Alex Boneham and Mark Lockett

Drummer led bands have never been commonplace and drummer led trio’s even less so.  Just because the leader is a drummer does not mean any more or less than it would if the leader was a bass player or a saxophonist.  A leader is there to impart a creative vision and this trio rose to the task.

On Wednesday the 4th of July the Rattle Records/ ‘Sneaking Out After Midnight’ launch tour arrived at the CJC in Auckland.   The prior and subsequent tweets or Facebook posts have pointed to the success of the gigs, which have been well received throughout New Zealand.  To read my earlier review see below ‘Mark Lockett – Sneaking Out After Midnight’ from this blog site.

Alex Boneham

The band that toured New Zealand may not have featured New Yorker’s, Joel Frahm (sax) or Orlando Le Fleming (bass) but we did extremely well with their replacements.  Mark had wryly commented that the former were unable to tour ‘for tax reasons’.    The Australian Alex Boneham replaced Orlando Le Fleming and his work is already well-known to the Auckland Jazz community.    Alex has previously toured here with the Steve Barry trio and I doubt that any of us will ever forget the telepathic interplay between Steve Barry (piano), Alex Boneham (bass) and Tim Firth (drums).   This is an in-demand bass player who recently won the ‘Best young Australian musician of the year award’.  He is both attentive and inventive and what you get is skillful interplay and adventurous improvisation.

The third trio member was Australian alto player Julian Wilson, who has worked with Mark Lockett for many years.   He acquitted himself well.

Julien Wilson

What particularly struck me was just how musical Mark’s drumming was and when he and Alex fell into lockstep it was riveting.   To purchase copy of ‘Sneaking Out After Midnight’ contact Rattle Records Ltd  (link).

I have streamed one track from the album titled ‘Mr Pickles’.  Mr Pickles is the story of Mark Lockett’s cat and an unfortunate neighbour – a hapless man who thought that he could outsmart a cat.   Being a great respecter of cats and their place in the Jazz story I could not help but include this.  This is as good a cat story as you will hear.

Related articles

• Mark Lockett – ‘Sneaking Out After Midnight’ (jon4jaz.wordpress.com)