The Outsider is the latest release by acclaimed Jazz Pianist Chris Cody, and as with his previous albums, he unflinchingly holds a mirror up to life past and present. Cody has demonstrated an uncanny knack for drawing back the veil on what we wilfully overlook; colonisation, alienation, belonging and dislocation. And he does so while offering us hope and sublimely beautiful music. This album elevates his already impressive discography to new heights as he chronicles the new reality.
The title of the album is apt, for its reference to Camus and because we have all of us become outsiders to the lives we once knew. Camus, a French Algerian, wrote his famous novel in 1942 when the European peace was in tatters, the menace of fascism threatened and when the colonised were challenging the hegemony of the old world order. We are living through similar times with a pandemic isolating us, authoritarians threatening us and the postwar consensus looking shakey. We are also confronting our colonial pasts as indigenous voices speak truths.
The echoes of the world that Camus wrote about are familiar to Cody as he has lived in and performed extensively in France and the former French colonies. Although Australian, his creative milieu is the world at large. He is not only well qualified to tell this story but his skill as a composer, arranger and pianist enables him to tell it well. As the narrative unfolds a rich textural palette is utilised. The octet sounds bigger or smaller depending on the mood.
The inclusion of the Oud not only broadens the palette but it highlights Cody’s arranging skills. The Oud is a spectacular instrument with evocative brightness and because of its authoritative voice, it is mostly heard with small jazz ensembles. Here, the Oud was woven beautifully into the whole, the three horns giving pleasing contrast. North African stories have immense clarity when spoken through an Oud.
This is a great lineup, and consequently, they deliver a tight performance whether supporting the soloists or leaning into those delightful bittersweet orchestral voicings. I strongly recommend this album which can be purchased only on Bandcamp either digitally or in CD form. I would opt for the CD, as the artwork by Maya Cody is stunning. Very few album covers match the music as well as this cover does. Purchase at chriscody.bandcamp.com
JazzLocal32.com is rated as one of the 50 best Jazz Blogs in the world by Feedspot. The author is a professional member of the Jazz Journalists Association, a Judge in the 7VJC International Jazz Competition, and apoet & writer. Some of these posts appear on other sites with the author’s permission.
Mark Lockett has released his seventh album Swings & Roundabouts, arguably his finest. The project had been in gestation for a while but like many projects, it was delayed by the pandemic. Still, once the travel restrictions were lifted he headed for New York, engaged some of New York’s finest Jazz musicians and set up the session in the Samurai Hotel Recording Studio, Queens—a studio versed in the intricacies of recording jazz tracks.
Lockett may be a Wellingtonian and from Aotearoa, but he is very much a citizen of the world. He has spent his most productive years dividing his time between New York, Melbourne and his hometown, and frequently touring in between. Over recent years, he is most often caught with chordless configurations, especially saxophone, bass and drums. His drumming style is interesting and these configurations afford him more room compositionally (and as a player). He is first and foremost a storyteller, and his ability to amplify his stories benefits from this type of spaciousness.
I have often seen Lockett perform with chordless trios, but adding another horn has created interesting possibilities. He has always preferred these configurations and this is another step along the way. These are often referred to as saxophone quartets or trios but unlike Lee Konitz’s famous ‘Motion’, where the drummer kept as much in the background as possible, this is a very democratic unit where everyone shines. The compositions are all by the leader and there are unmistakable references to Ornette, and perhaps even Jerry Mulligan’s chordless quartets (Happy go Lucky). In reality, the term cordless is misleading as chords feature in the head arrangements, but above all, these compositions provide an opportunity for untethered linear improvisation.
It is hard to imagine a better unit for this project. Dave Binney on alto saxophone, whether moving with his light-as-air alacrity or gently probing at the compositions, locates the most interesting pathways forward. And as he goes, flashes across the firmament with rapid-fire lines. I love what he does here. Duane Eubanks is also well-suited to finding the essence of these interesting tunes and burnishing what he finds. A respected veteran who delivers and provides the counterweight of solidity. The unison lines and the moments where these two converge in counterpoint are immaculate. It is also, always a pleasure to hear Matt Penman and he is so consistent in what he brings to a performance that I have come to doubt that he could ever put a foot wrong. His sound is woody and rich and his lines are perfect. Above all, he lifts those around him.
And none of this would work with a mediocre or reticent drummer and Lockett is far from being either. His unusually melodic approach to the kit and his ability to react in the moment gifts his band some real meat to chew on. I have never heard him play better. If the release tour heads your way, don’t miss it, and buy the album. Swings and Roundabouts is available on all platforms and is released by Thick Records, www.thickrecords.co.nz
JazzLocal32.com is rated as one of the 50 best Jazz Blogs in the world by Feedspot. The author is a professional member of the Jazz Journalists Association, a Judge in the 7VJC International Jazz Competition, and apoet & writer. Some of these posts appear on other sites with the author’s permission.
A famous conductor of classical music once stated that a good composition would please almost everyone, but that a truly great composition should divide an audience. With improvised music, it is hopefully different, as early experimentalists like Sun Ra, Terry Riley, John Zorn, Jon Hassell and Miles opened our ears to limitless sonic possibilities. Each of them reached beyond the strictures of conventional form and brought us to new and interesting places. Julien Wilson has achieved that with his double release ‘Meditations and ‘Mutations’. These are albums for our times. Albums for deep listeners and open-minded explorers. They are an exquisite curation of sound itself.
We are living in strangely unsettling times and that is when true creatives embark on their bravest quests. In troubled times most of us reach for the comfort of the known, but true creatives reach for the unknown. This speaks to the deeper purpose of art, to find meaning amidst a world of seeming chaos. These two albums are extraordinary in every sense of the word. Here, overlooked acoustic riches are revealed incrementally and rare beauty is revealed. The forms do not appear randomly but are crafted into an unfolding narrative.
Solo saxophone albums are rare, but such open and free explorations are rarer. There is however a lineage for this and for me it began with the astonishing John Surmon. Surmon’s ‘The Amazing Adventures of Simon Simon’ set a very high bar and few have dared to follow. While there is a similarity, Wilson brings fresh ideas and an enhanced sense of spaciousness to the equation. He also utilises effects as he sculpts the sound. On both albums, his primary horn is the tenor saxophone (on Meditations he also plays soprano and on Mutations a Bb clarinet and alto saxophone). To achieve such depth and orchestral breadth with horns is astonishing.
And more so, when you consider that the cuts were recorded in one take (without overdubs); working with and capturing the acoustics at hand. The saxophones and human breath may be the originators of the sounds, but it is Wilson’s imagination and deft manipulation of the devices at his disposal that make this project something special.
Wilson’s influences are either close to home or beyond the confines of our ephemeral world. He reflects on what he has experienced, on the wonders of the cosmos and on who has inspired him. While on ‘Meditations’ he pays tribute to the lamented saxophonist Mark Simmonds, on’ Mutations’ it is to James Webb and the subsequent cosmic revelations. To the latter album, he has added Bb clarinet and alto saxophone as contrasting voices. On Mutations, Wilson evokes a rawness and an honesty that is entirely fitting when confronting the immensity of the beyond. It is on Mutations that the albums are at their most experimental and where listeners truly experience the unknown. I love both and for different reasons but they belong together and both are indispensable. Especially so for those who consider themselves engaged and open-eared.
The albums were recorded in Melbourne during the first lockdown and are available from Lionsharerecords in vinyl, CD and in Hi Fidelity digital formats including 24bit/96kHz. All of the above are available through julienwilson.bandcamp.com If you search for Wilson on Spotify you won’t find him, he is opposed to the exploitation of those mega streamers – like Wilson I implore you to support Bandcamp. To date, the platform has returned well over a billion dollars to the content creators which is where the money rightfully belongs.
JazzLocal32.com is rated as one of the 50 best Jazz Blogs in the world by Feedspot. The author is a professional member of the Jazz Journalists Association, a Judge in the 7VJC International Jazz Competition, and apoet & writer. Some of these posts appear on other sites with the author’s permission.
Since emerging from the shadows in the 50s, the Jazz guitar has become one of the most popular instruments with Jazz audiences. And, despite the plethora of styles appearing since then, most modern jazz guitarists defy stylistic pigeonholing. ‘Modern Ideal’ by Brisbane’s Tyler Cooney is a case in point as it is forward-looking and yet the richness of the lineage is evident as you listen. Since its release a few short months ago the album has received critical acclaim and that is not surprising. If you love jazz guitar you need to check it out.
This is an album with pleasing contrasts and moods. The title tune ‘Modern Ideal’ with its embracing warmth is gorgeous. The harmonic invention is resonant as the guitarist digs into the tune; with a melodic clarity arising out of his well-executed voice leading progressions followed by a tasteful solo, carrying with it the essence of what has gone before. This voice-leading approach is even more evident in ‘Country Sumthin’. Here we find the echoes and swing of Jazz Americana at its best, and we are left wondering if the past ever sounded quite this good.
My favourite track is ‘Wood Glue. This is where the lineage is most evident but the joy is most apparent. This has the trio blowing hard and killing it as they blaze in the moment. The album is beautifully recorded, but it is the quality of the compositions, the guitar wizardry and the interplay that make this such a fine album. It is so well realised that it is hard to believe that this is a young guitarist’s first release. What is not hard to imagine is that great things lie ahead for Cooney.
Tyler Cooney plays the guitar, on the bass is Nick Quigley and on drums is the 2012 Australian National Jazz Award-winning Tim Firth (Firth has a solid following in New Zealand after he toured with Steve Barry over a decade ago). To purchase Modern Ideal go to tylercooney.bandcamp.com
JazzLocal32.com is rated as one of the 50 best Jazz Blogs in the world by Feedspot. The author is a professional member of the Jazz Journalists Association, a Judge in the 7VJC International Jazz Competition, and apoet & writer.Some of these posts appear on other sites with the author’s permission.
This interview took place while jazz trumpeter Dave Lisik was in London on study leave. It had been teed up for some time but our plans were interrupted by the chaos that trailed on the heels of Covid. Dave has many strings to bow and not least his role as Senior Lecturer, Coordinator of Jazz composition at the School of Music, Victoria University, Wellington. Among his disciplines, are teaching Jazz pedagogy, composition, theory and arranging. Born in Canada and completing his higher education in various US Universities, he arrived in New Zealand in 2010 and he has remained here ever since, involving himself in a variety of important musical projects.
On a personal note, there has been a long gap between posts and I appreciate the continued support and blog views during my absence. In July, I contracted a bad case of Covid, which has unfortunately been followed by debilitating Long Covid. I will endeavour to keep writing, my brain allowing, and I have reviews and interviews waiting in the wings. I can not attend live gigs at present, but I have access to various gig sound recordings and lots of review copies of new albums. Again, thanks to those who follow JL32. I appreciate you all. Improvised music is too good not to share.
JL32 Thanks for giving me your time Dave:
I am interested in the teaching connections between Canada and NZ. You, Ron Samsom, and Keith Price, all teaching Jazz studies at New Zealand Universities. A Canadian occupation seems to be occurring.
DL Ha, yeah, Keith is from the same province I’m from and we were friends on FB. He saw the advertisement for Auckland University which I’d posted on my Facebook page. So in that case it was not random.
JL32 Your bio says that your musical education began in the Canadian Education system and I gather that certain places in Canada have an enlightened musical education curriculum.
DL Manitoba, the province where I’m from, has a really strong focus on music education. It was the first place in the world to have a government-sanctioned Jazz curriculum. So pretty much every high school and junior high school had a Jazz band and a jazz curriculum to follow, so I wouldn’t be doing anything that I’m doing now if it wasn’t for that system in place. A lot of people do what they do because they had parents, siblings or a relative exposing them to that, but it wasn’t my experience. My interest in Jazz arose out of the jazz curriculum.
JL32 What was your first instrument?
DL The organ, I took organ lessons from second grade and sixth grade. What we don’t see in New Zealand is elementary-school music. My experience was that in Kindergarten (year one here) we had a forty-minute music class which happened four times in a six-day cycle. So four classes a week from the first day at school. So when ‘band’ starts, everyone knows the basics of theory and practice.
JL32 Learning music is essential no matter what field you’re going into. It gives you life skills, right?
DL Music should be taught more than it is in NZ. I have two daughters and that is a concern, but in my case, what they don’t get in the system, I can supplement.
JL32 In Europe, an appreciation of the creative arts is so embedded in the culture that it is not even a topic of debate. Do you see gradual change happening here?
DL So, we’re running traditional university music programmes throughout the country but we don’t have that (early learning) foundational strength and we are drawing on a smaller base. I do have reason to be hopeful though. I have noticed a considerable uptick in the abilities of university-level students in the thirteen years that I have been here.
It often feels fragile though, as if it could disappear. Rodger Fox and I have been running the New Zealand Youth Jazz Orchestra for eleven years now but covid meant that we couldn’t run it during the last two years. You build things and it can be sort of precarious unless legislation is in place. Receiving quality students in an intake can depend on having a good teacher in a particular high school and unfortunately, those teachers come and go.
JL32 It has been that way in Auckland as well. A few exceptional secondary school teachers bring on some amazing musicians, and then they leave.
DL I have adjudicated the KBB Music festival for a couple of years and there are like 750 Jazz kids at that festival and 43 Big Bands which means that there are enough people interested in Jazz to proceed from there. If we could get the right material to those students we could create something miraculous in no time. So the bands are there but getting quality pedagogical instruction to those teachers is important, teaching improvisation skills for instance.
JL32 What do think about hybridity because that is attractive to many Jazz students today? Maybe that has always been the case. By its very nature, I believe that jazz has always been open to other influences and forms.
DL I have some students looking into this right now, but some stupid arguments rage on Facebook. You know, ‘what is Jazz’ arguments?
JL32 Yeah, tell me about it, who fucking cares as long as it’s good music informed by Jazz right? There are some notable examples of Jazz students doing very well in the indie-pop or mainstream music world. The tag is less important among younger players. The French group Aquaserge do not tag themselves as Jazz at all, but when you listen it is all there in the harmonies, textured dissonant horn lines with bass clarinet etc,
DL When Jazz trained people play other types of music, I’m thinking the Marsalis Brothers, Chris Potter, Donny McCaslin etc. They bring jazz to a classical or hip-hop project because it is part of them. It might be playing a classical piece slower, whatever.
JL32 Mehldau interpreting Bach, or Jarrett.
DL When someone at the highest level, trained in the Jazz discipline, does something like that, I am endlessly fascinated by it. I think, what can a brain like Brad Mehldau’s bring to bear here? As a composition teacher I look to see if it’s interesting and in the end, that’s all that matters. Every new note and every choice is a chance to be as interesting as possible. Everything else is a tool to that end.
JL32 Any further examples?
DL The best musicians I’ve had the opportunity to record with are New York musicians and most of them are very capable of undertaking projects that are very jazz adjacent, like Seamus Blake and Alex Sipiagin. They do not get enough credit for the capability they possess to play music outside of the genre norms. A restricted view some have.
JL32 In classical, Glen Gould!
DL He was an absolute genius, a Canadian.
JL32 I didn’t know that he came from Canada.
DL Yes, a brilliant and strange dude. Stylistically and in mentality, he was not a Keith Jarrett, but you could almost imagine he could have been with the right influence. Keith Jarrett is one of my absolute favourites and although it’s an overused term, if anyone could be called a genius it is Jarrett. I can listen to that trio for hours at a time, my concentration, unbroken. He didn’t invent the format and plays standards but in an endlessly captivating way. They don’t have to do the expected, it just draws you in.
JL32 And the Sun Bear concerts cut deep.
DL That’s a big box set for sure. I saw him do a solo concert in the Chicago Symphony Hall just before I came to New Zealand and I would have travelled anywhere in America to hear him. People say, what’s your favourite Jarrett but it’s difficult to choose, it’s the body of work.
JL32 Some Jarrett lovers ignore the work he did with Dewey Redman and Charlie Haden and I think, why would you do that? As you say, it’s a body of work. So to get back to your musical journey, it looks like you then headed south, over the border.
DL Yeah I headed just over the border, first to North Dakota. I did my undergraduate studies there and then I completed my masters in Iowa, again south, but not too far from Canada. Then I taught high school for a few years in Canada before heading to Memphis in 2003 to do my doctorate around that time. Post 9/11, I thought, what is it that I wanted to do? It was to write more music, study more and play more trumpet and Memphis was fantastic for that. I was very lucky as I got to study for my master’s and doctorate for free.
JL32 You weren’t tempted by ‘McGill’ in Montreal which has a strong focus on trumpet?
DL I did think about it seriously. I was probably a couple of steps below where I needed to be to deal with McGill as an undergrad. Now, I think about what it would take for my students here in NZ to take that giant leap and consider a McGill or New York. Those seemed pretty insurmountable concepts when I was 17yrs old. I was winning awards at school festivals but there was still a gap to get me to that next level. That was the gap and that is always the gap in Jazz. It goes back to what you learn in a school orchestra, say playing the violin. If you can read music and play then you begin to imagine that you could do that in university. It’s the same deal.
With a Jazz band, there is this whole other dynamic, being able to play solos and improvising, and if you don’t have that, doing a jazz major may not be on your radar. That’s one of the overlooked components in teaching Jazz at high school. It’s not that you are producing great improvisers, but setting them on that path. A city like Auckland is big enough and vibrant enough to have a vibrant high school jazz scene, involving serious tax dollars to get there, but it’s doable. But I am one step removed from solving that problem, I don’t live there.
JL32 It’s dependent in Auckland, or New Zealand, on being lucky enough to find yourself with a gifted music teacher, one who grasps that (we discuss a few examples of gifted music teachers).
DL Almost everyone in the Jazz world has had the same experience, that they had a great music teacher. And those people inspire, some of their pupils then realise the importance of becoming Jazz teachers and they say, I could be that person. But not many New Zealand Jazz students can imagine themselves as being the Jazz teachers of their younger selves.
JL32 A similar country the size of New Zealand is Norway and they are producing so many great improvisers and probably underpinning that will be lots of great teachers. And they have shown innovation.
DL Some places are more comfortable with a wider variety of improvised forms for sure. Following the more traditional path though. I am a bit cautious about what I advise students to do, a bit more traditionalist I guess. I had a student Henry Sherris, one of the more gifted students to come out of the high school programme. He plays on the recent CD that we released. He didn’t have a strong high school band to participate in, but I taught him trumpet privately for six years. He got a scholarship to the ‘Manhattan School of Music and he’s in his second year there. He left in the middle of 2020 with covid happening. He had a suitcase full of masks and just decided to do it. It was brave. I was very comfortable with where he was at and he has Scott Wendholt as a teacher in the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra.
