If there’s one complaint is that the forty plus minutes seem a little short – a sure sign that this duo is pushing all the right buttons.
Category: Reviews
The initiative of Associate Professor and Head of School at the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music at Monash University, and tenor sax artist Robert Burke. This album showcases the talents of the students working with trumpet maestro Enrico Rava, probably Italy’s most renowned jazz musicians who has been around since the 1960s and who has put out something like 50 albums. Rava has toured Australia, appearing at this year’s Wangaratta Festival of Jazz and Blues (it was a long time coming – he was originally booked to play at the festival in1996 but couldn’t secure a visa) so there is a connection.
…beautifully composed, played, conceived, and recorded … but all that fades away when the magic comes out. And it is the magic here that stops time, puts you in that special place of sunlit pleasure (or moonlit dreaming) and fills you up like food, or wine. Or love.
John Clare lost his wallet on the way to Wangaratta this year, but he says “to hear Rava with Steve Magnusson was worth losing my money and cards for”
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You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs goes the saying, and the eggs that have gone into this Omelette are of two varieties: a love of grooves and a love of more ethereal improvisation. Setting the band apart is its occasional ability to whisk these two together. This has also been a defining attribute of guitarist Stephen Magnusson across the years, and here trombonist Jordan Murray, bassist Mark Shepherd and drummer Ronny Ferella prove they share these preoccupations on nine collectively-penned compositions.
There’s perhaps more of Sheens the Downbeat poll-winning pianist this time out but significantly Untranslatable ups the ante compositionally, with the Yanni Burton String Quartet leaving an indelible stamp on a third of the tracks.
Inevitably, the different currents converge and the trio voice flows freely. Unrelenting cymbal and bass bomb patterns, sawing arco and swirling piano create a heady maelstrom, with Abrahams alternating sharply between staccato patterns fashioned by two and then ten fingers.
In his writing, Lohning allows plenty of room for the soloists to have their say with their own voice and – often playing understated piano – would at times rise from his place at the keys and direct the band with enthusiasm. His arrangements had the audiences tapping their feet and applauding. A general feeling of happiness and well-being filling the room, particularly after Lohning’s composition in the style of Count Basie, ‘Stand Up and Be Counted’, which concluded the first set.
what a brilliant idea it was to invite Jones to join the list of distinguished guest artists to record with students at Monash University’s Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music. What insights for those with the wit and empathy to understand that what was on the table was not a master-class in music or singing or anything so mundane. No this was much more important: a master-class in artistry, which is to say a lesson in life.