Over the 10 day duration of the festival I’d encountered orthodox jazz rhythms, experimental jazz and music that you could argue was not jazz at all. Had I selected a different schedule of artists, I may have had a totally different festival experience altogether, such was the variety of shows on offer.
And what a band – all Hunter cohorts from many a gig, all entirely familiar with his body of work and with these particular works; and all entirely in tune with the spirit that drives this remarkable music: Andrew Gander on drums, Matt McMahon on keys and Matt Keegan on tenor and soprano.
Few players – though brilliant on paper – could make something this good out of such freedom. Chops alone can’t do it – in fact chops often work in the opposite way. It is the subsuming of the ego and the meshing of consciousnesses that will get the players, and we the fortunate audience, there. And, here, The Hunters & Pointers do it every time.
Milman’s pieces tend to ride on slippery Afro and Latin grooves, have inbuilt airiness and be laced with lyrical melodies. Who better to breathe life into such material than Bukovsky (trumpet, flugelhorn), James Greening (trombone, trumpet, pocket trumpet), Jeremy Sawkins (guitars), Alister Spence (piano) and Fabian Hevia (drums, percussion)?
Prolific, exciting, excitable – Mike Nock is visiting Melbourne to play a duo gig with Laurence Pike at the 2014 Melbourne International Jazz Festival on […] Read More
Barney McAll is in the middle of a tour that takes in Auckland (a trio gig), Wellington (solo piano) Brisbane (solo piano and Julien Wilson […] Read More
The World’s Best Jazz Club (Major Street Publishing) by David James Released June 2014 Book launch at Melbourne International Jazz Festival Three aspects of the […] Read More
“Like all art, the poem creates a space of its own and it is from within that space that it has inspired other artists of all kinds, including (lucky for us) Allan Browne and via him, the Allan Browne Quintet.”