So I can simultaneously be impressed with the variety of musical forms on offer (and teach more traditionally) and I am against the idea of a university being solely about training for employment opportunities, but that is still a legitimate concern. It’s an evolving situation and we will see where those who take a less conventional route end up. We have had a few students who got scholarships and ended up in places like the ‘Manhattan School of Music’. And, one has ended up subbing in the ‘Vanguard Jazz Orchestra’ and you are at that level at 23 years old, then I feel comfortable seeing what happens next, but with the knowledge that we didn’t steer them in the wrong direction. If your ambition is to compete with the New York guys, you need to be able to speak the language similarly.
JL32 Do you think that there are less traditional or alternate avenues that allow students to progress to that higher level? Once upon a time, jazz musicians polished their skills on the road. Some say that you should learn the fundamentals and then put yourself in danger and learn by getting your arse kicked by better musicians. (this topic always elicits a variety of viewpoints during interviews).
DL In the classical world there are many opportunities to reach a high level of competency, but I remain unconvinced that people can achieve that high level of competence or speak the language sufficiently unless they go to a New York Jazz school or a handful of other jazz schools. To think that you can do that another way, I’m a little sceptical. But the vast majority of Jazz musicians will maybe never end up with that as their goal (competing with top NY-based musicians).
JL32 New York is certainly the acknowledged nexus, there is a New York sound, but I hear great musicians coming from places like Israel. They come to New York bringing their own thing and interacting and it rounds them. But there are other examples like Chicago, a distinctive sound but very different — a lot of free music. Groups like ‘Irreversible Entanglements’, so maybe it depends on where you think you should be heading.
DL Sure.
JL32 There are the Northern Europeans as well. Germany and the Nordic countries are centres for Jazz innovation. And the UK is often underestimated and I’m hearing some astonishing stuff from there.
DL Oh yeah, My record label SkyDeck just released an album for a young guy who is going to do his master’s at the Royal Academy in London. He’s an alto saxophone player, a pretty interesting young player, an ad-hoc session that they recorded in France, but he’s a Londoner. Yeah, I agree, I’m going to Ronnie Scotts soon because the Mingus Dynasty will be there from New York. Some of the guys with who I did a recording session in December will be there, Alex Sipiagin who I work with a lot, Conrad Herwig and maybe Seamus Blake. I’ve done several recordings using the Mingus Dynasty rhythm section. The recording of Ryan’s that I did in December was probably three-quarters of the ‘Mingus Big Band,’
it will be cool to see Alex again. He and I have done about fifteen CDs since he first came out, but not in person since covid.
JL32 I love Ronnies. It is like the Village Vanguard, it defies conventional wisdom regarding layout etc, your knees are under your chin, and you recall Ronnie joking endlessly about the food, but it has history and magic. Sonny Rollins is said to have locked himself in there one night and composed the Alfy music there as he said the wall oozed the spirit of those who played there.
DL I will be heading there in a day or so.
There is no clear career path in Jazz like being a doctor, where you study, graduate and get a job at the end of it. It’s more like putting together the pieces of a big puzzle and hoping that when an opportunity arises, you will have done the preparation and will know how to reach out and take it. And every student will have a different idea. Some will do exactly what you say and some will do nothing that you say. Some will come up with stuff you’ve never thought of, some will not go into music and some will, and that’s OK. It is really about preparing students for opportunities.
JL32 Looking through your discography and projects is interesting to see the variety. I detect a direction of travel although there is diversity. I was drawn to the work you did with Richard Nunns and the Canadian pianist Amy Rempel.
DL I arrived in New Zealand in 2010 and recorded that in the first couple of years. And other Rattle releases followed 15 or 16 CDs in one year.
JL32 Oh wow I hadn’t realised it was that many.
DL Rattle had been around for 20yrs at that point and we doubled the catalogue in 1 year. In all 40 releases
JL32 Because you have these strong relationships with well-known trumpeters like Tim Hagens and Alex Sipiagin, you might be leaning more towards writing, arranging and producing.
DL Yeah, I am doing many things at once and also having a young family influences what I do. And to top it off I broke both of my arms last year and I now have a plate in my elbow and a titanium plate in my wrist.
JL32 That’s right, I recall seeing some gruesome FB pics.
DL That made it hard to keep up the necessary practice required for the trumpet. My ability to play is fine but it was the time spent in a cast. The loss of 7 weeks can leave you with a lot of work to catch up on. I’m in London now on research leave so my plan when I get back, is to work on that. But I have some quintet projects coming up where I am the principal trumpeter. I am flexible, on certain projects when with Alex Sipiagin for example, who is one of the best trumpeters alive, I would rather listen to him than me (laughs).
The project that just came out with the ‘Endeavour Jazz Orchestra’ is something that I have put together specifically for New Zealand composers. Essentially for people who have been my master’s and doctoral students. A few projects are coming up that I will arrange, but these projects are about them, the students I taught. It is part of my contribution as a teacher, to teach them composition skills and to help them to document their work.
That project was Ryans’ (Ryan Brake) but the next one will celebrate Thad Jones’s 100th birthday. We will use some Thad Jones charts, which are fun to play, but with some peripheral projects that we will hopefully bring some attention to bear.
JL32 With the Thad Jones charts, will you keep the original orchestration or re-orchestrate to suit a particular lineup that you have in mind?
DL We will do what the Europeans do when playing such material. Not slavishly trying to sound like the Mel Lewis or Thad recordings but following the tradition. It will be a fun project and it will involve a few guest artists. Our aim with the ‘Endeavor Jazz Orchestra’ is to create a nice library of releases that are maybe attractive to a broader audience.
JL32 Auckland’s AJO has a similar focus on NZ composers and arrangers, but getting the word out and finding opportunities to play is always a problem for big bands. Your focus is more on bringing on the younger players perhaps.
DL An advantage that I have is that I am supervising the students from undergrad onwards, so we are producing the music and recordings in-house. I try to ensure that the playing is on a certain level and then having a few guest artists elevates the level of the playing. We just got a 4-star review in Downbeat for the album (‘Solipsis’, SkyDeck Music). I know that there are differing views, maybe it’s a tall poppy thing, but some ask, why are you bringing in non-NZ musicians on a project promoting NZ music? I think it elevates the project and I’m into promoting the compositions of the particular artist. That is my way. And other than John Riley, the entire thing was recorded in Wellington.
Also, locals Nick Granville and Roger Manins play a couple of numbers and they are great. So we certainly don’t think that there are no worthy Jazz musicians in NZ because that would be wrong. For example, Roger (Manins) plays several great solos on that album and in fact he plays great solos on every album he is on. We already know that and Nick (Granville) is a great guitar player and he plays a lot of great written parts as well solos.
JL32 And comping can require skill too.
DL Oh yeah, the role of the guitar, perhaps more so than the piano as a comping instrument, brings so much variety than what is on the written page. With the greatest players, it’s being appropriate for the moment and being able to respond quickly and sensitively. Like John Escreet, the piano player who played on a CD I did with Chris Potter and Alex Sipiagin a few years ago. He is British and I had not played with him before. What he adds to this album every second that he is playing makes you feel like, that’s the right choice every second of the way. On one of Alex’s albums, Chris Potter plays a ridiculous solo and later, at the mixing stage, John suggested that he transcribe it and play along on the keyboard. A week later he comes back and he lays down this technically difficult solo in one take. There is a video of it. So on the album, Chris Potter and John Escreet are playing this ridiculous solo in unison.
JL32 And I see that you are about to release a ‘Porgy & Bess’ project. How is that preceding?
DL We have recorded parts of that already and Alex (Sipiagin) is going to record all of the Miles Davis parts. That will be an interesting album because there are 5 woodwind players, but only one is playing the saxophone. There is a lead alto part, but then clarinets; not really doubling, just flutes and clarinets and there are trombone parts and three french horn parts. It has been a project in the wings for a while, but it is such a beautiful piece of music. It is my favourite of the Gil Evans and Davis albums.
JL32 And it is the ultimate gift as it keeps giving and sounding fresh. I particularly love the Paulo Fresu version with the ‘Jazz Orchestra of Sardinia (featuring David Linx and transcribed from the Evans charts by Gunther Schuller) – and another version by Fresu, ‘Kind of Porgy & Bess’ with unusual instrumentation including Dhafer Yussef on Oud.
DL There will always be people like that, no matter how often you tell them about how much money they will never make. The Chris Potters and others just push past that and achieve excellence. They fall in love with the music and determinedly seek out the information. They have to have that information and there will always be people like that. The impulse has no geographical boundaries. I get requests for trumpet information from places like Kenya.
Some will succeed despite their circumstances but in musical education situations, you don’t want that. You want students to succeed because of the situation.
JL32 Tell me more about your label SkyDeck. Was there a predecessor?
DL I lived in Memphis for 7 years before I came to New Zealand and I released a few quintet CDs and a big band album on a label named Galloping Cow Music, which is still the name of my ASCAP publishing rights. Then I worked with Steve Garden after moving here (discussed earlier) and years later while I was in NY, I decided to push ahead with the Vanguard project, and other projects, many of which had some research funding; so I decided to form my label which is SkyDeck.
Many Jazz artists are taking control of their work these days. I am not collecting any money from people to release their projects, and in some cases, I am paying for distribution, but I have a good job and I can do that. For example, Umar Zakaria’s album a few years ago, Roger Manins was on it and Leo Coghini’s solo albums (JL32 reviewed both). So it’s not about the money when recording these student or former student projects, but about providing the infrastructure.
We have a nice recording setup in the student union building, which is the big band rehearsal room. There is the essential isolation booth for the drums and we can make as good a recording as anywhere else in the country. The room is pretty dry which is ideal for rehearsing and recording. Some better-known performance rooms are great for chamber music but atrocious for anything with a drum set.
JL32 The Auckland Uni Jazz school also has a good room, which was set up originally for radio orchestras, so ideal. Jazz recording certainly favours some rooms over others. I am more familiar with the old Massey room before you moved up to Victoria.
DL That room wasn’t terrible, but it had some weird steel panels on the wall that would vibrate at certain frequencies. The Rattle recording with Richard Nunns was done there and it turned out well; he was close-miked and we got good sound capture. The one I like best from that era is his ‘Ancient Astronaut Theory’ which is only him. Sometimes up to 50 layers of his instruments; just him with me composing from his sound library.
JL32 So how many albums has SkyDeck released? The Wikipedia page has a list but a few like Thad Jones and the ‘Porgy and Bess’ are still awaiting release.
DL Some are released under my name, some under the Endeavour Orchestra and then there are various artist releases, but I am involved in the post-production work like the mixing, some editing etc. And there were a few duo CDs I released, Bonnie and Clyde, Joust and Nemesis. Those have Dave Kikoski and Alex Sipiagin playing, but my compositions. Then there’s the big band project with Rodger Fox and Michael Housten which I was involved and others. I am playing the trumpet and producing on the Endeavour Orchestra CDs like ‘The Hillary Step’.
JL32 ‘Coming Through Slaughter, the Buddy Bolden album was released as The Dave Lisik Orchestra featuring Tim Hagans. That is so slick. I take it that the name derives from Michael Ondaatje’s book. Another Canadian.
DL Tim Hagans was someone I admired, but I didn’t know him. When I graduated with my doctorate in 2006 I was asked, what was I intending to do with it (the Buddy Bolden project). There were trumpet solos, and the question arose, who would play them? As it was conceived with Tim Hagens in mind, a friend Luis Bonilla, who was in the Vanguard Orchestra knew Donny McCaslin, and he knew Tim Hagans and both agreed to become involved. And suddenly I had a CD which was beyond my expectations with these guys who played at a high level.
Using ‘Coming through Slaughter’ got me into a wrangle with Ondaaje’s publicist and lawyer, but after a few terse exchanges and a cease and desist letter (which was roundly rebutted by my lawyer), the problem just evaporated. I don’t know if he even knew about it.
JL32 And how about ‘Donated by Cantor Fitzgerald’?
DL That was my 9/11 project. Cantor Fitzgerald was an investment firm which occupied the top floors of the World Trade Centre and lost a whole lot of people. It was a niche story within a bigger story. The album has Tim Hopkins and Colin Hemmingsen on it. It needs a video to go with it and I will probably do that. It is challenging to listen to, like the event. One hour three seconds, one track.
JL32 And can you tell me something about the ‘NZ Youth Jazz Orchestra’?
DL That entity is specifically a youth Jazz Orchestra for high school students. The NZ Jazz foundation has been running that since around 1981. I am the chair of that now and Roger Fox and I have been directing it since 2011. Whereas the Endeavour Jazz Orchestra is the best NZ jazz musicians, Roger Manins, Mike Booth, also, former students of the NZSM like Louisa Williamson (readers should check out her album ‘What Dreams May Come).
JL32 Yes she’s doing very well.
DL So, former pupils like Partick di Somma the bass trombone player and Leo Coghini who you know of and reviewed. Depending on the project and the guest artists involved, the personnel can change. It’s not finalised yet, but we’re hoping to do a thing on Michael Brecker. My all-time favourite musician. He imprinted himself on me at a young age.
JL32 And Randy Brecker are still doing amazing stuff too.
DL Imagine having Michael as a younger brother – there must have been a lot of respect and healthy competitiveness. Sometimes students say to me, why do we have to compare ourselves to everyone else? But I say, not everything is equal. Getting a job in a symphony orchestra is competitive. Music is a craft and if you want to be good, you have to compare yourself to other people. You have to achieve a certain mastery of craft before anyone cares what you have to say as an artist.
I can listen to Chris Potter play in any style because he has mastered his craft. Even the weirdest shit imaginable, but I’m in because I’ve bought into the brand. When I listen to a Jazz musician I can hear if they’ve done their (jazz) homework. The definition of Modern Jazz is music played by Jazz musicians who have emersed themselves in, or studied Jazz; not a particular style.
There are exceptions such as Jazz musicians playing classical music and deliberately not playing Jazz. But if they want to play some weird multi-metre fusion thing, then they bring their jazz sensibilities to that. Utilising the encyclopedia that’s in their brain. I don’t mind labels, I like labels. Some stupidly argue that we don’t know what bebop is, but we know exactly what bebop sounds like, or hard bop, postbop or swing. We know what instruments are involved, and we know what the melodic and textural content is.
JL32 Lee Konitz or Paul Bley. You need to have some context regarding their journeys and all that preceded them before they arrived at what are atypical sounds. Running over the lines, unusual elided voicings etc.
DL When I was young, it took me a while to understand Keith Jarrett and after listening to a ton of Charlie Parker I could gradually understand the lineage. And to understand Charlie Parker you need to understand Lester Young and swing. I give my students ‘The Complete Roulette Box Set’ of the Basie Band to study. Until you understand Basie you won’t understand Parker or Coltrane.
JL32 And to get Prez you need to listen to earlier players like Bean.
DL A book I helped edit a few years ago was titled ‘Body & Soul – the evolution of a tenor saxophone standard’ (recently up on YouTube). My friend Eric with whom I co-wrote the Village Vanguard Jazz Orchestra book had done a lot of transcription and the first was Coleman Hawkins ‘Body & Soul’, then Lester Young, then Dexter Gorden, Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Michael Brecker, Chris Potter – nine in all. It is a great book in terms of the history of Jazz. So through this one tune, there is a history of Jazz evolution. What Colman Hawkins was doing had not been done before, that angular approach and change running.
JL32 And notably, one of the most recorded tunes in the history of music.
DL A lot of younger people, and I was the same, don’t want to listen to older music. Perhaps partly because people like Parker never made a Hi Fidelity record. You have to look past the technology to hear what a beautiful sound he had. Louis Armstrong. I mean WW2 movies look grainy and pretty shit, but the world was not actually in black and white then, so a mature evaluation requires you to look past that.
JL32 It’s getting near wrap-up time so name those up-and-coming releases again.
DL We intend to have the Thad Jones mixed by the New Year. The mastering will be done in NY – so we aim for a release in January 2023. Covid delayed the Hillary Step project. On that master’s students wrote many of the charts. I wrote one chart, but we missed the anniversary, but next year is the 70th anniversary of Hillary’s summiting of Everest.
JL32 Anything Else?
DL There’s a John Psathas piece and a Requiem Mass coming up which a student wrote for his father.
JL32 Ok Dave, thanks for your time and commitment and I apologize if my Covid-fogged brain slowed me down. It feels like walking uphill through treacle some days.
JazzLocal32.com is rated as one of the 50 best Jazz Blogs in the world by Feedspot. The author is a professional member of the Jazz Journalists Association, poet & writer.Some of these posts appear on other sites with the author’s permission.
Dan Costa was born in London to Portuguese and Italian parents. He has lived in eight countries. I mention this, because Dan is somewhat of a troubadour, frequently travelling from country to country and always absorbing the musical influences. He listens carefully, interprets, and then takes it to a new level entirely, and this
brings something essential to his music. It is not so much a sense of place but a sense of the world at large and its limitless possibilities. Nowhere is this more evident than in his second album ‘Skyness’. Check it out on the streaming platforms, and like me, you will return again and again. It is rare to encounter music with such heart-stopping beauty.
Costa is an interesting interview subject, partly because he is so well travelled, but also because he is expansive and erudite. In fact, he speaks eight languages and judging by his English, many fluently. He is an internationalist and an environmentalist. He is also an advocate for animal rights. All of the above illustrates the point that a good musician is not just about the notes. Character and lived experience are the ‘finishing school. This is refreshing to encounter.
Costa is deeply influenced by Brazilian Jazz, but I can detect other Latin influences like Flamenco and Fado. He is a thoughtful player who makes every note count. His voicings and time feel, especially at the slower tempos, are impeccable. It is no wonder that such fulsome praise is being heaped upon him by the likes of Jazziz, Jazz Word, Jazz Weekly, Musica Brasiliero, New York Music Daily etc.
And his collaborations with the likes of Randy Brecker, Seamus Blake, Hermeto Pascoal and the wonderful Ivan Lins have crafted wonder upon wonder. He creates such open vehicles; composed and arranged so as to invite maximum participation. The musicians he has worked with are quick to say so and their praise keeps coming.
His prior recorded output has set him on an interesting journey, so his newest album ‘Beams’ will be eagerly anticipated. It is about light in its different forms. With him on ‘Beams’ his core trio, John Patitucci and Paulinho Vicente, with guests Mike Stern, Dave Douglas, Dave Liebman, Anne Bocatto, Hermeto Pascoal and Teco Cardoso. The album teaser is posted here and I can’t wait to hear the rest of it. For information on albums and tours, go to his website www.dancosta.net
JL32 Good evening Dan. Thank you for giving me a few hours out of your busy schedule. As a traveller myself, I must say that I am impressed by how much of the planet you have covered to date.
