Valley Jazz

This past weekend saw the Valley Jazz Festival roll around. I have at times been known to bemoan the lack of a jazz scene in Brisbane, but despite that I had been very lax about planning to get along to a festival within a half hour walk of my apartment. Fortunately, on Wednesday Paul got me interested in a gig, which resparked my enthusiasm and got me more into the proper spirit of things. In the end, over the course of the festival I managed 5 gigs - all at the Judith Wright Centre, 2 wednesday night and 3 Saturday night.

The first gig Wednesday night was the Mark Isaacs Resurgence band, a 5 piece lead by Isaacs on piano. Their stuff was pretty good - I was particularly impressed by James Muller on guitar - amazing chops - and the drummer, whose name I don't recall, but who really had a good groove going, and did interesting things with his solos.

After that, there was a free gig in the Centre's Shopfront Centre by the Marialy Pacheco Trio. I had seen her play a gig last December, mostly solo then a couple of tunes with a percussionist, but I'd been looking forward to seeing her trio, with Pat and Joe Marchisella, both really good players who I've met and seen play through Paul. The format works pretty well, too - despite not being quite as invested in his music as he has been, Pat is still such a great and tasteful player. They had a really nice, and unexpected, adaptation of Sounds of Silence, just before we called it a night.

The first Saturday night gig was Jazzgroove Mothership Orchestra with Kristin Berardi. Paul studied with Kristin, and used to gig with her when I lived with him at Ironside St in St Lucia - she has a wonderful voice, and has done some great things since that time, winning some competitions and generally becoming a better singer. The band itself was OK, a 17-piece (all male, strange!), but perhaps not quite up to the standard I had expected (Paul had hyped them up a bit) - probably only 4 or 5 of the soloists impressed me.

After that gig I had planned to see Misinterprotato's free set in the shopfront area, but it was full, so I had to wait for some people to leave before I could get in. I have an album or two of theirs - all 3 of them were at the con with Paul, and used to show up from time to time at Ironside St, although that was a long time ago. They're great players - Pat Marchisella, in particular, is one of my favourite bass players - but at times they can tend to be a bit atmospheric and not get as much of a groove going as I'd like. This concert was probably the best of theirs I'd seen though - Sean's composition has improved, I think, and they really got some nice stuff going - still very much at the quiet end, but not too lost in soundscape-y stuff.

The third gig, the Aaron Goldberg Trio, was far and away the best. Goldberg is such an amazing pianist, and Paul's forewarnings about his sidemen, Greg Hutchison on drums and Reuben Rogers on bass, being pretty famous, were well-justified. They played a mix of stuff off Goldberg's two most recent albums, plus a couple of blues bits, with a range of fast stuff that really let them show off - especially Goldberg and Hutchison - and some slower, often latin stuff, where Rogers really, really impressed me with his solo-ing. Overall, they really were a cut above, and I was glad that I didn't miss this.

I have some hopes of getting along to see Ron Carter in a couple of weeks, but if not, I can be happy that I've gotten a fill of good jazz to tide me over for a while.

blowing my own trumpet

There have probably been a dozen or so occasions over the last dozen or so years that I have resolved to get back into playing music.

Throughout primary and high school, I was basically never not involved in some sort of musical group, mostly on trumpet, but with brief forays into french horn and even tuba. I was never going to make a career of it - I was good at some things like sight reading and time, but my tone and range were never up to snuff - but I wasn't bad. Probably my high point was playing Handel's trumpet concerto near the end of high school (although I also have fond memories of my french horn stuff).

Anyway, since then I basically haven't played. Every 6 months or year, I pick up the trumpet and practice, but then I get discouraged by my lack of range and endurance (trumpet is very demanding on the condition of the player's lip), and put it away again.

Well, I practiced Monday, and Tuesday, and again last night, and enjoyed it. I've transcribed a (bad) arrangement of Alfonsina y El Mar, and I've been trying to get that sounding OK. I've been playing lots of scales. I even pulled out my sheets from the Handel concerto and gave that a try, although I'm still a way off having a lip capable of doing it any sort of justice. We'll see if this lasts longer than my previous attempts.

