Dave HollanD
Uncharted Territories (Dare2-010)
They recorded this 50 years after first
playing together. Meanwhile Evan
Parker became a key post-Coltrane
tenor saxophonist, and Holland one
of the world’s most revered bassists.
The two Britons also epitomised the
increasingly pivotal role played by non-
Americans in expanding the language
of jazz. Completing this quartet are
Americans Craig Taborn and Ches
Smith, both brilliantly wide-ranging adventurers. With Taborn playing
piano, organ, synths and electronics, and Smith adding vibraphone
and timpani to his drums and other percussion, the double album’s
textural variation is immense—and the same applies to Parker alone,
given his singular control of extended techniques, and warm sound
reminiscent of the pre-bebop greats. When the whole quartet becomes
airborne it could be used as a high-voltage renewable power source.
2 of a KinD
Gregory Generet/Richard Johnson (Afar Music 002)
It’s the voice that makes you do
a double-take. Gregory Generet
is blessed with a baritone of such
lusciousness as has rarely been heard
in jazz, making for a distinctive tension
between sound and material. But it
only takes the opener, Angel Eyes, to
adjust; to realise this sumptuousness
enriches the music both sonically
and in terms of contrast with the
surrounding piquancy of conventional jazz instrumentation. Inevitably
it especially suits the ballads, the breadth of the vocal tone thickening
the lyrics’ impact on a song like You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To.
His key collaborator is pianist Richard Johnson, who assembled a
band capable of laying back or hitting the button marked ‘incendiary’
when required: trumpeter Freddie Hendrix, saxophonist Jonathan
Beshay, bassist Barry Stephenson and drummer Henry Conerway III.
erica BramHam
Songs from a Midnight Room (ericabramham.com)
Working in a musical world where a
fine mist obscures any lines between
jazz, folk, improvisation and rock,
Erica Bramham writes songs that
also blur the line between poetry
and lyrics. In No Run to Save the
Varnish she, in the first person, is
sugar dissolving in coffee, and in Cafe
Terrace at Night she sings, ‘your lips
on mine/are a warm pool of caramel/
that trickles down into my shoes’. The imagery is so stark and
striking that, hanging on what comes next, you are drawn into the
equally imaginative music, Bramham’s voice, guitar and mandolin
being joined by Adam Spiegl’s guitar and bass and Justin Olsson’s
drums. Her singing rings with humour, sadness and truth, without
trying to be jazzy or arty: just a voice of sweet timbre airily
delivering the words and melodies.
GratituDe anD Grief
Elixir/KatieNoonan/Leunig(Kin/Universal7700206)Thedichotomycouldnotbewider,
andyetit’sthisthatmakesthealbum
worksowell.FirstlyMichaelLeunig
readsoneofhispicture-of-innocence,
charm-laden,spell-castingpoems
in hisuniquelylugubriousway,and
thenthatsamepoemis sungbyKatie
Noonanin a voicethat’sasethereal
asLeunig’sis rootedin theearth.It’s
likelookingat thesamesetofwords
throughtwokaleidoscopes:oneofmutedbrownsandyellows,and
oneofflaringgoldsandsilvers.Thecompositionsareattributedto
Leunig,NoonanandNoonan’stwocollaboratorsin Elixir:ZacHurren
onsaxophonesandthatgreatAustraliansorcereroftheelectric
guitar,SteveMagnusson.Aswellasthispair’sdelightfulsolos,string
arrangementsfleshoutsomepieces,whileothersareleftmorenaked,
likea monochromeLeunigcartoon.converGence
Mezza/Ginsburg Ensemble (Ozella OZ084CD)When this music is really working it’s
the fluidity that draws you in. You
hear it in the compositions of pianist
Vittoria Mezza and saxophonist Mark
Ginsburg, in the rendering of the
melodies, in the improvising and in
the suppleness supplied by bassist
Luca Bulgarelli and drummer Marcello
di Leonardo. At its best it has a
magic-carpet-ride sense of airborne
ease and slightly exotic lushness, thickened by the overdubbing
of wordless vocals (Justine Bradley and the Bel a cappella Choir),
although these can also make the music lose that beguiling
fluidity, and weigh it down. The strongest material has a slightly
zany, playful edge. By contrastthesoft-centred,milk-chocolate
jazz of Affezioni sounds like ithasstumbledintothe wrong studio
and on to the wrong record. John ShandKira Kira
Bright Force (Libra Records 204-048)You know that wild, spiralling
look in the eyes of a border collie
suffering cabin fever? This music is
like that, played with such ferocious
intensity you’d think Natsuki Tamura
(trumpet), Alister Spence (keyboard,
electronics), Satoko Fujii (piano) and
Ittetsu Takemura (drums) had been
locked in the band-room for a year,
before being unleashed upon an
unsuspecting Tokyo audience. Their sound rushes straight to the
central nervous system, so you seem to feel it with every nerve-
ending. It sustains peak excitement for surprising swathes of time,
and when the fury relents a creepy intensity is maintained. The
piano, drums and Fender Rhodes create such density and mass as
could flatten the faint-hearted, and Tamura drives through these
maelstroms as if his trumpet has a light-switch for high beam.JAZZ TRACK by John Shand
Australian Hi-Fi 71