DC Hi John, nice to connect, Yes, I have lived in eight countries and travelled to around 60 as a musician or tourist, but there is still a lot to see. It is an interesting world and I hope to live in more countries and to keep travelling. One of my friends is buying a house but I am not interested in that for me. I think that you need to live in a country for at least two years. That’s how you get to know the culture. It removes the fear of the unknown when you do that.
JL32 Increases empathy and negates racism right?
DC Exactly, music is also a multinational language and one that has many dialects but it brings people together. I like to associate the sounds I hear with colours. Harmony is just colour. I am looking at the painting behind you as we speak and I am immediately thinking of the French impressionist composers.
JL32 The painting is impressionistic and is of forest and sky. I love forests, the older the better.
DC Then you should visit the Amazon. When I was living in Brazil I spent some nights in the Amazon rainforest and in fact the title of my first album ‘Suite Tres Rios’ is inspired by the meeting of two great rivers in the Amazon. These rivers meet but keep their different colours. It’s a fairly unique phenomenon and it is a bit like my parents who each kept their unique cultures intact. That was my experience as I grew up. It was like two rivers meeting and when we moved to France or England new colours were introduced. Each keeps its essence but interacts. So the tunes on that album were inspired by the Amazon. For instance, one track is about the stars above the rainforest, the clearest stars I’ve ever seen.
And my album Skyness was inspired by the blue of Greek Island skies. The skies above the Greek Islands are different to other places. (We digress here into a long discussion on sky colours and rivers, so I recommend Cape Reinga where ocean and sea meet, as do the different colours touch each other)
JL32 Tell me about the Brazillian singer-songwriter Ivan Lins. I love his voice and I first encountered him on a recording with trumpeter Paulo Fresu and the Sardinian Jazz Orchestra.
DC I wrote to him asking him if he was interested in recording with me and I was pleased when he replied enthusiastically. He has written many great songs but we settled on ‘Love Dance’ which is one of the most recorded songs in musical history (everyone from Joe Pass, Quincey Jones, Sarah Vaughan and even Sting has recorded it). It is a love song and harmonically it has many interesting twists. He also has a house in Portugal so we recorded there and it was a nice experience as we recorded it in one or two takes. The studio was booked for two hours but most of the time was spent talking. He is a person who likes to be near different oceans or rivers. We had that in common, and we also connected because we like delving into musical styles.
JL32 And you collaborated with Randy Becker (check out the teaser on YouTube). I love that, he is another musician who has an affinity with South American music. Brazilian music is sometimes referred to as the ‘other swing’.
DC Yes, 1917 was the date of the first Jazz recording and also the first Samba recording. So with Randy Brecker, the tune was already recorded on my album ‘Skyness’ inspired by the feeling of closeness to Mediterranean skies and by the notion of international togetherness. I had originally recorded the tune solo, so I wanted to re-release it with Randy and he loved it.
JL32 What a great tune ‘Iremia’ is and how beautifully you both improvise around the melody lines.
DC So he came in on top and it was a special moment for me as he has played with some of the greatest stars in musical history. And many of the people who I recorded my first album with were also on his Grammy-winning album Randy In Brazil. The tune you mention is not Latin but the meaning of the name Iremia is peace in Greek. By coincidence, it was re-released at the moment the war started in Ukraine. It got quite a bit of attention, especially in Italy and it was featured on Sky News. This message of peace should be there at all times, but in times of war, more so. When I wrote it I was living on Paros in the Cyclades Islands, so it is about tranquillity and peace.
JL32 I must ask here. Do you have a working trio or involve different musicians in each project? Or to come at it slightly differently, is there a configuration that you prefer working with, solo, trio, quartet, or larger unit?
DC That is an excellent question. I am comfortable in all formats, in fact, the first concert will be in Hamilton with a big band. I have worked with orchestras but not with my music, but on every album, there is a different type of lineup. I enjoy that.
JL32 I love the tune ‘Skyness’, it is the sheer beauty and architecture of it. Those voicings, the time feel like your left hand is gently pushing at your right hand, conversationally, and by the time Seamus Blake comes in we are mesmerised.
DC My third album ‘Live In California’ was a solo album, my next album will be a trio with special guests. One month ago I recorded in New York with John Patitucci and I enjoyed that. But to answer your question, no particular format and I like to give a voice to everyone.
JL32 I saw Patitucci in a Roman amphitheatre, Verona, with Wayne Shorter, Danilo Perez and Brian Blade. Not an experience that I will forget. What’s the album called?
DC ‘Beams’ as in light, with John Patitucci and Paulinho Vicente as the core trio. The guests are Mike Stern, Hermeto Pascoal, Dave Douglas and singer Anne Boccato. Oh, and the saxophonist Tecō Cardosa, who is the only musician to appear on multiple of my albums. But I would record again with any of the above. I like the Brazilian percussionist Teco Cardosa very much. He is a multi-instrumentalist and plays flute, saxophone and percussion. There is really something special about him. He features in the piece ‘Compelling’ on the second album.
JL32 Yes an amazing and energetic track. People who don’t know this album or that piece need to check it out ASAP (on streaming platforms. Sadly, the physical album is hard to find but I located one).
DC I created a video for World Earth Day which is on my website. That was recorded with Teco on the flute. It is one of my favourite pieces as I really like the fusion of the flute and piano. What do you think about that combination?
JL32 Flute and piano and flute over a modal groove interests me greatly. Although it was always a significant presence in Brazilian Jazz, in American Jazz over the second half of the twentieth century the flute was often regarded as an instrument lacking sufficient expression. People who said that were clearly not paying attention and had not listened closely to Yusef Lateef, or Bennie Maupin. It is now regarded as an essential primary instrument as a renewed interest in Spiritual Jazz is evident. Yes, I love the combination.
DC I have several passions and interests beyond music. Things I have studied at University. I have worked as a language educator, I also studied philosophy for a time and history, both of which are interests of yours, I think. I’ve also worked a lot on environmental issues and especially animal rights. I am a vegetarian. Environmental aesthetics is extremely important and often overlooked. The environment and not only in the ecological sense but in everything that we do. And all of this is linked to my music. They are not separate worlds.
The new album is called Beams because it is a celebration of light in different forms, the light that shines too and from you. The album refers to physical light for example, the tune ‘Star Dial’ which I recorded with Dave Liebman. Then there is also the more metaphysical light. The light which shines from Animals. I wrote a tune called ‘Paw Prints’ when I was living on Pados, written for a dog that I saw mistreated (a homophone and play on the Shorter standard Foot Prints). And then a tune with Mike Stern called ‘Sparks in Motion’ which is about celebrating the city, the light of a city.
JL32 When you release an album, do you have a preferred label?
DC Self-release gives me my independence. Berkeley these days teaches musicians to do it for themselves and learn about the business that way, rather than waiting for a manager or a label to snap you up. Ethics and proper respect for music should be the impetus. Commodification makes an art form into something else.
JL32 Well, we’ve been talking for hours and I know it’s late there. Thank you for your insights and for your music. I have enjoyed it and I hope that your tour goes well. I am sure that anyone listening to your music live will be as delighted with it as I am.
DC I hope to see you at the concerts, John.
JL32 Ki kite
JazzLocal32.com is rated as one of the 50 best Jazz Blogs in the world by Feedspot. The author is a professional member of the Jazz Journalists Association, poet & writer.Some of these posts appear on other sites with the author’s permission.
The term inside outside has a specific meaning in Jazz theory. There are well-delineated subcategories like side-stepping or side-slipping and in the hands of jazz writers, it can simply imply the comfort with which a player moves between playing the changes and free improvisation within a tune. Then there is the where. The joy of entering a club as you descend a winding staircase and feeling your heart skip a beat as you cross the threshold. That particular inside is about belonging and it is the salt being rubbed into the wound of a deprived club-goer.
Inside is about the clubs, where the music has intensity and the physicality of the experience communicates directly; bypassing the mundane and teasing the senses one by one. The rawness brings everything straight to the heart and to the gut; the magic and the mistakes; it’s visceral, and you can feel the pulse beating against your body.
When the pandemic hit, clubs closed the world over and we wondered how we would survive. We were sound junkies suddenly deprived of our fix. We missed the warmth. We missed being able to whisper our enthusiasm to the stranger beside us as a phrase took our fancy. We missed the ‘hang’ with the musicians during breaks, and above all, we missed that moment when the band hit the pocket and an involuntary sigh escaped our lips. That blissful experience of bathing in refined sound.
Inside Outside ~ Komeda ~ Astigmatic 1965
We were lucky in New Zealand as we eradicated the first round of the virus swiftly and thereafter we lived in splendid isolation for much longer than most. It was a time of normal life, sans travel or travellers. It was a time when the clubs remained open and when local music was the only and best game in town. That freedom lasted for the best part of two years and with only minor interruptions. Overseas, the death knell of iconic clubs was grimly sounding out.
Then Omicron sneaked past the watchtower and took hold in the shadows. We paused, adjusted and looked outwards again. We are open to the world but the virus is the snake in the grass. It is back to normal and not back to normal because after the pandemic comes ‘the great forgetting’ as the young resume their lost lives and leave behind the silent ones. The cohort of the risk-averse, the older ones who are not yet ready to enter a subterranean venue. I am one of those.
The older you are the more likely you are to be immune-compromised (or have a partner who is). Having experienced live jazz since my youth I am doing it tough and I am not alone. For a while, I thought that I was an outlier, but one by one, friends have outed themselves. Jazz radio DJs, record producers, journalists and musicians; the older ones. As if admitting to a crime, they drop their voices and whisper that they haven’t been inside a jazz club for ages. Perhaps it’s the fear of being mocked by the young and brave?
The thing about music is that it flows like water, seeping through the cracks and finding new levels. It is the law of physics that sound will find a willing ear so all is never lost. And although the clubs are temporarily off-limits the outside venues beckon. Open-air festivals are being planned and there are numerous bars with outside seating. Places where a person can bask in the winter sun and idle away an afternoon. And as one door closes another opens so we follow new music as it pops up online. Find time to think and to write about music, disappearing behind noise-cancelling headphones; listening to the new with fresh ears and to the old as if hearing for the first time. Pushing hard against the listening boundaries. Listening deeper and hearing more.
Inside
Despite missing live music, my life is music rich. Review copies pour into my inbox daily and live-streamed concerts vie for my attention. I scan Bandcamp for the edgier improvised hybrid offerings, conduct interviews with musicians and hang with them over lazy lunches, I write reviews, judge musical competitions and involve myself in musicians’ causes. Biding my time until it’s safe enough to head down a staircase again.
Footnote: Staying away from the upcoming CJC Wax///Wane concert with Lucien Johnson, Jonathan Crayford, Tom Callwood and Cory Champion will sorely test my resolve. I truly love that album and Lucian’s work. It’s my sort of thing and the musicians are quite extraordinary.
JazzLocal32.com is rated as one of the 50 best Jazz Blogs in the world by Feedspot. The author is a professional member of the Jazz Journalists Association, poet & writer.Some of these posts appear on related sites.
Some stories play out quietly while others are thrown into sharp relief against a tapestry of upheaval. ShekBand is from Ukraine, and as missiles fly about them, it is tempting to place their project solely within the context of the unprovoked invasion. That would be a mistake. While the horror is inescapable, there is a bigger story at play here and ShekBand tells that story eloquently through their music. It is not usual to see musicians this young touring and recording, but their achievements are a testament to their dedication, a supportive home environment and the quality of a Ukraine Jazz education. Wars destroy, musicians create and the human spirit is bigger than war. This is an album to inspire; it is a beacon of hope.
Yesterday I wished Shekband’s drummer Maksym Shekera a happy birthday. He turned 12 years old. Along with his sister, Anna (14) and Artem (16) they are about to leave Ukraine. Their first album The Inflatable Ram has just been released and they have a tour of Europe ahead of them. The itinerary will take them to Warsaw, Berlin, Leipzig then back to Warsaw and on to Lithuania. They have been looking forward to getting on the road. Attend a gig if you can.
The album is filled with delights and as the respected bass player, Jeff Ballard commented, “All the compositions are well thought out. They are full of invention and cover a very large range of expression – very dramatic and sensitive qualities. Great stuff.” Among the 9 tunes on the album, you will hear original compositions, Ukrainian folk references and their arrangement of a Wayne Shorter Standard.
Having fled Kyiv without their instruments they sought practice instruments along their escape route: old drums, town hall pianos, gaffer taped double bases. Emerging from air-raid shelters they focused on the tunes and to tweaked the arrangements. They eventually found a haven in the southwest, but they must now undertake some perilous journeys. Last week they drove back to Kyiv and were able to retrieve some instruments. It was a dangerous place to be. Today they face the missiles again as they drive towards the Polish border.
Credit is also due to Patricia Johnston, co-owner of Taklit Artist and Concert Management in France. She came across these musicians during the 7VirtualJazzClub competition and her company awarded them an honourable mention. That company is behind the release on HGBS Blue/Black Forest Sounds. Patricia and I are fellow 7VJC judges and so I offered my assistance. The English version of the official press release is my small contribution. Yours will be to listen to the album and when physical copies are available please purchase one. From today it will be available on all major streaming platforms. Search for The Inflatable Ram or ShekBand on Spotify, Tidal, AppleTunes etc. Give likes, share and post comments. With our help, this will be the first step on a long and rewarding journey.
For more information on the plight of Ukrainian musicians during the invasion, refer to my two earlier Ukraine posts which are available on this site.
JazzLocal32.com is rated as one of the 50 best Jazz Blogs in the world by Feedspot. The author is a professional member of the Jazz Journalists Association, poet & writer.Some of these posts appear on related sites.
During recent months, a number of jazz projects have occupied my time and in particular the 7VirtualJazzClub competition. I am one of the judges. Both albums came to my attention via that platform, as the Tobias Meinhart band had an entry last year and Gilad Hekselman won four years earlier.
Both albums reflect our interesting times as both were conceived during the lockdowns; they are uplifting and filled with promise. They inspire. Improvising musicians are torchbearers, reminding us of what could be and how unstoppable the creative spirit is. Even when the times are sorely testing.
The Painter: Tobias Meinhart
This is an all-star band and with these musicians on board, it’s hardly surprising that it is such a great album. I came upon the band recently while judging the 7VirtualJazzClub competition. I was listening blind and the minute I heard the bass opening on White Bear I thought, oh, that could be Matt Penman and it was. I thought it might even be a Penman tune, but I learned later that Meinhart composed the tune with Penman in mind.
The German-born Meinhart has long been a significant presence on the New York scene. He attracts great players and this album features a dream lineup. Eden Ladin on keys, Matt Penman on bass and Obed Calvaire on drums; with guests, Ingrid Jensen on trumpet and Charles Altura on guitar; each one bringing their best to this project.
The compositions draw on many sources; a dumpling house, a koan, a painter, a baseball player, a meteor, racial injustice, Shep and Jarrett, The influences may be diverse but all resonate and invite deeper listening. White Bear, for example, is irresistible, a torrent of joyous invention, killing melodic lines, heart-stopping rhythms, and moments of surprise and all drawing our attention beyond the underlying complexity.
The tunes are Meinhart’s, with the exception of the lovely standard Estate (Martino). Estate is a duet with Ladin and I was reminded of the timeless Art Pepper duets with George Cables. There was a suggestion in the phrasing but especially so in the tone or intonation; a warm summery caress. A modern take on an old tune and done respectfully. The Last Dance is a tribute to Impulse, Jarrett and Shep. It is especially beguiling, a story told obliquely, it is perfect.
There are many moods explored here, some delicate, some touching on the mystical, others capturing exuberance. The liner notes refer to a painterly or synesthetic approach and that is evident throughout. It is a feature of contemporary jazz to hold such conversations, reaching across art forms. Such a conversation is realised perfectly here.
The album was released by Sunnyside Records and it is available now on Bandcamp, in digital form or on compact disk
Far Star: Gilad Hekselman
When I was offered a review copy of ‘Far Star’ I jumped at it. Gilad Hekselman stands at the forefront of contemporary jazz guitarists. His discography is impressive, with a string of acclaimed albums and each one encompassing a widening cohort of fans. He is a guitarists guitarist, but he remains accessible. He possesses an extraordinary technical facility, but it is never deployed unnecessarily. Above all, he is adventurous and he brings his audiences along for the ride.
It is a solo album with guests although not billed as such. The genesis of the album tells its own tale, a collection of tunes originally composed as vehicles for a live band became a different type of project, one born out of pandemic isolation. Creatives rise to such challenges and Hekselman certainly did. He plays a dizzying array of instruments here, guitars, keys, bass (and deploys effects). The leader’s contributions were recorded in Israel; some guests were recorded in other countries.
pic/Josh Goleman
The drummer Eric Harland appears on 5 of the tracks and his addition was a masterstroke. He is always in lockstep but subtly manages to play with time. On track 5, Magic Chord, he took my breath away. In all, there are nine musicians appearing on the album although often fleetingly so. The gifted Israeli pianist Shai Maestro plays keys on track 2 and along with Nomok, is a co-producer.
The opening track ‘Long Way From Home’ is a stunner. It begins with a pretty whistled melodic line. As the piece unfolds subtle complexities are introduced, and this simple beguiling melody morphs into a vehicle for exultant improvisation. Again, Harland is extraordinary, Hekselman the guitarist plus multi-instrumentalist is beyond belief.
This is an album with many facets and it is an album that listeners will return to again and again; it has so much to offer, joy – and above all hope. The title track is the most reflective and wistfully so. There is Americana and there is edginess and the track titled ‘Cycles’ is pure and unalloyed beauty. When an artist produces an album this good, you have to marvel, and you wonder, how could he ever top that.
Gilad Hekselman: guitars, keys, bass
Eric Harland: drums (1,2,3,5,6
Shai Maestro: co-production, keys (2)
Nathan Schram: viola, violin (4)
Oren Hardy: bass: (4)
Alon Benjamini: drums, percussion (4)
Nomrok: co-production, keys (7)
Amir Bresler: co-production, drums, percussion (7)
This is an ensemble of seasoned observers operating from their shared vantage point of empathy and humanism. Jazz at its best reflects the world about it and it never shirks from truth-telling. To achieve this, primal emotions must be invoked. Something to cut through the memes, words, pretty tunes or familiar licks that inhabit our everyday life. It is not that the aforementioned attributes lack validity, but there are many a dances we can choose. This dance invites us to remember, to do better and to pay our dues in the turbulent world that we helped create.
It is unsurprising that this particular group locates the stark beauty hidden among the ashes and the ebbing floodwaters. The mood is darker than in ‘This World’ but in spite of that, the album resonates with hope. It is the hope that follows acknowledgement. This is an album for our times and it touches on the rawness of the human predicament and it does so unflinchingly. To add further context, it was cut in the midst of the epidemic; surreal and unexpected chaos that has characterised our existence of late.