The Greatest Band I Ever Knew

Music won't be the same for me. From their world-famous website, their mailing list, and in the gaunt undertones of the curlew's plaintive wail, comes news of the Lucksmiths:

There's no easy way to put this, so please accept our apologies for the seemingly abrupt nature of this post. We are saddened to announce that after sixteen years as The Lucksmiths, the band has decided to break up.

Their music was so full of melancholy nostagia for loves lost, but looking through them for something to quote on their own demise would be just too bittersweet.

Their last Brisbane concert is in August.

Music without words

Tempted as I am to leave my Lucksmiths tribute post at the top of the page for a while, there is more to say!

One of the marked characteristics of my almost-year back in Australia has been a tendency to attend concerts that greatly exceeds my habits in either Rennes, or pre-Rennes Brisbane. Since returning, I've seen Dave Holland, Barney McAll, Gretchen Parlato, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and the Lucksmiths, as well as gigs by Paul, Julz and Kylie. While that won't break any records, its an improvement.

Yesterday, on the back of my Lucksmiths night, I added to the list with the Griffith Trio, a classical piano/violin/cello combination, and their recital at the Conservatorium theatre, courtesy of Andy and his employers Dialog, who sponsor the group.

They opened with Beethoven's Archduke trio. To be honest, I found it fairly dull, which in hindsight is disappointing, as I have a bit of a soft spot for LvB. The instrumentation seemed thin, the passion of some of Beethoven's other works was conspicuously absent, and by the fourth movement, I was beginning to doze.

After a break, and a frankly horrible glass of what claimed to be "classic dry white", we returned to find a string quartet, minus piano, offering Puccini's Chrysanthemums. I enjoyed this piece much more. Whether it was the extra instruments or the writing, the thinness was gone, and the more modern piece was much more interesting in terms of harmonies and, dare I suggest, chords.

The final piece was Elgar's quintet. Like the Puccini, this was a more modern piece, and showed harmonies which reminded me a little of Debussy and Ravel, who I guess might have been contemporaries. There were parts which almost bordered on corny, where the piano turned almost stride-y, but on the whole, it was very nice.

Taken as a whole, the concert was by no means on a par with the Lucksmiths or the ACO, my previous two efforts. The first half suffered from what I consider to be the great detriments of classical music, but the second reminded me a little of what it can be when it is good.

I should be so Lucky...

My favourite band is The Lucksmiths.

This has probably been true for about 10 years now. There have been flirtations with the Dave Matthews Band, the Pat Metheny Group, and a few others, but when I really need to smile, there is nothing so reliably charming as the simple melodies and unassumingly delightful lyrics of the Melbourne pop group.

Time spent away from Australia can make otherwise banal Australian pop songs take on disproportionate emotional attachment, and I was no exception. But more than Flame Trees or Redgum, the music that most captured my nostalgic nationalism while overseas were Lucksmiths lyrics:

It's getting worse
You've hardly said a word
Since you set eyes on the horizon
But I've seen the other side of that ocean there
And it can't compare

and, sung with the same Australian accent, genuine and yet untouched by the Ocker-ism too prevalent in Australia country music:

I spent the summer with the curtains drawn against it
Counting all the nights you’ve wasted
Under unfamiliar stars
...
Are you ever coming home?
Or should I learn to do without you?

Thus it was with some excitement that I realised this week that the 'smiths were headed north, playing at the Jugglers' on Saturday night. I was joined there by known afficionados Matt and Marty, and curious and as it happened skeptical newcomer Andy.

The support band, the Bell Divers, were the same genre, but reminded me why I am not a generalist indy pop fan. Its hard to criticize them for being a new band, but the lack of clarity and assurance in their performance made it impossible to tell if their writing was the reason they were opening for the Lucksmiths.

The only previous time I had seen the Lucksmiths, they were essentially a trio. Their subsequent addition of a fourth member has changed the nature of their songs a little, if anything making them a little less twee and more popularly palatable. Certainly, as a live gig, they have a more dynamic presence, and "rock" more, than they did before adding Louis Richter.

