Post by Gb on Jan 30, 2007 9:22:52 GMT 10
Has anyone read this piece yet? No disrespect intended to those mentioned in the article, but this is bad! Who is this guy? Please write a letter to the editor! I'm going to. What do you think? Gb
The city's jazz songs
By Andrys Onsman
The Age
January 27, 2007
From songs jazz improvisation flows to evoke the moods of place. Andrys Onsman hears Melbourne's music.
ART IS A TIME-consuming activity for the artist and the listener. A brilliant idea needs lots of work by the artist to maximise its potential to move an audience and the audience has to be willing and able to make that potential a reality. In any form of creativity, art happens when a creator has a conceptual vision as well as the skill and determination to make it available for an audience to share. Jazz music is no different.
In a way, jazz players have it easier than their rock 'n' roll counterparts. In jazz, improvisation happens around a tune; in rock it happens around a chord structure. This means anyone who has learnt a scale or two can play solos in rock, but they tend to be unrelated to the tune of the song. Someone like Eddie van Halen can come in and play a blistering, inventive piece of music in the middle of a Michael Jackson tune, without any reference to the tune itself. It sounds great, but it doesn't add anything to the overall song.
One of the masters at creating little symphonies within songs is Tony Banks from Genesis. Each one is marvellous and tightly constructed but rarely adds anything substantial. In the rock world Angus Young from AC/DC is probably better at constructing solos that actually improve the song. When you realise that he has only the three basic blues chords to work with, his genius becomes more appreciable - even if you don't like the style of music.
Jazz musicians tend to rely on the tune more and, because of that, the improvisation and the decision-making tend to be more subtle, simply because they can't leave the existing notes too far behind, regardless of how familiar the melody is to the listener. The reason some tunes (Summertime, Autumn Leaves, The Saints) become hackneyed is that people love playing them. Hackneyed doesn't mean bad or boring. Beethoven's Fifth is hackneyed - it's been used for all kind of things - but it is still a brilliant piece of music and any orchestra in the world would love to have a crack at it. Why, when it's already been done to death? The answer is in the interpretation. The music itself sparks off ideas and possibilities and musicians generally get their enjoyment from trying to make their ideas and interpretations work: which means that someone else hears the same thing that they hear, and feels something similar to what they feel. For that to happen they need the skills as well as the idea.
When players have the skills - and with the training available nowadays, who hasn't? - but not the vision, music becomes pedestrian. At best it can be good. And there are times when the greatest musicians in the world have to rely on that because things aren't going their way. That's understandable and when going to a concert it is a part of the deal that the audience accepts.
It's less understandable in recordings. Too often players settle for technical accuracy, possibly because as a permanent record it (and they) will be subject to ongoing critique. To be dull is considered better than to be flawed, even when they know in their hearts that to be dull is to be flawed. A dull piece of music is when the tune is played accurately but unimaginatively, and that is when hackneyed becomes cliched.
There are very few records that have captured genius. And there are no CDs that are all genius. By genius I mean when the music is so compelling that the listener virtually has no choice but to be moved by it.
A fantastic album is where all the music is great and there are enough moments of genius to help the listener move from one to the next. That's an important point because the listener has to work as well. It's a bit like sex - both parties have to be willing and able to contribute to the process for it to reach great heights. The more you know about it, the more you bring to it and the more you engage in it, the more you will enjoy it. Jazz, that is.
There are a number of CDs that have captured a stunning performance, CDs that become personal favourites as well as "classics": Billie Holiday's At Storyville and The Gentle Side of John Coltrane, Miles Davis' A Kind of Blue and Patricia Barber's Verse. Ask any jazz enthusiast and they will swear on the life of their firstborn that their list is obviously, unarguably, definitively the best. And we do like to make lists.
High on my list (unarguably and definitively the best) is an album released in 2005 by local saxophonist Robert Burke, called The Edge of Today: a mapping of the Melbourne sound (Jazzhead HEAD059).
Burke has a substantial pedigree as a jazz musician, including a long history of playing with one of Melbourne's stalwart pianists, Tony Gould. Their earlier albums (A Tin Roof for the Rain and Gateway, both now sadly out of print) were just the two of them, talking, sharing ideas, and contained a few moments of pure, clean genius.
Burke's next album, Wide Eyed (Jazzhead HEAD033), added bassist Nick Haywood and drummer Tony Floyd, and the title track is one of the most beautiful pieces of music in Australian jazz history. There are passages that come as close as anyone ever has to expressing the love a man has for his daughters. You can imagine it as tracing the footsteps of a pair of little girls as they skip and dance and run and stamp their feet, and then scoot off again to smell a flower or jump into a puddle.
Like a great wine you can list the flavours or emotions in the tune: admiration, anticipation, concern and unbridled joy. A novice may not be able to articulate them - the wine simply tastes great - but it will move him or her. That's enough, the job's done, but there is much more in there for anyone willing to look for it.
That's the difference between wine and jazz. The better the wine the more expensive it is. CDs cost more or less the same: a brilliant one costs no more than a pedestrian one. And of course you can listen to a great CD again and again, enjoying it more as you learn more about it. So, perhaps it's not like a bottle of wine at all.