The tunes are all originals composed for the album and it feels like a collaboration in the fullest sense, musicians attuned to each other and to the musical possibilities unfolding ahead.
Deception (MP3)
For example, the intro to ‘Deception’ opens with a single chord, echoed quickly by another. The latter is more percussive, stinging, beautiful, and as those chords decay the mood is established with a series of sparse utterances. This is one of Mike Nock’s trademark devises, to beguile without overwhelming, to explore from an oblique viewpoint, then land you deep inside the tune. When you become aware of the others, everyone is so in sync that it takes your breath away. The process is seamless. This is the product of good writing and great musicianship, with Nock’s compositional input particularly evident throughout (especially so in ‘Winter’).
Winter (MP3)
Any of Julien Wilson’s fans will be delighted with his performance here. Although practically vibrato-less (as modern saxophonists are), he captures a Getz like warmth; on occasion his upper register breaking into cries or sighs, tugging at the heartstrings.
I introduced the album to a friend who was floored by its beauty. Wilson, Stuart and Zwartz react so instinctively to Nock’s phrasing and subtle comping. Adding depth, subtlety, texture and gently playing with the time. Zwartz and Stuart are the go-to musicians for an album like this and without them, the album would be the poorer. However overworked the phrase is, this group are rightly referred to as a supergroup. ‘This World’ attracted accolades and award nominations. ‘Another Dance’ is on the same trajectory.
Mike Nock (piano), Hamish Stuart (drums), Julien Wilson (saxophone, effects), Jonathan Zwartz (bass)
The album is produced by Lionshare Records and is available in digital format on Bandcamp.
There is good quality streaming available upon purchase, and downloads are available in either standard CD format or the higher quality HD 24bit/96khz Audiophile Quality. I downloaded the Audiophile quality album and for those who have good equipment, it is a must. I have seldom heard such astonishing sound definition. It is like being in the studio and hearing the instruments breathe.
JazzLocal32.com is rated as one of the 50 best Jazz Blogs in the world by Feedspot. The author is a professional member of the Jazz Journalists Association, poet & writer.Some of these posts appear on related sites.
Footnote: I hadn’t realised that the tune credits were embedded in each individual track listing. In a message exchange with Julien Wilson later he pointed that out. When I wrote that I detected Mike Nock’s hand in the composition ‘Winter’, I was both wrong and right. ‘Winter’ was composed by Jonathan Zwartz as a tribute Nock’s beautiful ‘Ondas’ from the ECM album of the same name. What a great tribute to a seminal album.
It took me a minute to recognise what I was looking at. It was a picture of a burnt piano after a missile attack. No musician should ever need to post a photo of a bombed piano but Lyudmila Shekera did. It is now her Facebook banner. A symbol of defiance, loss, and perhaps of hope. While instruments can be targeted, music is impervious to shelling.
However, there are no photos of her family’s sewing business, which lies in ruins after a Russian missile fell. Non-combatants, the elderly, heavily pregnant women and babies, are mere collateral damage in the minds of the aggressors.
This is a continuation of my earlier post because the story is ongoing. The families I wrote of have yet to escape the horrors of the invasion, and the journey across Ukraine is fraught with difficulty. It is snowing and bitter cold. Bombs and missile attacks dog their every step. At last writing, they had formed a small convoy and were moving from town to town. Sometimes they were able to stop and Lyudmila would dutifully message me. It is hard to sleep in an air-raid shelter. Relatives who lived through the blitz told me that.
I am continuously anxious for their safety, but there is something else besides. I am captivated by the other stories, those of happier times. And I love hearing about Ukraine’s musical history. Lyudmila is keen to share these stories and we should listen. Telling stories is how we survive and listening to them is an act of solidarity. They are essential for her and necessary for us, especially while the fabric of Ukrainian culture is under attack.
There are pictures of the Family factory in happier times, the Shekera children being shown how the sewing machines work. There is nothing left of the factory now as Russian shells razed it to the ground.
The best person to flesh out this narrative is Lyudmila. She speaks many languages but her English has a poetic resonance. It reminds me of what a critic said of the author Joseph Conrad. ‘Born in Ukraine, he didn’t learn English until he was in his twenties. He thought in his native tongue but wrote beautiful English prose’.
Lyudmila wrote: ‘Girls, happy spring holiday! As my good friend from the local defence says, the weather is for us – the targets are not visible, the saboteurs leave traces. But you know how much I love snow. Since it is a holiday I will start my morning, not with coffee; every decent young lady has to throw a cosmetic bag into an anxious suitcase and find time to use it. Everything will be for Ukraine’.
The above post appeared on Lyudmilas’s Facebook page in Cyrillic script. I pushed translate and gained a sense of it, I asked her to render it into English and she did. The tone is that of a haiku or an imagist poem, each word conveying a subtle subdivision of mood. And as she reassures her children and friends, she channels her anger into something of greater utility. Gentle defiance wrapped up in nostalgia. It is a plea to remember and hold the joy close before it sinks from view.
Musicians never abandon their instruments, but what was previously unthinkable, is now overrun by necessity. For musicians, the lack of instruments brings another calamity, they can’t practice. To non-musicians, this might appear a small thing, but I assure you that it is not.
Lyudmila: ‘Oleksii Proschenkov our music teacher and Anastasia his spouse joined us in Fastiv. But then Fastiv was attacked too. Russian troops keep trying to drag the city of Kyiv into a ring of human catastrophe, cowardly destroying everything in their path with shelling and tanks. We moved south, first to Vinnitsya where a Jazz festival is often held. Friends gave us a place to sleep. It was our first night without air raid alarms and bomb shelters. Then the airport was bombed, destroyed, so we decided to find a small town without important infrastructure.
Our friend who organises the Vinnetsya Jazz Festival (and an opera festival) recommended Tulchyn, the motherland of a famous Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovych who wrote Carol of the Bells. He founded a music school there a hundred years ago, (and when we arrived) they kindly opened the doors for us. Leontovych was killed by the NKVD in 1921 (Stalin’s secret police).
They had a fantastic grand piano and drum set, and some friends even found us a broken double bass which the defence officer fixed with striped yellow defence tape. It was very kind of the Chief Manager of Culture Ms Natalia Tretyakova and Mr Vasyl Fedorivych the director of Tulchyn Music school to let us practice there.
Mykola Leontovych
My children, ShekBand, held a concert in the hall before we moved south again. In Ukraine, that particular music school and the composer/founder Mykola Leontovych are symbols of freedom. Now we have to protect freedom once again.
It is important to be busy so that we don’t go crazy. War kills not only the body but the soul. My children keep working on their music arrangements, making a website. They want to be ready for future contests and Jazz festivals. It helps us to stay brave and to find strength. Ahead of us, gigs are waiting in Leipzig, Munich, Dublin and Nice.
It is safer now we are in the south but we can’t cross the border. Our teacher is not allowed, so we will stay awhile. We will check the news each morning so we can decide. In case of big danger, of course, we must leave to save our children. But my heart is here.
I pray for peace and a strong beautiful Ukraine.
Many of us watch helplessly from afar and do what we can. We write and we donate cash to Ukraine Rescue, UNICEF, Medicines Sans Frontiers, Ukraine Animal Rescue. And if like me, your childhood was filled with cold war dread, you feel that familiar nemeses return. A madman with bombs and chemicals is on the loose again.
To Lyudmila Shekera, her husband Alexander and ShekBand; who are Maksym, Artem & Anna. The Jazz world sends love and best wishes. Please stay safe.
Like Shekband on YouTube
JazzLocal32.com is rated as one of the 50 best Jazz Blogs in the world by Feedspot. The author is a professional member of the Jazz Journalists Association, poet & writer.Some of these posts appear on related sites.
‘John I am in bomb shelter and have received advice to leave as soon as can. I want you to have these photos and my story to tell the world – one teacher can grow a new generation’.
The teacher who the writer alludes to is Alexey Proshenkov and as I write this his exact whereabouts are unknown. Ukrainian men under sixty are unable to leave. He is a gifted Jazz educator. Lyudmila Shekera (who left me the above message), is the mother of three talented children who are musicians. All are being tutored by Alexey and the results of that tuition are noteworthy.
Lyudmila’s children are young. Two began lessons at the age of five, the other at age three. The above was Lyudmila’s last message to me. I have not heard from her recently and I worry about her every minute.
The invasion of Ukraine caught most of us off-guard and it has severe consequences for the entire world. It is a living nightmare for those in Ukraine. What I have written arises from online interactions with Jazz industry people and musician friends from the Ukraine region. I write this at their request.
Everyone and everything in Ukraine is adversely impacted by the invasion. It is an unimaginable horror in technicolour, playing out in front of their eyes. With missiles flying and landing amidst the civilian populations, communication is difficult and sporadic. For them, more immediate concerns must take precedence. I have omitted some names and altered a few details at my friends’ request. They are defiant and brave, but it is prudent to be cautious when confronted with a vengeful and tech-savvy superpower.
I have long had contact with Baltic and East European Jazz people, but my contacts list grew bigger while judging the 7 Virtual Jazz Club International Competition. As the New Zealand judge, I was placed among a group of European and American judges: journalists, publicists, broadcasters, jazz educators and industry professionals. We introduced ourselves, participated in a Zoom call, read each other’s bios and friended each other on Facebook. Message comments would light up day and night as we were each oblivious of the other’s time zones. Out of that new friendships grew.
The entries were of a high standard and they came from every corner of the earth. I loved seeing entries from countries traditionally regarded as jazz outliers such as Belarus, Latvia, Ukraine, Estonia and Taiwan. Non-aligned multilateral diplomacy was at work, Jazz style.
The Jazz community is highly interconnected and as the covid peak faded, Jazz festivals reopened throughout Eastern Europe. Events were advertised, albums proliferated and the old rhythms of life seemed possible. Ukraine in particular has a growing Jazz community. Sadly, that is now under attack and the creative arts will soon struggle to function. Gigs and livelihoods are disappearing as the inhumane bombardment wrecks havoc.
In the days following the invasion, I contacted my Ukrainian Jazz friends, not to talk music, but to see how they were. The initial reaction was disbelief. That was soon replaced by anger and resolute defiance. I asked fellow judge Anna Russkevich if she was safe and thankfully she was. I asked her a day later if she was leaving and she informed me that she couldn’t, as a semi-paralysed parent is in her care. She has little option but to stay as the horror descends. Cluster bombs and other munitions regarded as unlawful are falling on schools and civilian populations in that region.
At another Ukrainian friend’s suggestion, I made contact with a Jazz promoter in Kyiv, who in turn suggested that I talk to a musician on the other side of the city. That interaction was no longer possible as the musician is now active in the citizen’s defence militia. The idea of a peace-loving musician having to put down his instrument and pick up a weapon filled me with unutterable sadness. I was saddened, but I understood.
Some sent me clips of missiles destroying city buildings, the footage of a missile attack on a respected university is particularly horrifying. Nothing symbolises authoritarian aggression quite like an attack on culture and learning. I have many pictures but I have been asked to hide the geolocations. Screenshots will tell the story just as well.
Lyudmila is the mother of three extraordinary young Jazz musicians. She speaks eight languages (including Russian). Her family were holed up in a forest hotel outside of Kyiv with forty others, mainly musicians. Instruments had been left behind as there was little room for anything other than clothes and toiletries.
Our exchanges have been extensive and often heartbreaking. She was keen for us to continue messaging as she said it gave her hope. It told her that the world was listening. She and her husband Alexander have sacrificed a lot to nurture their children’s talent and recently that has borne fruit. The children’s band, ShekBand, has a recording contract. I will post a clip or two.
The recording was organised by a fellow 7VJC judge Patricia Johnson. She is the co-founder of Taklit, a successful publishing and production company based in France. She has worked tirelessly on this project and thanks to her efforts an album will be out shortly. Patricia is not someone to mess about and it would take more than an invasion to stop her. She is irrepressible and it is impossible not to like her. When the album’s out we should all click through and listen, and more importantly, we should buy it. It will likely be a digital release. The project can best be characterised as the future voice of Ukrainian Jazz. It is a marker for promise and hope.
It is uncertain if the family will be able to escape as the roads are clogged, a curfew is in place and petrol is scarce. There is also constant and indiscriminate shelling. Patricia and I have been on Facetime calls and have messaged frequently as this unfolds. She told me a few hours ago that accommodation has been arranged for Lyudmila in Poland. My fervent hope is that this Jazz loving family reach their safe haven. They symbolise much of what the world needs right now. Music may not be front of mind in the heat of an invasion, but it should be. In music resides hope and sanity.
JL32: Lyudmila, I have been worried about you, we care. Are you OK?
LS: Thank you for checking. You and your country’s support gives me hope.
JL32: You have left Kyiv?
LS: We escaped Kyiv. I am now near (name of town withheld) at a forest hotel, with family, husband, kids and friends. We give shelter to music families and their friends. I stay in touch with Patricia from Taklit. She has all info about the ShekBand album which my children have completed. She helps me a lot. On the last evening before the invasion, we had completed recording and mastering the files for the album.
Now we have a dream which will help us to be strong. You can use my name, my children’s and their music tutor. My children, study Jazz improvisation under Mr Alexey Proschenkov at State Music School #4 Kyiv. Siblings Artem. Anna & Maksym Shekera, Playing together as ShekBand since 2015.
JL32: Hi again. Is all well with you? I fear that the invasion is intensifying.
LS: While it is night here, I can tell you some stories. We gave shelter to some Turkish Journalists and they spread the word and now we get journalists from around the world to stay here as they pass through. We are happy to do that because it helps the world to learn the truth. They are very brave to visit Kyiv right now. John, please use my pictures but just make sure there is no geolocation. It is safer for us.
In Kyiv, my children have been studying music since five years old. The younger Maksym since he was three. He wanted to be with his brother and sister. My husband Alexander is also a jazz musician, but says, that is his hobby: he loves guitar, plays and sings always when we meet with friends. He is the soul of the company. He works hard every day to give a chance for our kids to have the best teacher. Sometimes he plays and puts compositions up on YouTube anonymously. Alexey Proschenkov the children’s teacher has his own teaching method, he teaches all modern trends, history, composition, children love him. His students win a lot of Ukrainian and international competitions.
One of my sons had been preparing to go to University this year, where my husband and I were students. But yesterday, the occupiers bombed the TV Tower of Kyiv and the University which was next to it. It was the first time that I cried.
The university where the children learn, bombed
JL32: It is so dreadful and heart-wrenching.
LS: I go and make some food. Thank you for listening.
Lyudmila and I had many more exchanges over the next few days and Patricia and I talked for an hour via Facetime about their plight. Over the course of those four days, she sent me 73 pictures. Mainly of her children and their interesting but interrupted Jazz journey. They connect me to the horror unfolding, but they also speak to hope.
Footnote: Minutes before posting this I learned that the family had taken to the road again in a convoy of four vehicles. Because it was proving too difficult to reach Poland, they were now heading for Romania. At each stop, missiles force them to move again. And a piece of good news. Today the family learned that ShekBand has been invited to play in Dublin.
Give Likes to ShekBand. Let the music play on. Please let the music play on.
JazzLocal32.com is rated as one of the 50 best Jazz Blogs in the world by Feedspot. The author is a professional member of the Jazz Journalists Association, poet & writer.Some of these posts appear on related sites.
Alex Ventling is a musician worth keeping an eye on. His learning pathway is intriguing and his music is vibrant. He is an improviser in the true sense, avoiding inertia as he gathers information without and within. His method is to locate a point of equanimity and in doing so, honouring both the collective and the innate. Although Ventling was born in my city I had not encountered his eerily-beautiful music until recently. He was unfamiliar because he left us for Basel straight after high school, studying extensively in Switzerland and Northern Europe. That course of action has yielded dividends for the musician and for the listener. This post is about his journey but also something deeper, unlocking the creative spirit.
JL32: Hi Alex, I know that you are just out of MIQ, so welcome to my Waitakere home.
AV: Thanks John it’s nice to be here for a few weeks of relaxation and freedom. This sort of freedom is quite rare in the world right now.
JL32: You are regarded as a Swiss pianist although you were born in Tāmaki Makaurau. How do you view yourself?
AV: I still feel like I’m a Kiwi kid, but one (embedded) in Europe. There I discovered a culturally rich world and I am exploring that. My mother is Swiss Italian and my father is German American, so I have many cultural connections, but those particular connections only come into play when you experience the cultures first hand.
Trondheim
JL32: I have been thinking about musical nationalism lately and about what Dave Holland said. That musical nationalism should be acknowledged but not overemphasized. He saw Jazz as a universal art form. How do you react to that?
AV: Yeah, I agree. There is so much to be said about how different peoples perceive a musician’s career and it relates to the values they have. So, moving about (between countries) you create music in different cities, and even though Europe is quite small in area, there is such a diversity of musical thinking.
JL32: So where did your musical journey begin?
AV: I grew up on the North Shore with a strong connection to Leigh where my mum did her marine biology degree, and I had a good piano teacher early on. She took the time to find out what music I related to. She allowed me to explore more open music, something closer to improvising. And at Pinehurst school, the Jazz pianist Dr Mark Baynes led our Jazz band, so I was very fortunate. He introduced me to people like Bud Powell, Keith Jarrett and Aaron Parks and I would listen to his recommendations on the school bus and ask for more each week.
JL32: And I bet you heard a lot of Brad Mehldau.
AV: Yes, because Mark was starting his thesis on Brad around then. And so at 19, I left for Basel in Switzerland, intending for it to be a gap year, a reconnecting with my roots. I stopped off in New York on the way to attend a New York Film Academy Music course. I’m interested in the visual arts, especially when combined with music.
At that point, I was still deciding on what I wanted to do with my life; music or design. Then, while passing through Singapore I applied to Berklee Jazz School as they do auditions there. After my audition, I was accepted by Berklee and offered a scholarship. In the end, I decided not to take the offer up. In Basel, I thought the whole thing through carefully and decided to study there instead.
JL32: I am interested in this because it is not a typical study pathway for an aspiring Kiwi Jazz musician.
AV: In hindsight, I am glad that I rejected that offer because I had nowhere near the capabilities that Berklee required and while they would have developed those skills, or any good Jazz school would have, I believe that I could have emerged into a sea of pianists who sounded much like each other.
JL32: So you settled on the Basel Jazz Campus. How was that different?
AV: The teachers certainly challenged us, we had Jorge Rossy, Larry Grenadier, Jeff Ballard, Mark Turner, Bill McHenry, but the focus was interesting (not just about developing chops).
‘by the way, I don’t care what ‘you’ can play and what ‘you’ can do. What I care about is what ‘we’ can do together.