What has not changed, though, is the quality of their writing. Their songs are pleasant, if simple, and serve their purpose well. Their lyrics, though, are quite probably the best I've come across in music, rivalled only perhaps by Bob Dylan (the comparison is unworthy, since the aims are not the same). I've probably posted this before, but so genuine was the grin that spread across my face when the set rolled around to what might be my favourite Lucksmiths wordsmithery...

Though you kept me guessing and your distance
Were it not for my persistence
We would never have been lovers
You kept your distance and me guessing
Finally acquiescing only after I’d discovered
You kept the things I sent you
The lengths I went to

Or it might not be. There are so many to choose from.

How this band can come to Brisbane and play to an audience of 40 people in a pleasant but, it must be said, very small venue, just defies my understanding. I might never see a better show with fewer people.

lending life to truth

On Monday night, I went with Andrew and Steven to a concert by the Australian Chamber Orchestra. It was a diverse (and, for the record, a thoroughly enjoyable) performance, chiefly because it was a hybrid of 3 sets that they are preparing for their (then upcoming, now in-progress) European tour. They began with works by Handel and Rameau, followed by a Bach cello concerto, each of which were quite beautiful. After the interval, they moved to another repertoire, notably an adaptation of Ravel's string quartet. I had enjoyed the earlier pieces, but the added passion present in the later work interested me much more.

Then, last night on the plane, I was reading Possession (Byatt), and came across quite a lovely turn of phrase:

am I lending life to truth with my fiction, or verisimilitude to a colossal Lie with my feverish imagination

The first part of that, in particular, really struck a chord with me. The first part of the ACO concert had been very beautiful (very "true", if you will), but the second was the more interesting because it contained more passion and drama.

My observation, uninformed though it is, on music is that the earlier forms of classical music (classical in the everyday term, not referring to the period), particularly the baroque but also much of the classical (in the period sense), at times lacks the passion of, say, Beethoven, Rachmaninov (I associate this stuff with the Russians, without much basis for the belief), or apparently Ravel (on the evidence of this concert).

Of course, the phrase itself is odd. The implication that life and truth are different things is somewhat strange when you think about it - both might be thought to mean "reality". However, despite an individual overlap of meaning, in combination the phrase is very evocative of some deeper or indeed more "alive" truth.

I don't know why I linked the two things. Certainly, two of the memorable things from the trip (to Sydney, for some training sessions for work) were the concert (which, I reiterate, I really enjoyed), and a realisation that I seem to be reading more - I have read 200 pages of Possession in the two weeks since I finished Lord Jim.

doing more stuff

Tuesday night, Andy, Mick and I did the ten-pin bowling thing at Strike Bowling in the city. Expensive, and the music was kind of crap, and I bowled terribly, but it was pretty fun.

Last night was culcha, with a concert at the Powerhouse by Gretchen Parlato, an American singer, with Mike Moreno on guitar and the Steve Newcombe trio on backup. Paul, Julz, Kylie and Jan were also there, and it was a pretty good concert. She's certainly the best comp-ing vocalist I've heard, and a lot (if not all) of the songs were pretty cool, particularly Butterfly and On The Other Side.

My neck is super sore, and seems to be getting worse rather than better.

a bit of lip

I just pulled out my trumpet for a practice (that's not a metaphor, if you can believe it) for the first time in God knows how long. The usual debacle ensued, of remembering fairly quickly the keys, and being surprised at not having lost an awful lot of range (though range was never my strong point) until about 10 minutes in. I then decide to try a song and see that range completely disintegrate until after 20 minutes I'm doing long note warm-downs and conking out at a ridiculously low note.

I am not a well man

I watched Little Fish the other day, which features a very nice reworking of a Cold Chisel song, Flame Trees. I was able to find a copy of the original, and thus have been listening to Cold Chisel the last couple of days. I would have considered such a thing unthinkable last week, and still question its reason.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go and buy some blue singlets.