Swailing is as free as This is Always is restricted; it is as open as the quartet recording is closed. Swailing is the magpie, picking from electric Miles, Massenet and Fats; This is Always is the osprey, its eye fixed on the one prize.
And both are deliriously beautiful for all of these qualities and more.
No sooner had I filed the review of the Bernie McGann album Wending on this site than McGann’s closest musical associate John Pochée phoned me with the news that our great and dear friend had gone.
Fast, barely moving, through thick ensemble textures and spare, you can hear the strings of Tamara Murphy’s double bass vibrating. This is very good recording, but it is also very strong playing, striding right on through.
He remains only interested in musicians who ‘slam their heart down on the table, and go, “There I am!”‘
From the media release: Technically, it’s jazz. Free and bold, fired by impeccable musicianship. Yet A Glorious Uncertainty is a work too large in spirit to ever fit neatly under one banner.
Most musically interested people who have but glanced in the direction of Western contemporary composed/notated music will have encountered the name, Sylvio Gualda.
The overwhelming aesthetic is eclectic though this style-laden environment is anything but imitative other than when tongue-in-cheek, and in this some humor is brought to bear. This imaginative trio explores a clearly etched ethos; one I perceive of as trajectories within trajectories; a process of creating layered textures.
Subjects on whom Howard Mandel might have chosen to write could have been drawn from a wide range of outstanding American improvising musicians. Why he chose Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, and Cecil Taylor seems to be uncomplicated: he’s utterly passionate about them.
“…a beautifully written and presented snapshot of the contemporary jazz scene in Australia.”