That changed the way I thought about group playing. I learned how to listen to myself with others and to view everything as a learning opportunity. There was a huge emphasis on listening at the Basel Jazz Campus. That is not to say that virtuosity is not valid, but we were encouraged to go beyond that. So, less focus on individualism and more about connections. Play something that the music is asking for rather than what your ego suggests.
(Brad Mehldau now teaches there also)
JL32: That is a nice segue to a related question. I’m interested in your involvement with Buddhist Vipassana meditation and how that practice factors into your development as a musician. I want to come back to that as it ties in nicely with what you are saying, but to continue with the European teaching methods you’ve encountered. Do you see this as being different from what is offered elsewhere?
AV: Perhaps there is a cultural component to this. In some cultures, you have to play louder, faster or say it quickly to be heard. So to jump ahead a bit, that is what the Jazz School in Trondheim Norway is so aware of in their teachings. An amazing place. I managed to spend my last semester in Trondheim while completing my European Jazz Masters. They talk a lot about the generative potential of the musician. They are training your ears and the inner musician so that you draw on that, then translate that onto your instrument. If you develop that first, you will learn afterwards what technique you require to express what you have inside. Scandinavian Jazz schools tend to reorder priorities over many traditional Jazz Schools by putting skills development second. The generative potential and your skills can then be complimentary.
JL32: You are the second European trained musician to express similar views. Rob Luft who was at the Royal Academy in London was told something similar. But back to Basel, tell me something about the bands you formed during and after your studies there? The YouTube clips of those bands are captivating. Was the trio the unit you formed first?
AV: The trio, which I still have, arose out of my time in Basel. I wanted to start there because as a pianist, that particular classic piano trio form is the holy grail of Jazz. That trio is a multinational affair with the UK born Phelan Burgoyne on drums. Btw, Phelan was in a band with Rob Luft. He is now living in Florence with his Italian wife. And we had fellow student James Kruttli on bass, so yes, the trio is still going and we have more to say. Our last gig was in Berlin but we haven’t had many opportunities to play lately due to COVID. We had a different bassist in Berlin but it was a great reunion for me and Phelan. Before that, and weeks before COVID hit, we toured New Zealand of course. You reviewed that (We laugh about the white piano wish it a peaceful slumber). You play on what you are given, you adjust and play off that. That’s the attitude of pianist improvisers because you can’t bring your piano to a gig.
Jl32: How do you see the trio evolving?
AV: So the trio is still going and I’ve been playing more free music and loving that. Improvisers need to channel these varying experiences (even difficult pianos) and react to new places. Since I’ve been travelling, in Copenhagen, Berlin, Trondheim there are fresh ideas and we all have new tunes to share. So what was initially an acoustic piano trio is now involving a Korg Prologue synthesiser. We have evolved from a tunes trio to something else, last gig we only played two tunes per set and between we played free.
JL32: So do you enjoy playing free?
AV: I love it and that is mainly because I’ve been exposed to Scandinavian music, the free scene in Copenhagen and also in Berlin.
JL32: Both of those locations have well developed free scenes, Have you found a difference?
AV: Berlin is more of an animal, a beast of its own I would say.
JL32: Open exploration and embracing hybridity?
AV: Yes improvisers should include their other influences and experiences, what’s around them and whatever else they are going through, even the non-musical elements. The places they’ve travelled through, the people they’ve met, the cultures they’ve encountered, soak it up and translate that into music. That’s when you get interesting results. This can be seen as the traditional journey for improvisers in a sense, many of the standards were just pop songs of the day reinterpreted. I have a trio I play with right now in Scandinavia where we mostly improvise, but we also play jazz standards and fragment them.
JL32: I’ve heard you do a version of Someday My Prince will Come as a reharm.
AV: Exactly. That was a fully-fledged new arrangement until the melody line was barely perceivable anymore.
JL32: I just found an album on Bandcamp which is essentially Pakistani devotional music in conjunction with a Nordic Jazz Guitarist and bass. It remains what it is, devotional music, but through a Jazz lens. Nothing is forced.
AV: What you said then, through a jazz lens, I find it interesting when Jazz musicians or other kinds of artists look at something through their own lens, something different, often not even music. I mentioned before the school in Copenhagen I attended, the Rythmic Music Conservatory, they are all about that. People come there from vastly different styles and genres. We would embark on our different projects and get feedback from each other on our projects, a classical clarinettist, an extended technique only saxophonist, a hip-hop artist etc. When a Rap artist gives feedback on a piece by an improvising pianist like me, I will hear something different to what a Jazz musician will tell me. That musician will talk about aspects that I might not have considered. It’s more of a zoomed-out perspective. It is also nourishing to let go of that thing where you need to prove yourself (to people who know your thing)
JL32: With your Alex And The Wavemakers Quartet, you were exploring, expanding, you added a human voice, a Korean voice. I loved that. Were you influenced in any way by that European thing, like Kenny Wheeler/Norma Winstone, Weber, Endresen etc, interwoven vocal lines, melodic interplay?
AV: The reference you made to Kenny Wheeler and Norma Winstone, I had certainly heard that, but I came to the use of wordless voice differently, using voice as a rhythmic instrument. So in the group, you are referring to, Alex and the Wavemakers, I was very much influenced by the Swiss musician Nik Bartsch and his Ronin band.
JL32: Yeah I rate that band, percussive serialism, tell me more.
AV: So that’s the sort of sound I was going for, rhythmic organisms so that every musician had a piece of the rhythmic puzzle and we would all interlock. I would compose the rhythmic cycles so that they all knew where they were, but I didn’t want the voice to stand out by having lyrics. Everyone needed to be an equal part of a collective sound. So it worked out well with the Korean Singer Yumi Ito. She is a phenomenal singer, and also Japanese singer Song Yi Jeon (there is material featuring both availableon YouTube). Song, who has a strong voice brought quite a powerful flavour to the band. It started with the Nik Bartsch influence but we ended up doing a lot more improvising (Bartsch concentrates on micro improvisations). We even had solos.
JL32: And has that approach changed?
AV: So that’s a strong part of my listening background, but in Scandinavia and particularly Copenhagen I’ve been concentrating more on improvising; where people are using a lot of textural approaches, thinking more about bringing together sonic textures. So the new group, the one I sent you this morning and which I started in Trondheim, has piano, synth, violin, vibraphone and drums. So changing the lineup and forming a new quartet was driven by COVID and the lack of gigs, but I’m developing a concept out of that.
JL32: Yeah having a palette like that opens up a world of possibilities. As a composer, it must give you more scope. So do you prefer writing through-composed pieces or something looser?
AV: Yes that’s a good question and I’ve been thinking about that a lot. Where do I lie between completely free and completely arranged? I find that whole area interesting, arranged, textures, free, and that’s where these cultural differences come into play. My observation is, that the further north you go, the more musicians think about composing beyond or before the notes are written.
JL32: As in they’ve internalised the ideas?
AV: Yes, working out structures in advance, but then the actual notes and rhythms can be completely free, but perhaps the dynamic, interplay, vibe and textures will be strict and fixed. So the complete opposite to how classical music forms are notated. So you don’t start with a melody, rhythm, set of chords.
JL32: So you’re not necessarily thinking cycle of fifths, how to resolve or traditional forms?
AV: Oh yes, you’re probably right. There’s nothing wrong with that traditional approach at all, but nobody is talking about composition quite like the Scandinavians do. It’s a given that Jazz musicians will be familiar with song forms, scales etc, but does it matter if you have an individual approach? A process that you develop. In Copenhagen, it wouldn’t necessarily matter if you had little knowledge of traditional song forms. If you have a process of your own, then that’s perfectly valid.
JL32: I saw a video featuring Dave Holland, where a bass player student asked him how many notes ahead he thought. His reply was none.
‘during a free-flowing enjoyable conversation with friends, how many words ahead do you think or plan’?
So he was saying, once you know how to speak, how you use speech is an in-the-moment creative process.
AV: And you’re not thinking about which word you’re going to use. So you have a basic competency in language and you use it. So with this conversation now, we are not thinking about our next word, but we are thinking about what will we do with those words. Ideas are forming and I think that it is the same with music. The smallest details can make big differences and that is part of the minimalist approach. Listening to Nik Bartsch I discovered what delight you can get with these minimal changes, so I’m a big fan of minimalism. The composer-pianist from Norway, Christian Wallumod, exemplifies that. There are minimal and subtle changes that can occur over time when you are in a certain musical zone. This happens when a group is at a certain level and can shine a light on these (subtleties). It is fascinating when musicians are playing free, find their space, stay there for a while, then tell a story with those details.
JL32: The Melbourne pianist Andrea Keller exploits those subtle variations to great effect, but she will also place them against fragments of the unsubtle.
AV: Nik Bartsch talks about that in his book, (where he refers to) the unobtrusive difference. He quotes Stravinsky or Morton Feldman when he says, it is of the highest art when you can repeat something, change it very slightly, repeat a form many times over but it is the subtle differences. That creates the art. Christian Wallumrød gets variations out of simple major triads for example.
JL32: Again the internal battle with yourself over utilising all the chops you possess or telling a story in subtle ways.
AV: Which is what we were talking about, in developing an inner voice which tells you what you want to express. A different set of skills is required to express simple ideas well.
JL32: What about eliminating the bass, removing the anchor?
AV: Yes in my Trondheim quartet we don’t have a bass which can be liberating. I wondered if it would work at first, but once I’d prepared the left side of the piano with blue-tack mutes, I realised that they would take away a lot of the overtones and sustain, giving me a more percussive bass sound – even sounding at times like a Fender Bass.
JL32: Nik Bartsch again. The harmonics are gone and you hear the patterns clearly – like Ta-tunk, ta-tunk.
AV: yes exactly, he utilises that. And then you are more of a percussion instrument again. I prepare the bottom two octaves of the piano, but also the top two octaves using wood, wooden cutlery between the strings. On a grand piano, I put the wood between two of the strings, leaving the third-string resonating (there are three strings to a note in the upper register of a grand).
JL32: There is a marvellous pianist in Auckland named Hermione Johnson who deploys a wide range of effects, some soft (stroked chopsticks), some percussive, some more like the gamelan.
AV: Other harder objects and especially metals can give a strong gamelan sound; activating some of the frequencies in the soundboard and the strings. I think that prepared piano lends itself more to a percussive sound. While you can add to the sustain, it is a lot easier to take away, it is a subtractive exercise, eliminating the sustain but then adding to the attack depending on the materials used. I will be releasing an album soon with a Norwegian guitarist named Hein Westgaard playing a semi hollow-body guitar plugged directly into the amp. Without using pedals. I am playing prepared piano with varying acoustic preparations and it is completely improvised (it will be available on Bandcamp once released).
JL32: The minimalist approach and use of extended technique have always been with us, even going back to previous centuries.
AV: And those forms will always be underdogs.
JL32: It can be extremely rewarding although deep listening is required. In a world full of easily accessible and disposable things, connecting deeper music to audiences must have challenges.
AV: Yes, but that’s what improvisers do. I’ve been playing with another guitarist in Trondheim who plays Baritone Guitar and he bows it with a cello bow. He uses lots of pedals and creates these atmospheric worlds of sound and he loops it and feeds it through a granulation process. Much like Stian Westerhus the experimental guitarist, also a Norwegian.
JL32: Eivind Aaset is someone I listen to a lot (a Norwegian guitarist who frequently works with Jan Bang, Arve Hendrikson and other notable improvisers). An American reviewer felt that this type of Nordic live improvisation and sound sculpting was like an extension of Bitches Brew.
AV: And it is influenced by the film music tradition. We had a class at Trondheim Jazz-Line NTNU called sound drama. It was about improvisation and group improvisation and trying to avoid tonal and rhythmical structures (the discussion turned to deep listening, which led us to Buddhist meditation and the influence it has had on improvisers like Gary Peacock and our own Jim Langabeer, who both attended the Woodstock Zen centre)
JL32: So on deep listening and mindfulness, how did you get into practising Vipassana Mindfulness Meditation?
AV: I began practising Vipassana about six years ago, starting with a ten-day course in silence, no reading material, no distractions, no music, no talking. I went into it out of curiosity, but it turned out to be life-changing. I meditated feeling that it could be beneficial to music-making but not sure how. It turned out to be more than I expected and it was not about changing a person but making them more themselves. It strips you down and gives you tools. While I was in Basel I wrote a paper on Vipassana meditation and its connection to improvised music. In attempting to break down the elements I found some astounding relationships. There is a word common to Vipassana (and Buddhism in general), equanimity, and when you apply that to group playing it benefits the music. Letting go of your ego, not judging your performance while playing, living in the now. The music will tell you where to go and what it needs. This requires level-headedness.
JL32: Learning to be the observer perhaps?
AV: Yes the observer living in the moment. It’s hard not to think forward or back.
JL32: The restless monkey-mind demanding novelty, craving?
AV: Accept change as it happens as the observer. At first, I thought that I had to be reactive in Jazz, but now I think that being responsive is better, there is a difference. Making an instantaneous decision based upon everything that you’ve learnt and without ego. Being more giving to your fellow musicians. I don’t want to parrot the drummer or any band member in a rhythmical trade. Those ideas were in my Basel Thesis. I am now keen to explore how this could relate to composition.
JL32: European Jazz is developing multiple strong identities and often at warp speed.
AV: Especially the former Eastern Bloc countries. I hope that the free explorations continue but the internet could dilute that originality. Original ideas, folk music and new ways of exploring sound are very important in Scandinavia, but my Trondheim tutors worry about the risks posed by internet overload.
JL32: Speaking authentically is vital for improvisers and I hope Jazz never travels down the ersatz road that commercial music has. I guess that this is a good place to wrap things up. Thanks for coming over and agreeing to a grilling. By the way, I can’t wait to hear the new band.
AV: I will send you a copy when it’s out. I return to Copenhagen and Trondheim in two days, so I must head home and grab my surfboard.
JL32: Where will you surf?
AV: Tawheranui.
You can find Alex Ventling’s albums on streaming platforms, Bandcamp or by contacting him via his website AlexVentling.com
JazzLocal32.com is rated as one of the 50 best Jazz Blogs in the world by Feedspot. The author is a professional member of the Jazz Journalists Association, poet & writer.Some of these posts appear on related sites.
There is something satisfying about evaluating an anticipated album before the listening public gets to experience it, and whether it arrives digitally, or through the post, it can bring with it a heightened sense of expectation. It is a series of brush strokes unveiled before the paint is dry, and best of all it is unsullied by the crude measure of market vagaries. You listen with care, hoping that the music will speak to you and when it does you feel lucky.
The best improvisers never settle, they reach waypoints then quietly move on. Andrea Keller is just such a musician. She is a creative force in perpetual motion and her steady output attests to that. And while each album or performance reveals something unforeseen, the connection to what came before is evident in the compositional DNA. To maintain such an arc without faltering is rare, but then Keller is a unique musician.
I have followed her work for some time and found the journey rewarding. There is a strong sense of the experimental in what she does but it never feels random. She can play with extremes while navigating a delicate path in between. When amidst these contrasting realities she is at her best and Systems Over-Ride is a prime example.
It is entirely consistent with her musical openness, that she expresses a fascination with both free jazz and doom metal; this is referenced in the liner notes and it makes sense that she should navigate a course between these turbulent waters. She is in her element here. This quintet of Wave Riders, Keller aside, features a fresh crew. It compliments her 2013 Wave Rider album (and all of her albums) by moving on.
As the pieces unfold, Keller’s pianism is always at its heart, with her unhurried serialism and melodic interjections drawing you ever deeper; notes and the spaces deployed to maximum effect. Much is implied beyond the notes too, as the tunes navigate a course between the turbulent waters ruffling the music’s edge. The quintet members respond in kind, and there are solos of course, but the album breathes as one.
As we approach the first quarter of the 21st century there is a rightness to these explorations. This is contemporary jazz as it should be. A leading US Jazz biographer and Journalist recently posted this meme, ‘People whose interest in Jazz stops with mid 20th Century recordings are missing the whole point of that music’. There is no endpoint to an improvisers journey. This is the direction of travel, ready or not.
The lineup here features Scott McConnachie (saxophones), Jack Richardson (guitar), Mick Meagher (bass), Rama Parawata (drums) plus specially commissioned remixes using fragments from the studio session – remixes by Nicole Lizēe, Bree van Reyk, Joe Talia, Philip Rex & Theo Carbo.
It is available from Bandcamp in double vinyl, limited edition Compact Disk or Digitally at www.andreakeller.bandcamp.com (Spotify should be avoided or used as a last resort, I support Neil Young and the artists who have pulled their content from that platform)
JazzLocal32.com is rated as one of the 50 best Jazz Blogs in the world by Feedspot. The author is a professional member of the Jazz Journalists Association, poet & writer.Some of these posts appear on related sites.
In the early 1970s, I recall picking up Rolling Stone magazine and seeing the end of year headline, ‘What A Long Weird Trip It’s Been. I thought of that headline yesterday because it felt relevant. It referred to many things, to the psychedelic music which had fuelled a movement, Miles’ fusion band or The Jefferson Airplane, to the out-prose of Hunter S Thompson and Alan Ginsberg, but mostly it referred to the seismic upheavals of a troubled interregnum when the old order cracked open. A time when the planet was searching for a different axis.
It was a time of collision between an old-world order and a hyper-energised counter-culture movement. The combatants on both sides had grown weary as the pitch battles grew uglier. Bullets flew at Kent State U and the Vietnam War stumbled on pointlessly as the death count rose; and back on the west coast of the USA, Manson drove a dagger through the summers of love and hope. In turbulent times tidy resolutions are evasive, and so it’s been these past few years.
Jim Langabeer Aotearoa/New Zealand
Then, as now, the arts flourished and improvised-music especially so; interpreting the sounds and moods of the times instinctively. Improvisers will always find fresh ways to examine the world about them because change is what drives them; to succeed they must be open to the endless possibilities of the moment. They will guide us to havens, to secret Islands on the margins if we listen with care.
I spent much of the recent lockdown listening to music from the wider Jazz diaspora. Initially, the musicians fell silent, then, as they came to terms with their new reality most reached out, connecting digitally with the like-minded, or with those they didn’t know at all.
From Ethiopia
Language barriers and visa issues quickly faded into irrelevance as cultural connections were navigated between living rooms. The independent recording labels also stepped up and digital review copies of lockdown albums hit my inbox daily; arriving from Iceland, Poland, Ethiopia, Russia, Belarus, Czechoslovakia and many other countries. Most of them were from well outside of my usual orbit. Cultures were colliding and assimilating new ideas at speed.
