Following thousands of jazz events taking place in 195 countries around the world, International Jazz Day 2019 came to a thrilling closein Melbourne, Australia with an extraordinary All-Star Global Concert at Melbourne Arts Centre’s renowned Hamer Hall.
James Muller’s tone across the entire album is immaculate: rich yet biting when it needs to be, with piano-like chords or brittle percussive comping. The minimal comping and lack of piano lends all of the performances an open, contrapuntal transparency that lend it an astringent economy, letting the music breath organically. Exciting stuff.
extempore and the Wangaratta Festival of Jazz and Blues have collaborated with National Jazz Award winners from every year of the festival since it began. The result is this eclectic set of souvenir postcards from some of our most creative musicians.
Rivett has broken cover not with yet another musical artefact from a schooled and accomplished improvising musician, but with a true work of the imagination.
‘You can tell that Oh is abuzz with ideas. The diversity of her compositions and her eagerness to work with different players on each disc shouts as much…’
Is this a new genre? Pub jazz-rock? I remember that hearing the Subterraneans for the first time was a hallelujah moment. Finally here was a band combining rock’s visceral energy with jazz’s lithe spontaneity without compromising either.
I once heard John Coltrane’s playing described as the sound of a ‘very large man crammed into a tiny room, shooting notes at the corners of that room.’ I have often though of that neat phrase when experiencing the playing of Sydney tenor colossus James Ryan…
The band has been playing together so long that they know each other’s playing intimately: ‘We can just look at each other or play something and know that we are going to go on to a new section of the music or that the dynamics are going to rise or fall. It’s amazing how it works.
A ten minute video of Vince and his band at The Basement in July 2009
