.’

That will be three concerts in a fortnight featuring international artists.    We are certainly being spoilt this year, but I for one have no complaints at all.


Below is clip from the LA Jazz Collective featuring Larry Koonse, Gary Foster, Putter Smith. This is ensemble playing that would have made Lennie Tristano proud.

Alan Broadbent & Roger Fox; Bruce Mason Theatre

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It has just been announced that NZ  born pianist Alan Broadbent is coming back to perform in Auckland with the Roger Fox Big Band.   The concert is billed as a Jazz Gala – Concert for Christchurch: 8 p m – June 1st  2011.   That is good news for Auckland’s Jazz community because Alan’s mix of perfectly executed standards and his story-telling between numbers makes for a great listening experience (who knew of the rivalry between Vernon Duke and Stravinsky?).   Last year in the Auckland Town Hall, Alan entranced the audience with his anecdotes and his playing and I am hoping that this easy going interactive style will still be evident this time around.   He is headlined to play with the Roger Fox Big Band and several LA based musician’s.   These are Charley Davis on Trumpet and Denise Perrier vocalist.   The event is being billed as a ‘Concert for Christchurch’ and the net proceeds will be donated to Christchurch.   At $44.40 per head and less for some tickets I would hope they get a good audience.   No mention of Joe La Barbera, Larry Koonse or Tom Worrington at this concert.

What could work against the timing however is the fact that the long awaited Sonny Rollins Concert is being held in Wellington 10 days later and that may lure some Jazz loving locals away (or leave them too out of pocket to go to both concerts).

The distribution problems with Alan’s newest CD ‘LIve at Giannelli Square ‘ do not appear to have resolved themselves.    I just received my third email from Amazon telling me that the item is still unavailable and what did I want them to do?.     I have cancelled the order in the hope that Alan will bring some copies with him.