Around that time I was contacted by a Jazz Studies pupil who asked if New Zealand had a recognisable Jazz voice. That is a hard one to answer. I hear individual players with distinctive voices, but that is not the same thing. It is inarguable that Jazz arose as an American art form over 100 years ago and that it arose out of oppression, slavery, and a collision of cultures. But as it spread adaption was inevitable and in each country, cross-fertilisation occurs. In this age of hyper-connectivity, that process is accelerating at warp speed.
French improvisers
As I listened to the many albums from elsewhere there was a jazz sensibility, but I also fancied that heard elements of indigeneity, of improvisers referencing their folk music, native anthems and landscapes. This gave me pause for thought. What constitutes an original voice in the modern Jazz world? We hear it or think we do but how is it defined? And isn’t musical nationalism a contentious topic? I am inclined to Dave Hollands point of view in this regard, that musical nationalism should be acknowledged but not over analysed. The negative consequences of nationalism are everywhere about us and the extreme forms are seldom healthy. Jazz is a humanistic, hybridised and multi-lateral entity.
Improvising on traditional tunes Norway/Finland
Aotearoa is a colonised land filled with a great many cultures. In the past, Polynesian voices were sidelined by dominant European cultures, but the indigenous voices grow stronger every day. I only have my ears to guide me, but if I was asked to highlight an authentic Kiwi Jazz voice, it would most likely come from our ever-growing underground free-jazz movement and it would probably reference indigenous music in some form. Musicians like Jeff Henderson and Jim Langabeer come immediately to mind, but there are others as well.
I have included a few clips which invite people to form their own opinions. Included is a track from Secret Islands, Jim Langabeer’s extraordinary album, a telling of Kiwi stories. Also, a beautiful Ethiopian clip, a French genre-busting improvising band that could hardly have come from anywhere else, an extraordinary offering of Spiritual Jazz from Lahore, and some current Nordic folk-Jazz.
Improvised music from Lahore
The journey through the pandemic feels interminable right now, but the music will guide us through, and if we listen well enough, the time will not have been wasted. Search Bandcamp or wherever for something unknown, let the music paint pictures as you study new landscapes through your ears. Is this the new travel? We will hopefully emerge better informed, and what a long weird trip it will have been.
You can purchase many of these albums on Bandcamp; the place where interesting music lands.
JazzLocal32.com is rated as one of the 50 best Jazz Blogs in the world by Feedspot. The author is a professional member of the Jazz Journalists Association, poet & writer.Some of these posts appear on related sites.
After a hundred and seven days in isolation, five days of equivocation and an anxious twenty minutes hunting for a parking space, there I was in the front row of the CJC Jazz Club; poised expectantly as the pianist’s fingers were about to descend. It was not as if I had been deprived of music during lockdown because my ears had been exploring a mélange of sounds. In fact, my noise-cancelling headphones had become such a fixture that I felt awkward without them. So what had I missed? I had missed sitting with friends, the hushed buzz of conversation before a first set and that feeling of joy as the lights lower. Live Jazz in an intimate setting is a unique experience, and for me, an addictive one. As Nietzsche said, a life lived without music would be a mistake.
I approach Jonathan Crayford gigs with high expectations and I am never disappointed. Even the occasional gigs in crowded streetside bars yield gold; but in a listening venue with a nice piano, you get the best of him. All good musicians feed on an enthusiastic audience, but with Crayford, there is a discernable x-factor, something quite beyond the ordinary. It is difficult to put into words, and I have approached this on previous occasions. You can see it in his gaze as he leans toward a piano, but it is also in his verbal engagements with an audience. When he talks and plays he is reaching beyond. Beyond a room, a city, a country. Gazing into the cosmos for inspiration.
His talk is peppered with a sense of place, or with improbable events and observations as he weaves them into intimate and odd narratives. A park bench in Central Park, a book read in Paris, a philosophical discussion with a homeless person. Pavement tee-shirt manufacturing — bikes in space! He talks as if new worlds and indeed the cosmos falls easily under his gaze and that is reflected in his music. To make extraordinary music requires seeing beyond the mundane. The interesting thing, however unexpected, is that for a moment, we hear through brand new ears. That is his gift.
The gig featured a selection of Crayford’s compositions and all were extracted from his acclaimed New York Trio albums on Rattle. Anything from East-West Moon or Dark Light will please and fresh interpretations with a newly configured trio are always welcome. All three musicians were obviously pleased to be gigging again and I know that drummer Ron Samsom and bass player Cameron McArthur relished the opportunity to tackle these works. All three dug in and delivered as I knew they would.
If by some unfortunate oversight you have not heard East-West Moon or the earlier album, Dark Light, you need to remedy that over the Christmas break. I would urge you to bypass the streamers and purchase the album, or at least download it in WAV from www.rattle-records.bandcamp Support Kiwi music.
The CJC live trio: Jonathan Crayford (piano), Cameron McArthur (bass), Ron Samsom (drums)
The NY album trio: Jonathan Crayford (piano), Ben Street (bass), Dan Weiss (drums) – Rattle Records (Rattle Jazz)
JazzLocal32.com is rated as one of the 50 best Jazz Blogs in the world by Feedspot. The author is a professional member of the Jazz Journalists Association, poet & writer.Some of these posts appear on related sites.
‘Seventh House Music’ is a recent imprint of ‘Rattle Records’ and a portal into a specific sub-genre of free improvised music. The parent label, Rattle, occupies a unique place in the cultural life of Aotearoa. It is a natural home for innovative and predominantly Kiwi art music and the new imprint has emerged at an auspicious time. Rattle has just celebrated its thirtieth anniversary. It is a taonga, drawing inspiration from many sources, including that of Aotearoa’s indigenous peoples, and due to the careful curation by Steve Garden, it maps a unique arc of creativity. Or to quote from the website: ‘music born of open-ended boundary-free creativity, new music for open ears.
‘Exiles’ is the first album from Seventh House Music, and presciently, it appeared in the week of Jon Hassell’s passing. It engages the psyche, much like Hassell’s music. Adventurous music like this has been around for some time, but until recently, unaccountably, it has mostly flown under the radar. In fact, this is the second collaboration between Steve Garden and Ivan Zagni. Their first release, ‘Trouble Spots’ came about after a long collaboration and it finally appeared last year. I reviewed it in a post titled ‘Adventurous Spirits’ on this blog site.
This album feels a lot bolder and it is as compelling as it is confronting. I would not categorise this as ambient music as it demands attention from the first. There is no equivocation here as the album hauls you deep inside its soundscapes and without preamble. You attempt to regain your equilibrium as you perceive the unfamiliar in the familiar. This is a world that Alice would have delighted in, a place where nothing is quite what it seems and where change can happen deceptively. You accustom yourself to a direction only to find that the moon and stars are not where you thought they were.
There is a narrative flow throughout, but it is not dependant on the known. It laps gently at your feet in First Wave, then drops you unexpectedly into something utterly different. You strain to hear as a distant and disembodied voice urges,
“you’ve got to stop dreaming at night’ (did I imagine hearing that?).
Twenty-Three Fifty-Nine becomes a minimalist piano piece with crystalline chords dropping out of the ether. And there is subtle humour as well, as fragments of spoken word mess with your head. As in Collapse, which opens with percussion and delightfully so, and out of the rhythmic shapes emerges competing voices.
“I was close to my mother, (pause), in real life I mean”. “The twilight of the gods”
In times of upheaval, there is nothing more cathartic than a truly immersive experience, a place where the complexities of the world can be encountered, upended, then reordered. As always with Rattle productions, the artwork and booklet are pitch-perfect. Whomever UnkleFranc is, he/she should take a bow. Very few labels present such an attractive package and even fewer maintain such unerring consistency over time. If you haven’t checked out expansive psychedelic filmic music, this would be a great place to start. If you are familiar with adventurous music then you won’t need a second invitation. If you have noise-canceling headphones, grab them and push play: you will thank me, I promise.
The album was produced, recorded, and mixed by Garden and Zagni, with some mysterious others credited. It is available on Bandcamp or better yet on CD complete with a comprehensive ArtBook. Seventhhousemusic.bandcamp.com
‘Murmurs’ is the second Alan Brown album to be released in recent months, and like Alargo, it delves into free-improvised sound-sculpted music. While this is a solo album, it features many voices, shaped and curated by a variety of electronic means. One of the devices utilised is an iPad and this willingness to experiment and to push at the boundaries of technology is part of what makes Brown a trailblazer.
Most importantly, Brown is a master of nuance and although he utilises an array of machines he humanises the effects and instruments at his disposal. There is always a keen acoustic awareness and he evokes a sense of the spaces he occupies. There is wizardry, but it is subservient to mood and texture. It is the continuation of an interesting and evolving journey and one we are lucky to share.
The layering and looping effects on Murmur are seamless, as themes shimmer and shift. And because the changes flow so naturally, you are always inside the music. Transmission becomes Murmur and so on throughout. And because of these beguiling and subtle shifts, you lose your awareness of time and become more aware of space. I am unsure what the piece titled Halting Problem refers to, but it had me standing on a mountain top and breathing clear crisp air. In effect, these are engagements, and each invites the listener to become a participant. One will find a mountain top, another something entirely different.
Our world is peppered by ugly social media outbursts, appearing to lurch from crisis to crisis. Because of that, our awareness of human shortcomings increases and we can easily become disoriented, angry or despairing. This album provides respite and applies a balm. It is a call to pause and reflect. It slows our steps and guides us to our better selves, and out of that, refreshed, we are the better for it.
One of the few pleasures of lockdown is that it has afforded me time to conduct long-form interviews. But while I had the time, the subject of this interview was back touring again and his hectic schedule meant that dates and time zones had to be navigated with precision. Consequently, our pre-interview messaging often occurred during gig breaks. Guitarist Rob Luft is a significant presence on the UK and European Jazz scene. He is articulate and a good storyteller and so transcribing our zoom call has been a pleasure. We talked for nearly two hours.
It was basically a long-distance hang, and when Jazz people are interviewed they tend to intersperse the geeky stuff with funny asides. This was no exception. For my part, I couldn’t wait to hear about his ECM experience with Manfred Eicher, but the unexpected foray into the joys of Arab music and being alone with Tutankhamun were the icing on the cake. It was never in doubt that Luft’s star would rise and it has risen on the back of sound judgement and hard work. And in aligning himself with astonishing vocalists like Alina Duni he has broadened his horizons. It is unusual to hear a young guitarist embracing thoughtful minimalism but in doing this he has shown real maturity. Under his fingers, less is invariably more.
JL32: Hi Rob, nice to see you again man and thanks for agreeing to an interview when you are so busy gigging. I know that you had a gig in Oxford last night and were at Ronnie Scotts much of last week, before that on tour in Europe.
Luft: Hi John, good to see you too after a long strange few years. It’s been a while since we last met up.
JL32. Yes, after your trip to New Zealand in 2016 (see review) we got together in London, first at the Barnes Jazz Club for the launch of Luna Cohens ‘November Skies’ album and then, a year later at Ronnie Scotts where you were playing with Kit Downes.
Luft: And I have played with both since, with Luna on my recent album and with Kit on a gig recently.
JL32: According to your discography you have been very busy since we last spoke. There was your Riser album with Joe Wright (sax), Joe Webb (keys), Tom McCredie (bass) and Corrie Dick (drums), and then, a follow-up album with the same lineup adding vocalist Luna Cohan and on ‘Flumpit’ Byron Wallen. And over that same period, you were sideman on around eight albums.
Luft: Yes and other projects, but, 2020 was almost completely dry of gigs because of COVID. We had the inverse experience to New Zealand because the UK was hit early and we were not open like your country. Especially gig wise.
JL32: The last time we spoke you told me that you and the Albanian Jazz vocalist Elina Duni had an ECM album under discussion, and of course that came to pass with the beautiful ‘Lost Ships’. Looking at the release date, that must have coincided with the arrival of restrictions in the UK.
Luft: Well in the rest of Europe, after the initial lockdown, there were still gigs happening, I was able to play gigs in France, Italy, Germany, Spain and Switzerland throughout the summer. In the UK it was very different.
JL32: I’d like to come back to that, but before we proceed further, a few biographical details if you don’t mind. I know that you were born in the London area and that you went to the Royal Academy of Music where you won the Kenny Wheeler Prize.
Luft: Yes, and I had a bizarre sort of experience at the Academy. The class groups for the Jazz Studies Bachelor’s course were very small and in my year there were only five, then later four of us. And in my group was Jacob Collier, so for the best part of four years, I was there with Jacob who was obviously a multi-instrumentalist. We had no drummer in our year and so usually you would have a full group playing with you, and so Jacob would play a different instrument when each guest artist came to visit us. There was John Abercrombie, Kenny Wheeler, Stan Sulzman and so on, and Jacob would be there playing a different instrument for each ensemble. There was no sense of continuity or band sensibility because Jacob was fulfilling so many roles, quite bizarre actually.
JL32: So in some ways your studies forced you to forge your own path.
Luft: I guess because the Academy only took in pupils who had advanced abilities at the outset. Less teaching and a more autodidactic approach, they encouraged that. They would get these great artists like Jerry Bergonzi to come in and play with us rather than teach us in the traditional sense. It was amazing to have people like John Abercombie come in and I’d be with him for a couple of days at a time.
JL32: That must have been especially good for you as a guitarist.
Luft: For me it was optimal. And obviously, the people coming in with Kenny Wheeler, like John Taylor, Norma Winstone and that class of musicians.
JL32: Abercrombie, Wheeler, Taylor, they are no longer with us.
Luft: Yes, back then Kenny Wheeler’s Big Band would come in and rehearse, imagine, you’re eighteen years old and you watch these legendary Jazz figures come in and rehearse in your music hall, it was amazing. Kenny had a huge influence on me, on my harmonic and textural approach. And Stan (Sulzman), a lovely player, and Ray Warleigh, they were all in that band, Ray was originally from Australia I think (SadlyWarleigh is also no longer with us).
JL32: Kenny was across every style huh.
Luft: He was eclectic, as was Stan, across everything from playing alongside English folk guitarist Nick Drake to playing free alongside Evan Parker. And I love that open eclecticism, the Academy was like that, never dictatorial or saying, you have to play like this.
JL32; The UK scene historically, appears to have possessed enough confidence to do its own thing, not thinking that they had to sound exactly like American players. It appears to have an original voice, much as the Scandinavian scene does. What do you think?
Luft: Yeah it’s very similar to the Scandinavian Jazz scene. You will understand, because we meet up in London, that it’s a melting pot, with influences coming from all over Europe and everywhere else. Afro Caribean musicians because of the connections formed way back in colonial times. Or the Indian community in North London creating a hub of South Indian music and by the same token, there is a huge West African community bringing their traditional music, Ghanain, Congolese for example.
JL32: Like Shabaka Hutchings?
Luft: Exactly, Shabaka comes from a Barbadian background and is influenced by Calypso music.
JL32: And earlier, Joe Harriot from Jamaica, who was world-leading in his free and world fusion explorations.
Luft: Yes, and that’s the melting pot of London. So many forms of music around and played at a high level. And you came to see us in Barnes with the Brazillian vocalist Luna Cohen and her band features Brazillian musicians. I played with them again recently and Luna is on one of my recent albums.
JL32: She sung wordless vocal lines, I love that.
Luft: I especially love that as a guitarist, the Pat Metheney group of the eighties, and Kenny with Norma Winstone, I can’t get away from it in my head, the vocalese. And the psychedelic jazz of the seventies, Mahavishnu and Alan Holdsworth. One of the first gigs I ever saw was Holdsworth with Jimmy Haslip and Gary Husband (Gary playing the drums and not keyboards). For better or worse, seeing that trio changed my life.
JL32: Is Gary Husband English (Luft nods) I had no idea?
Luft: A few months after my New Zealand trip I met McLoughlin at the Montreaux Jazz Festival and he adjudicated in a competition I had entered. Then his band played with the two winning bands, I got second place, all of us jamming a blues together and doing solos. I had to pinch myself and say, is this happening (laughs). He’s lovely, just lovely, and he speaks incredibly good French, but I was slightly dismayed that his North Yorkshire accent has all but disappeared.
JL32: So moving to 2020 and your album ‘Life as a Dancer’, did you record that before or after the ECM album ‘Lost Ships’?
Luft: That was recorded six months before. I remember that session well because Byron had been held up. He needed to pick up his Flumpet which had a sticky valve. It sounds like a comedy sketch now (laughs), very Monty Python, me on the phone saying we need your Flumpet. We were recording and only had the studio booked for a limited time. When he arrived we only had time left for one take and he nailed it.
JL32: I admire openness in writing, even after adding two extra voices (after Riser), that album still sounds spacious, and the palette creates a nice textural balance.
Luft: I think you could say that the quintet was more inspired by textual, ambient ideas, perhaps Eno, more open and a washier sound, more open to explorations. We laid down a very simple progression and let the music go where it wanted to.
JL32: Are you drawn to open, model or spiritual jazz?
Luft: Yes, that new Coltrane album exemplified that, it blew me away. I am always inspired by that modal era, and when you add the electric guitar, electronics, which touches on those psychedelic influences, Eno, Byrne, then that whole world of sonic exploration opens.
JL32: Jon Hassell?
Luft: Oh yeah, a huge loss. In 2019 I was on tour with Arve Hendrikson (Norwegian Trumpeter associated with Hassell), and I discovered Hassell after I had heard Arve, and I said to him, ‘hang on, there is so much in your playing that comes from Jon Hassell and I had no idea’.
JL32: And guitarist Eivind Aaset, electronics improviser Jan Bang?
Luft: ‘Dream Logic’ is one of my favourite albums. The Norwegians are masters, they are like folk musicians. I met Eivind and Arild Anderson recently when I played at the Molde Jazz Festival, and I came to the realisation that these are deep folk musicians. Masters of sound, it’s about sound and the local roots. And Sidsel Endresen who is the biggest influence on Elina is astonishing.
JL32: And last year, there was another album that was released. A trio with Norwegian bassist and vocalist Ellen Andrea Wang, You on guitar and Jon Falt on drums (Falt is the long time drummer with the ECM Bobo Stenson Trio).
Luft: I’m a huge fan of Jon Falt and I love Bobo Stenson, a big influence across Europe, Here, he has an almost Jarrett-like status.
JL32: Again that open airy free sound – like the American pianist, Marilyn Crispell, minimalism and depth.
Luft: The trumpet player who appears on ‘Life is a Dancer’, Byron Wallen, has an album. I’m on tour with him at present. He plays trumpet, Flugel, Flumpet, piano, conch and reads poems. He’s of Belizian Descent and has this gorgeous dulcet voice, and while he reads a poem I play minimalistic triadic chords. A beautiful conversation, voice above the texture.
JL32: Obviously, the thing I am keen to explore is your co-led album ‘Lost Ships’ and your impressions of recording with ECM. ‘Lost ships’ is the album that I am most likely to recommend to friends and your playing is a great example of less being more. You are understated, not all over the vocalist, but it feels so expansive. And all of you, relatively sparse instrumentation, Flugel, piano, guitar, vocals and not always at the same time, but a big sound.
Luft: I can tell you an amazing story about that recording. At that point, some countries like Italy were beginning to experience COVID but for us, it was a vague awareness of distant storm clouds gathering. We were there in the south of France and the days were mild. The studio Manfred had hired was in Avignon and the Israeli pianist Shai Maestro had just finished recording. And Manfred was there setting up the mics and desk levels, and then he had to return to Munich unexpectedly. So the set-up was complete and we had the engineer, but we were suddenly self-producing.
I was initially gutted, but Alina who had recorded with Manfred before, said, this is an opportunity. His presence is everywhere in the studio, so we should draw on that and record as if he were here guiding us. We should play as though he were sitting on the other side of the glass. And we would do a take and listen and say to ourselves, how would Manfred view this, and it was kind of liberating because we had unexpected freedom and as a young guitarist, I might have been intimidated otherwise.
JL32: Tell me more about the vibe.
Luft: I mean Manfred has produced some of my favourite albums like Metheney’s ‘Bright Sized Life’, John Abercrombie’s ‘Timeless’ with De Johnette/Hammer and many of my favourite guitar albums, so it took some of the weight off my shoulders to be imagining his presence. And as you pointed out, I felt able to play in a minimalist spacious way and I didn’t deploy all of my usual tricks and language. I just told myself, be an ECM guitarist and it worked. I’ve been told that Manfred loves the album and that he plays it at dinner parties, so it’s a good sign.
JL32: I would like to touch on the arranging, the writing, configuration etc.
Luft: I did a fair bit of the arranging and we were lucky to bring onboard other musicians, Matthieu Michel on Flugelhorn, they call him the Kenny Wheeler of Switzerland, a mellifluous tone reminiscent of the Northern Europeans. Manfreds a fan of his playing and he’s featured on a few ECM albums, with artists like Susanne Abbuehl. And Fred Thomas who is a multi-instrumentalist. He went to the Academy about ten years before me, in the same year as Kit Downes (also an ECM artist). What I’m trying to say is that it is all very incestuous (laughs). It’s a beautiful thing that the entire Jazz world is so connected.
Getting back to ‘lost Ships’, it came out in November 2020, during the month that Europe called a circuit-breaker lockdown. So right on release after the promise of clubs finally opening up again, lockdown. It was like a switch being turned off. We were gutted that we could not promote our album and only one concert survived. We had a big release tour locked down and suddenly in my diary, everything had to be crossed out.
The one remaining concert was the Cairo Jazz festival, Egypt! So in the middle of a lockdown, I showed up at Heathrow, guitar in tow, and boarded an Egyptian Airlines flight, without Matthieu. We were a trio with just Alina and Fred. But there was one gig on the way in Galicia Spain which was streamed and from there we flew directly to Cairo. (clip shown)
As we exited the Cairo terminal, the wafts of heat just swept over us, in stark contrast to wintery London. Taxi touts everywhere, shouting, and obviously no lockdown. We had two gigs at the festival and instead of live-streaming with no audience, we had a gorgeous venue and a full capacity audience. The Cairo Jazz Festival is amazing and we learnt an Arabic song for it, an ancient maqam from the 14th century.
We met loads of great musicians and the director of the festival, Amr Salah said, why are you getting on a plane to fly into a lockdown? What will you do when there are no gigs? Why don’t you just miss the flight and stay in Egypt? It was a wine-fueled evening and we decided on the spot to do just that. We soon found ourselves exploring the wonders of upper and lower Egypt. There were no tourists and we had the ancient sites virtually to ourselves. I must be one of the few people to stand beside Tutankhamun without company. And it was just us inside the anti-chamber of the Great Pyramid of Giza. And one thing led to another and I stayed there seven months.
JL32: Did I hear you correctly, seven months?
Luft: I was there living my life as normal, learning a bit of Arabic, and I fell in love with the country. And for whatever reason, the desert or perhaps a lack of testing, but very few cases of the virus appeared.
JL32: And are there any projects underway, ECM or otherwise?
Luft: Well three months ago Alina and I received an email from Manfred asking us to do another record. The finer details of which are under discussion right now and we might be recording in March 2022. And although we suffered through missing the lockdown release gigs, all of those bookings are suddenly active again, with promoters wanting us to appear all over. Strangely, I am busier with gigs now than I have ever been. In a few days, we head for Paris for a week of gigs, then around France. And another factor is that Elina and I work perfectly well as a duo and promotors find that easier to plan for. (some European countries have numbers restrictions again).
JL32: And how is the album doing?
Luft: By modern standards well and the sales are constant with gigs opening up again. Loads of Radio Play in Germany and Italy especially. ECM is essentially an old fashioned business and what they do is remarkably successful. Manfred is across it all and he uses only a small number of studios and a handful of trusted engineers. There’s one in the South of France where we recorded, there’s one in Lugano south Switzerland. Even the famous Rainbow Studio in Oslo is not used anymore because the room is different. He values spaces and forms high trust relationships with certain engineers, and he probably delegates more than people think. Including delegating to the musicians. I have been told by other ECM musicians that his presence is felt, but not inserted into the project. Not insisting, I want you to do this now.
JL32: Any plans for a down-under tour in future?
Luft: The Melbourne scene is an important Jazz hub and the Melbourne diaspora (of jazz musicians) is felt throughout the world. We have a good friend in Melbourne who keeps threatening to organise a tour. If we were to go to Melbourne we would certainly try to facilitate a trip to New Zealand. And I would tour with Alina, it’s just a question of time. My mentality now, since we started touring again is, every concert is a blessing, a gift. Even if it’s stressful to get there with quarantine or with testing, we brush that aside and give the concert our all. I don’t want to lose that.
JL32: And I want to mention another name, someone you know. James Copus the Flugel player. I reviewed the recent Scottish National Jazz Orchestra album where they honour some free-jazz titans and James was playing in the orchestra. I loved his ‘Dusk’ recording.
Luft: Yes, James is one of my oldest friends, we shared a flat in North London, we drank too much, jammed too loudly and annoyed the neighbours. We would rehearse in our room with Balkan brass ensembles and the poor neighbours were incensed. We have known each other since we were fifteen as we were both in the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. And in the Royal Academy, we were in the same year with Jacob Collier. James and I are going to record together next year.
JL32: I see that you recorded as guest guitarist with the SNJO.
Luft: Yes one album. Tommy Smith is amazing, the UK Michael Brecker.
JL32: A few final questions. On ‘Lost Ships’ there is no bass player and minimal drums. How did you approach that?
Luft: Yes, it freed up space, but it also put a lot of responsibility onto my shoulders as a guitarist. So that’s why I used the electronics to give me an octave below and to fill out that space a bit more. And if there is a drummer they needed to be very aware. Play more with the lower toms and bass drum. I played bass lines sometimes while comping, it’s a flavour. You can’t talk about bassless jazz without thinking, Paul Motian Trio. In my head, that’s the textbook on how to do it.
JL32: Current influences?
Luft: I try to listen to new stuff all the time. Actually, Egypt was amazing for that. Being immersed in a whole world of Egyptian singers and musicians was great, I had no idea it existed. And now I hear that and it touches me deeply. It’s incredible the way the Oud players, singers and violinists improvise within a mode and often microtonally. No pianos anywhere. I’m a huge fan of Anouar Brahem, so to walk into a cafe, drink a really strong coffee and hear musicians doing what he does, magic, all of that drone-based modal music.
It’s lament music. Alina often points out to audiences, that once you cross the Bosphorus and arrive in the Middle East, something fundamental in the music changes. So in the West, a major key song is a happy song and a minor key song is a sad song. Once you cross the Bosphorus, the minor key becomes the happy song. And Jazz gets that as it understands dancing the sadness away.
JL32: So with Alina, you will have been exploring this type of music.
Luft: Because she’s from Albania, an ancient cultural melting pot, the Ottoman Turkish influence is strong, but it’s also a Mediterranean country with Italian and other influences. So Turkish microtonality blended with an Italian folky balladesque. And touches of Rock and Pop. The Balkans region influences me more and more. So I have an Oud now and I am beginning to explore that. The Oud shops of Cairo are the Tin Pan Alley of the Middle East. We have to innovate to keep moving.
JL32: And the recent album by Norwegian bass player Ellen Andrea Wang that you featured on. That is a prime example of the forward-momentum of improvised music. I get quite a few albums from that region for review, and many are similar to ‘Closeness’ in that they blend pop sensibilities with hardcore Jazz. Like folksy ballads alongside tunes like Ornette’s Lonely Woman or some Americana like Wayfaring Stranger.
Luft: All over London there are Jazz gigs in small venues featuring this exact type of music, so you get teenagers coming along in droves, and sometimes I do gigs like that. We will throw in a Radiohead or a Nick Drake number with Jazz harmonies. I love the excitement on the faces of new audiences as they hear that mix but also relate to the straight Jazz content. Brad Mehldau led the way. Many young Londoners are becoming tired of shallow formulaic pop music and they are searching. And they discover new stars like Shabaka Hutchings who is very popular. Myele Manzanza from Wellington is also very successful in London, he has real crossover appeal.
JL32: I am interested in your work as an accompanist, your sensitivity and awareness of the vocalist. Not every guitarist gets that, many overplay, miss the nuances when comping. Although you have a number of instrumental albums, you also gravitate towards vocalists. Are you drawn to them or do they seek you out?
Luft: I’ve always been drawn to singers because I love the spoken word. A number of years ago I studied at University College London, a degree course in the science of language. Along the way, I managed to pick up two additional languages, with a degree of proficiency, French and Italian, and I’m fascinated with the connection between poetry and melody. Voice and guitar, that extra layer that can be added. So I am drawn to them, but maybe it works both ways as they call me back for more gigs.
JL32: It appears that we’ve been talking for nearly two hours so I’d better wrap up and let you get some sleep (it’sMidnight in the UK). Thanks, for giving me so much time man, it’s been a really interesting and fun catch-up.
Luft: And you too John. Let’s hope that our paths will cross sometime in the new year or very soon after.
JazzLocal32.com is rated as one of the 50 best Jazz Blogs in the world by Feedspot. The author is a professional member of the Jazz Journalists Association, poet & writer.Some of these posts appear on related sites.
Last month, a new Kiwi record label was launched and if the first releases are anything to go by, it will surely become a popular destination for ‘out’ improvised music fans. The Kiwi Jahzz label is a significant addition to the Aotearoa recorded music scene, and like Budweiser, it reaches places that others don’t
The music found in these underground basements has long been a magnet for adventurous listeners, and especially for younger musicians who often cut their avant-garde teeth there. With the arrival of the pandemic, lockdowns followed suit and clubs took a hit. One of those venues was The Wine Cellar under St Kevin’s arcade. A popular home for independent music.
A hundred yards away in a nearby uptown basement, Jeff Henderson devised a plan. Why not move the Audio Foundation gear into the Wine Cellar. This included recording equipment and a ready-made audience. Out of that has come a string of recordings and a desire to make the music available to a wider audience. This is what musical freedom sounds like as the gigs are captured live. These recordings are street raw and bristling with energy, the sounds escaping from dark basements.
Henderson is known for taking his time over a piece and for letting the moment dictate pace and length. A groove or vamp can run for as long as it needs to and with each utterance informing the direction of travel. It is music often liberated from harmonic distractions or from predictable pulses, so as it wends its way, it draws on a lifetime of experience, with each moment revealing yet another nested story.
With the double trios recorded so far, the pieces have been shorter and this is perhaps a concession to the medium. In a darkened club you are more attuned to longer pieces, at home there are distractions. All but one of the initial releases features the Trioglodyte Trio. The core Trioglodyte lineup being Jeff Henderson, Eamon Edmundson-Wells and Chris O’Connor. It is perhaps more accurate to describe these albums as Trioglodyte led double trios because most of the releases to date feature a guest trio as well. A mixture of well-known musicians and enthusiastic up and comers.
While Henderson is not a musician to blow his own trumpet, his baritone saxophone could flatten the walls of Jericho. He is the guiding force behind the growth of the improvised ‘out’ music scene in Aotearoa and his determination has built a sustainable and vibrant presence. A saxophonist, composer, producer and visionary, someone formidable.
Rated X (Davis)
With him in the Trioglodyte trio are Eamon Edmundson-Wells on bass and Chris O’Connor on drums (and percussion). O’Connor is a legend across many genres and Edmundson-Wells has built a solid reputation in settings like this. The pair are the perfect foils for Henderson, being adept at reacting instinctively and both capable of carrying considerable weight. Edmundson-Wells is a powerful and unfaltering presence and this frees up Henderson to forge a melodic path. Meanwhile, O’Connor does what he is renowned for, delivers his extraordinary pulses in marvellously unexpected ways.
‘Vol 1’ is modestly titled but don’t let that fool you, because immediately you click on the arrow, the introductory track comes right at you, delivering hammer blows to the senses. Perhaps there should be a warning upfront; beware there will be no ECM styled five seconds of silence beforehand. That track is titled ‘Bra Joe’.
Henderson opens with an extraordinary squalling attack as he strides into the tune like a Titan, casting aside all that he deems superfluous. Underneath his saxophone, you are aware of the pumping and scuffling of Edmundson-Wells and O’Connor, followed by the second trio. Crystal Choi on keyboards, Bonnie Stewart on drums and Paul Taylor on percussion and electronics. This may be a short number, but the impact will linger long afterwards.
The second track ‘Bra Joe from Kilamajaro’ is a reimagining of the Dollar Brand standard. Here the pace is slowed and the volume lowered but the intensity is not. The way it unfolds over a long slow vamp imparts something of an Alice Coltrane vibe, with Choi’s keys rippling joyfully beneath the bass. In fact, every track references a Jazz standard (more or less). Some might wonder why an album of adventurous free music features standards, but the music here is as out and adventurous as you might wish. And as with most improvised music, there is an implication of fun, of not taking ourselves too seriously. My favourite track is definitely ‘Rated X’ (Miles Davis). This is a multi-layered sonic feast and everyone gets to strut their stuff here. Miles smiles I’m sure. On this particular track, it is easy to understand why Henderson is held in such high regard. The ideas just bubble from his horn and everyone responds in kind. And Bonnie Stewart (is this the Irish born Bonnie Stewart, the drummer songwriter, who performs with SIMA in Sydney). I have always been a fan of Choi on keys and this is the proof of the pudding; she was always reaching for this space. And then Taylor, electronics and percussion; his inclusion rounding off the ensemble nicely. This is the way modern avant-garde music has been tracking of late, two, even three drummers, which offers more punch.
Milestones (Davis)
‘Vol 2’ has a different mood entirely. It opens with a moody piece of Frisell styled Americana, with one guitarist playing chords over a soft drone while the other answers. When Henderson comes in, new possibilities open up, and a subtle interplay involving all six musicians takes this into freer territory. Track two has a delightful New Orleans barroom kind of vibe. Again, Henderson leads the way with raw gutbucket blues. It shouldn’t surprise anyone to hear him play like a soulful Texas tenor player (complete with shouts) as there is ample evidence of this on earlier Henderson led albums. As you move through the tracks the Americana theme merges with other influences, a two drummer conversation titled Bonnie & Chris, a short piece titled Eamon & Jeff. And following that is the blistering and rollicking ‘Impressions’; this last piece is best described as a Knitting Factory styled blues with the drums and percussion setting up the tune. Unadulterated crazy magic. Apart from Trioglodyte, the album features guitarists Kat Tomacruz and Bret Adams plus drummer Bonnie Stewart.
‘Vol 3’ is not a Trioglodyte album and unlike the other three in the series, it was recorded in Wellington at the Poneke Beer Loft (November 2020). Here Henderson is with bassist Paul Dyne and drummer Rick Cranson. All are heavy hitters and well used to traversing the jagged lines of Monk and responding to the keening cries of an Ornette Coleman tune. As well, the tracklist offers freely improvised pieces and a standard. The liner notes make reference to Henderson’s garrulous saxophone, and while that is accurate, it is also true that we can find a more measured and interrogatory tone from him here. Perhaps because this traverses familiar ground with old friends, the trio decided to take an oblique look at the material. This is particularly evident on the Raye/de Paul war-horse ‘You Don’t Know What Love Is’. Together they have recut this diamond and revealed burning shafts of light hitherto unseen, and in doing so, they forged a minimalist route to the lustre. ‘Black ‘n’ White ‘n’ Blues’, dances joyfully over ostinato bass lines and a steady pulse, Colemans ‘Blues Connection’ is delightful and captures the essence of the great man; also, the two Monk tunes ‘Bye Ya’ and ‘Friday the 13th’ refresh and delight.
‘Vol 4’ is another Wine Cellar recording and the lineup here is mouth-watering. There is no Chris O’Conner in the core trio this time, but his replacement Julien Dyne slots in seamlessly. Dyne is a marvellous drummer, comfortable in a multitude of settings. He is also responsible for the great artwork on all four of these releases. And as if there were not already an embarrassment of riches, Jonathan Crayford features on Fender Rhodes. The other musicians are J Y Lee on alto & flute (a player featuring in many innovative bands about town) and as in Vol 1, Paul Tayler on percussion and electronics. This album takes in a broader perspective on improvised music. It is filled with interesting cross-genre references and it invokes many moods. Here Henderson deploys a fuller armoury of alto, C soprano, baritone and C Melody saxophones.
The opener has an Afro Beat feel. Powerful propulsive and utilising repeated phrases to amp up the tension. Track two ‘The Rubble’, by contrast, is a dark filmic piece powered by the percussive utterances of Dyne and Taylor and the mood deepened by the arco bass of Edmundson-Wells. Three is airy and open, wending its way purposefully, led by Crayford as he sets the pace and mood. People unfamiliar with free improvised music often fail to comprehend that this type of music can on occasion be gentle and reflective. It is honest music dictated by the moment. The flute and saxophone are pelagic birds circling above the rolling swells of a vast ocean. A most appealing piece.
Track four, ‘Milestones’ (Davis) is a wonderful Dewey doing Miles fifteen-minute romp and the best reimagining of the tune I’ve heard in ages. This is so good that I had to put it on repeat play. The two saxophones playing unison lines, then Henderson (and Lee) playing the changes before launch off, Crayford dropping space chords underneath and soloing like Sun Ra’s chosen successor, Dyne, Taylor and Edmundson-Wells lifting the intensity beyond the high watermark. This track is everything you could ever wish from a Jahzz group. No wonder Tony Williams kept begging Miles to keep the tune in the repertoire post Bitches. Again 5 stars. There is one more standard ‘The Girl from Ipanema’. They have taken a ‘same beach different girl’ approach here. This is completely free and not a bossa beat in evidence. This is a musical territory that the Norwegian electronic improvisers claim so convincingly. It is explorative and anyone with open ears will enjoy the ride. Mood dominates and form is irrelevant. Having some of our best musicians collaborating on a project like this is a masterstroke. The open-eared must support Kiwi Jahzz and if we do there will certainly be more riches in store. You can find downloads and high quality streaming at Bandcamp on kiwijahzz.bandcamp.com
Footnote: A pointless question is sometimes asked of me, ‘but is this Jazz’. My response is, who cares, followed by, but did you listen with open ears and did the music talk to you? That’s all a listener needs to know about approaching unfamiliar music. Perhaps in future, I will answer by suggesting that they may be confusing Jazz with Jahzz.
Jazz is a catch-all descriptor for a broad swath of improvised music, and like all attempts to define an open art form, it eventually hits a brick wall. Jazz doesn’t require a scholarly explanation because the listener ‘just knows’; or as Pat Metheney put it, ‘you can’t see, touch or smell Jazz (unless you’re Frank Zappa), but a listener can recognise it immediately. Sound is air vibrations passing over the small bones in the inner ear, then it becomes electrical impulses. Jazz is physics fused with alchemy.
JazzLocal32.com is rated as one of the 50 best Jazz Blogs in the world by Feedspot. The author is a professional member of the Jazz Journalists Association, poet & writer.Some of these posts appear on related sites.
If Alargo had appeared in the year 1644, Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General would have instigated an urgent investigation. Such was the supernatural wizardry and shapeshifting that occurred last Wednesday. On that night we were invited into new sonic worlds and transported beyond the mundane. The event occurred just after the passing of Jon Hassell and that made it especially appropriate. Hassell was a standard bearer for this measured, avant-garde music; and there were others. Eddie Henderson and Miles spring immediately to mind
The point of improvised music is to establish a form and then to craft something afresh. To build, shape and react in the moment, and above all to surprise. Sometimes the surprise comes softly, as a shape is crafted from an unexpected whisper. In the modern world the sources of sound are limitless, but the world is a frenetic and noisy place and we tend to overlook the deeper sounds or the slower journeys.
This particular style of free improvised music takes its time to unfold, and in the process, moments of rare beauty are revealed. However, like all music, it has its structure. It is linear and it ebbs and flows according to the specifics of mood and pulse. Harmonies appear fleetingly then shift or fade. They exist to enhance mood.
While it was technically a duo performance it was more than that. There were two musicians but they spoke in numerous instrumental voices. All of the voices were shaped in real time and shaped on machines both ancient and modern. It was acoustic and electric. It was analogue and digital and it worked well because the musicians understood and exploited the possibilities. It is seldom that you hear the subtler dynamic possibilities explored as effectively as this.
There have been two Alargo albums released to date, and the good news is that another is on the way. This time Rattle is involved and the experimental nature and quality of the music renders it a perfect fit for the label. There were three tunes from Alargo’s Central Plateau album, two from the Primacy album and the rest were either new pieces or those to feature on the up-coming album. I have posted Actopia which is from Central Plateau, the longest piece of the night and a good showcase for this band.
Keyboardist Alan Brown is a popular and celebrated Auckland musician. He is known for his versatility and deep grooves. It was nice to learn that his famous Blue Train band was performing again recently. As co-leader of Alargo Brown played (utilised) 2x iPads (as sound sources) with synths and effects-apps controlled through a MIDI keyboard, he also played an analogue synth, a darbuka drum and a Suzuki Andes recorder keyboard.
Kingsley Melhuish is well known around town as a multi-instrumentalist. He is as likely to pick up a conch shell as a trumpet; vocalise or play reeds and other brass instruments. He is also a noted academic, composer and educator. On this gig he played trumpet, tuba, conch shells, percussion, vocal effects, a Boss Loopstation and iPad for effects.
The Alargo albums are available via alanbrown.co.nz or in stores. Keep an eye on the Rattle releases for the up-coming album.
JazzLocal32.com is rated as one of the 50 best Jazz Blogs in the world by Feedspot. The author is a professional member of the Jazz Journalists Association, poet & writer.Some of these posts appear on related sites.
The Bonita Project is fueled by good compositions, nice arrangements and above all by the exuberance of leader Chelsea Prastiti. It is the second time that Bonita has appeared at the CJC in recent times and people returned for more. It is a worthy project as it reimagines a time and rides on a powerful vibe; the sort that the world needs right now. There was always an easy-going breezy quality to post-war Brazilian music and that quality could beguile. Underneath, however, there is a powerful engine, as the melodies float over a plethora of complex rhythmic structures.
It is impossible to listen and to keep your feet still as the urgency underlying the beachy vibe captures you. It is also true that in this golden era there were dangerous political undercurrents. Out of that dashed hope came a flowing of art forms and the authoritarian colonels who tried to snatch it all away could not silence the music. Many of the musicians like Elis Regina were harassed, but the music never faltered.
There were three arrangers credited on the gig, Prastiti, Sinclair and Passells. The compositions were by Prastiti (and with one co credited to Kenji Hollaway). Some of the tunes we had heard before, including the lovely ‘Cassandra’ (posted as a video last time). There were also new tunes and among them ‘Peter Pan’ was especially appealing. The band had changed slightly from last time, with Connor McAneny replacing Crystal Choi. McAneny had been out of the country for a few years and his return is welcome. His piano playing has a muscular quality to it, which was less evident before he left.
The opportunity afforded by a diverse sound palette was well utilised by the arrangers; bringing out the best in the music without overwhelming melody. This was achieved with three vocalists, an acoustic guitar, piano, double bass, percussion, kit drums, trumpet + flugelhorn, clarinet + flute, tenor saxophone and a second flute. It was pleasing to hear a 12 piece ensemble perform in this way. A configuration like this allows an arranger to impart a degree of airiness out of a large ensemble sound. This was achieved by having the instrumentalists or the vocalists moving in and out of the mix as required. The tunes had lyrics, but just as often there was wordless singing. I love to hear the human voice used as a (non-verbal) instrument. Perhaps because of my ongoing enthusiasm for Winston/Wheeler/Taylor in their ECM ‘Azimuth’ days. This was a nice project and all the more so because it was presented with infectious enthusiasm.
Bonita: Chelsea Prastiti (vocals, arranging), Eamon Edmondson-Wells (upright bass), Ron Samsom (percussion), Tristan Deck (drums), Connor McAneny (piano), Michael Howell (guitar), Roger Manins (tenor saxophone), Elizabeth Stokes (trumpet/flugelhorn), Ben Sinclair (clarinet, flute, arranging), J Y Lee (flute), Rachel Clarke (vocals), Gretel Donnelley (vocals), Callum Passells (arranging).
JazzLocal32.com is rated as one of the 50 best Jazz Blogs in the world by Feedspot. The author is a professional member of the Jazz Journalists Association, poet & writer.Some of these posts appear on related sites.
If you follow the New Zealand improvised music scene, you need to check out ‘Sanctuary’, a collaborative album released by the Wellington-based saxophonists’ Jasmine Lovell-Smith and Jake Baxendale. And although the release date was only a month ago, it is already receiving significant attention, including from outside these shores. When you listen to Baxendale’s Walt Whitman referencing ‘Leaves of Grass’ Suite or Lovell-Smiths gorgeous ‘Sanctuary’ suite you will understand why.
The album is replete with imaginative writing. Of tastefully painted brush strokes from an unusually rich colour palette, and this enabled by the configuration of the eleven-piece ensemble. It is saying something important but never at the expense of approachability, for example, Baxendale’s suite, the opener, brings Mingus to mind. Mingus in a Felliniesque wonderland.
The album is getting cut through because it is superbly realised and above all because it speaks convincingly of our times. In Lovell-Smith’s case, there is a distinct pastoral quality to her work and it invites us to reflect. This is similar to the approach that Maria Schneider takes, drawing attention to what is often passed over in haste and clothing the political in a softer raiment.
Because of the writing and the quality of the musicianship, this is an especially cohesive ensemble; but nevertheless, the voices of the individual musicians shine through strongly. First and foremost among the soloists are the co-leaders, Baxendale on alto saxophone and Lovell-Smith on soprano saxophone, each featuring strongly on the album. Both give stunning performances. They have assembled a formidable line up here and no one falls short. Among the fine performances, Blair Lathem on bass clarinet and baritone, Ben Hunt on trumpet, Louisa Williamson on tenor, Hikurangi Schaverien Kaa on drums, Aleister Campbell on guitar and Anita Schwabe on piano (with her innate sense of swing).
Baxendale is acknowledged as an important New Zealand composer and he has frequently been nominated (and has won) Jazz Tui awards. He is the spokesperson for the award-winning group The Jac (the winner of this year’s Tui with ‘A Gathering). He has travelled the world with his music and is associated with a number of New Zealand’s finest jazz units. Also a noted composer is Lovell-Smith who has resided, taught and performed in a number of countries, especially the USA and Mexico. Her return to New Zealand has enriched the scene here as she brings valuable insights and experience with her. Her innovative group the Noveltones is well worth catching.
The subject matter for the two suites, and for the additional pieces are perfectly pitched. Whitman the beloved poet and humanist who spoke his truth in unforgiving times. His love of nature and his common cause with open-minded souls. And Sanctuary, that loaded word that evokes both safety and confinement. The album was recorded after our borders with the world had closed. And while the album evokes a sense of our enforced isolation, it also speaks to our interconnectedness; of human beings existing in a complex ecosystem, and hopefully realising that this is a rare window of opportunity. Music like this helps illuminate our way.
To purchase or download the album visit jasminelovellsmith.bandcamp.com – Tell friends about it and support New Zealand music.
JazzLocal32.com is rated as one of the 50 best Jazz Blogs in the world by Feedspot. The author is a professional member of the Jazz Journalists Association, poet & writer.Some of these posts appear on related sites.
With the opening of borders between New Zealand and Australia, it was hoped that improvising musicians could begin touring again. Apart from three returnees and several stragglers who chose to shelter in place, we had not seen an international for fifteen months. Unfortunately, the pandemic reestablished itself in Australia and that window closed within a week of its opening. There was, however, one musician who timed it perfectly and that was saxophonist Andy Sugg.
He flew out of Melbourne just days before another lockdown was announced and we were very pleased that he had slipped the net. Sugg is a gifted saxophonist with broad appeal and there was no better way to break the tour drought. The tour was billed as an album release but the setlist also included earlier compositions and two tasty standards. The album titled Grand & Union was recorded in New York in mid-2019 and released last year. For obvious reasons Sugg was unable to take to the road and certainly not with his New York-based bandmates.
Grand & Union is a rail hub in Brooklyn but it is also a metaphor for the album. ‘A musical intersection where styles and motifs merge before moving somewhere else’. It is an album of diverse stylistic influences but the musicians’ craft a tasteful amalgam from the underlying base metals. In the liner notes, the leader mentions Stravinsky as a prime inspiration and ‘The Rite Stuff’ with its deep propulsive groove is the most overt reference; a stunning piece, which evokes the now without jettisoning the history underpinning it.
Sugg is a particularly coherent improviser who takes a listener along as he tells his ear-catching stories, and his tone is particularly arresting. Warm as toast and seldom straying into the lower registers. On the soulful ‘Ruby Mei’, his sound reminded me of the great melodic improviser, Ernie Watts. Much credit is also due to his New York bandmates who are seasoned musicians all, and who worked as a tight cohesive unit.
His Auckland gig featured a local rhythm section and they also acquitted themselves well. The first set opened with the title track Grand & Union and was followed by Ruby Mei and other tunes from the album, Then came a more expansive offering in several sections. This enabled Sugg and the band to stretch out. This was a gig of highly melodic offerings and as an added treat, the second set featured two popular standards. A musician said to me recently; playing a popular standard to a discriminating audience, means, that you must play it extremely well and you must insert something of yourself into it. They did. The standards were the gorgeous ‘Someday My Prince Will Come (Churchill/Morey) and the much loved ‘In a Sentimental Mood’ (Ellington). The audience shouted their approval, obviously delighted. I have posted a YouTube clip from the Auckland gig.
While each of the local musicians has experience playing with offshore artists, considering how long that has been, they were very much on form. Of particular note was Wellington drummer Mark Lockett. I could hear people commenting enthusiastically about his drumming between numbers. They were right to comment as he pulled one out of the bag that night. He and Sugg go back a long way and the connection was obvious.
The gig took place at Anthology for the CJC Creative Jazz Club on 14 July 2021. I recommend the album and it’s worth checking out Sugg’s earlier album also. To order physical copies, download or stream, visit AndySugg.Bandcamp.com
The album personnel: Andy Sugg/tenor saxophone. Brett Williams/piano & keyboards, Alex Claffy/acoustic & electric bass, Jonathan Barber/drums.
Gig personnel: Andy Sugg/tenor saxophone, Keven Field/piano, Mostyn Cole/acoustic bass, Mark Lockett/drums
JazzLocal32.com is rated as one of the 50 best Jazz Blogs in the world by Feedspot. The author is a professional member of the Jazz Journalists Association, poet & writer.Some of these posts appear on related sites.
Last Wednesday’s CJC gig brought us a feast of truly adventurous music and it was beautifully executed. It was ‘free’ and ‘experimental’ and although within the improvised music spectrum, it is probable that many in the audience would not have encountered a prepared piano before. At the heart of the trio was the critically acclaimed pianist Hermione Johnson with drummer Chris O’Connor and reeds player Reuben Derrick. Anyone unfamiliar with a ‘prepared piano’ trio performance could not have wished for a better introduction.
The beauty of experimental music is that you can put away the straight jacket of preconception and bring your imaginings to bear. New and unexpected worlds can be crafted out of the fragmentary detritus of the old. This is surely the ultimate purpose of improvised music. Freeing us from the tyranny of the obvious.
This performance dove into the heart of sonority; creating sounds not generally associated with the instruments that made them. The piano had been prepared before the audience arrived and I wish that I had seen it. I have been lucky enough to witness this ritual on previous occasions, and ritual it is. There is a concentrated delicacy required in instaling the objects which muffle or extend the range of a piano. It is an installation and the precursor of new music. Items like chopsticks are inserted precisely between adjacent strings or perhaps a metal bowl is positioned. Few if any in New Zealand exceed the artistry of Johnson in this regard.
Excerpts from concert
And it was not only the piano that reached for new sounds. No one thinks twice when they hear an instrument’s range extended by electronic means, nor should they when this is achieved acoustically. O’Connor, the drummer’s drummer is the most familiar to CJC audiences. He is one of Aotearoa’s best-loved and most adventurous drummers as he sits astride many genres with deceptive ease. During this performance, he added colour via fingers, mallets, sticks, gongs or rims, and no available surface or drum position was left unexplored. And he underscored the deep pulse emanating from the piano, tapping out some passages with surprising delicacy.
Completing the trio was Christchurch based reeds player Derrick. The last time I saw him perform was in 2013 with his ‘Hound Dogs’. That particular unit performed a Monk heavy set that was well-received as I recall. Since then he has travelled extensively to places like Warsaw, Colombo, Vienna and Ljubljana. He is a noted composer and has collaborated across many cultural traditions. His fluency on the clarinet automatically singles him out, as the instrument is famous for punishing anyone who takes it up half-heartedly. On this gig, he doubled on tenor saxophone and his uncanny ability to locate the acoustic possibilities on both was evident. It’s a pity that he doesn’t live closer, I am up for more of what he has to offer.
Derrick, O’Connor, Johnson
This was music but it was also performance art of the highest order. It stretched us as improvised music should. It was wonderful. The only way that I can begin to do it justice is by abandoning written syntax. Filigree, texture, tropical thunder, raindrops, gamelan orchestra, quasar, delicate motifs, deep pulse, sighs, dance, hot tiles, exquisite, exotic. It reminded me of the first time that I heard Bley/Giuffre/Swallow’s Freefall. My ears were realigned after that experience.
Hermione Johnson (prepared grand piano), Chris O’Connor (drums, percussion), Reuben Derrick (clarinet, tenor saxophone). The gig took place at Anthology, for the CJC Jazz Club, 7 July 2021
JazzLocal32.com is rated as one of the 50 best Jazz Blogs in the world by Feedspot. The author is a professional member of the Jazz Journalists Association, poet & writer.Some of these posts appear on related sites.
As pandemic upheavals continue, in New Zealand we count ourselves lucky. Not only are we one of the safest nations on earth at present, but we have also been experiencing more live music than most. Over recent months various streams of Latin music have come our way and last week we heard the Brazilian born Kiwi Henrique Morales at the CJC Jazz club.
Morales has just released his first New Zealand album as leader ‘Alô Brasil’. He has long been the frontman for the funky Batucada Sound Machine and Santiago Soul Stars and his current band is increasingly popular around town. His musical journey began at a young age in South Brasil, soon bringing him into contact with the most respected musicians of his region. This grounding proved fortuitous as it enabled him to become familiar with the many styles of Latin American music and in particular the regional variations of Brazilian music.
While the music of central America frequently sheds sparks, the Brazilian musical styles are generally associated with a different vibe. They feel like a warm embrace. Once the Jazz world had encountered Yao Gilberto, Elis Regina and the towering twentieth-century genius Tom Jobim, the linking of the two swing based styles was conjoined forever. Brazilian music in all its forms remains popular throughout the world and western influences like reggae and Jazz have readily been adapted and absorbed. Morales interprets the many styles of his home country including Brazilian popular music and Latin Jazz fusion. The material was mostly original compositions by Morales.
He appeared at the CJC with a slightly different lineup to that on the album. The saxophonist Thabani Gapara had been replaced by Daniel McKenzie. The remaining band members were Mark Baynes on the keyboard, Gustavo Ferreira on the bass, Jono Sawyer on drums and Fabio Camera on percussion. I liked the arrangements as they never overwhelmed the warm rhythmic pulse and the melodicism, both of which are so central to this music.
After a long absence from the club, it is good to see Dr Mark Baynes back (twice in a month). He has been concentrating on Latin musical styles for some time now and I can think of no one else locally who is better fitted to accompany South American artists on piano. He also brings his Jazz credentials to the music. His playing was a highlight for me with his Jarrett like vocalisations (freeing the spirit) and his Latin swing feel. Another treat was hearing the soft rich tone Morales evoked as he plucked the strings of his Godin A6 Ultra, a prince among guitars and perfect for Morales’s music. For a copy of the album check out a local store or best of all catch the band around town.
JazzLocal32.com is rated as one of the 50 best Jazz Blogs in the world by Feedspot. The author is a professional member of the Jazz Journalists Association, poet & writer.Some of these posts appear on related sites.
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