On The Edge of Today Burke draws his identity as a musician from his environments: family, colleagues, his town. The idea that a jazz saxophonist should sing Melbourne is in itself a strong idea because at its heart it is a guitar city. That doesn't make the idea unworkable though. It simply means Burke had to co-opt some of the city's finest guitarists to bounce his ideas off. The temptation must have been to pick one and record a bunch of tunes. But that wouldn't have been singing Melbourne. That would have been the Rob Burke Quartet with a guitarist. Instead, Burke used five very different guitarists either singly or en masse to cover Melbourne's major musical tram stops. So, on The Edge of Today Gould's piano doesn't feature.
In any music, every note has a range of dynamic harmonics that fly off it like a rainbow. The skill is in knowing which of those notes to play to bring a new dimension to the tune. Improvisation should add to the tune, take it in a different but meaningful direction. As a listener, you should, if you want to, be able to find an answer to the question, "How on Earth did he do that?"
There is a technical skills aspect to it that may alarm the music-as-pure-emotion crowd but any music that can't stand up to rigorous consideration won't last very long. Scarlatti was more popular than Mozart at the time - but Wolfgang's tunes stood up to the battering ram of critical examination and hackneyed interpretations, whereas Dominico's tunes live only in the domain of the purists and as a comparison to the boy wonder.
Some of the tunes on The Edge of Today don't work as well as others. Piazzola's Cafe 1930, selected by Slava Grigoryan and played by him and Burke, sits somewhat uncomfortably among the other more contemporary tracks. Grigoryan's playing seems a bit hesitant and the tune itself has nothing much of Melbourne in it. It's a fine piece to listen to on its own, but it is, to my ears, out of context as a chapter in a book about describing the city. Compared to Doug de Vries' Peregrine, it sounds somewhat stilted.
Peregrine is a brilliant, stunning piece of music. De Vries has matured without compromise into an inventive, demanding and emotional player and Burke bounces ideas and round-like harmonic inventions off de Vries' ethereal but robust melody. The music and the playing is sinewy and dynamic, and quite unlike anything else. Somehow, the effect is both cerebral and emotional. It is moving, in all senses of the word. It's Brunswick on a hot sultry night, when everyone is out on the streets.
Some of the other pieces have a readily discernible feel. Peter Petrucci features on two tracks: one of his and one written by Burke. What is immediately striking is that they sound very similar. Both are excellent - if they are singing a suburb it would have to be Yarraville, creeping westwards - and add a density of structure to the CD.
Petrucci sets up a rich, thick melodic structure and then invites Burke to stir the pot in any way he sees fit. Petrucci is a feel player, but one with a solid base of skill and technique. I'd want him to check my parachute before going up in the plane because you could then confidently muck around during the jump.
Geoff Hughes, on the other hand, has a more technically inventive approach: his solo playing on Burke's Foolish Fun is contained and tidy, like a well-manicured lawn. Structurally his approach works beautifully on that track and his own piece Same Time Same Face. It has faint echoes of Pat Metheny and it allows Burke to get aggressive and use the harshness to give the tunes a darker edge. Clean tones and harmonic aggression are the cornerstones of Burke's playing and they sit well in Hughes' landscapes. To me it sounds like the Yarra.
Perhaps Choro Negro by Paulinho da Viola is de Vries and Burke's nod to multiculturalism. Choro, like samba, is a South American dance and it allows Burke to take Stan Getz sensibilities and transport them to an Australian setting. The over-the-top sensuality of the music is honed to a sharp night-time edge. De Vries can bend time signatures with a subtlety and control like no one else.
It works better than the Grigoryan piece, with which it has some affinity, but it too stands alone. De Vries and Burke work so well together, they must have a significant history. They pick up each other's nods and winks, and like an old married couple finish each other's sentences.
Along with Peregrine, the other track that contains many moments of genius on the CD is Together Alone by Steve Magnusson. Magnusson has music in him that is simply astounding. It is angular and brutal one second and emotional and comforting the next, or even at the same time. It simply doesn't stay still: the piece pushes different buttons on each new hearing. It is sinewy and elemental enough to withstand close listening and fierce critique, and when started again, sound fresh and beguiling.
I don't know how Magnusson does that, but I know that even if I did, it would make no difference. Whatever he does is no magic that will lessen the song once revealed. That's not the point. The point is that whatever he does, it makes Burke up the ante as well and together with the beautiful and generous playing of the rhythm section they will move the spirit of anyone prepared to let them in.
Since the release of The Edge of Today the Burke-de Vries collaboration has developed further, with the pair being joined by local classical/Spanish virtuoso guitarist Ken Murray in a number of Latin-rhythm performances. The ultimate accolade came when the pair was invited to play in the home of the bossa nova, Brazil, last year.
There are a significant number of moments of genius on The Edge of Today. Big chunks sing the city stunningly well. Even the worst bits are very good. It's full of music that will move you, and it stands up to the closest scrutiny.
Turn off the TV and open that bottle of wine and listen to some of Melbourne's finest musicians sing you their city - and consider how high you place it on your own definitive, obviously and unarguably best list.
Andrys Onsman is a Melbourne writer, musician and academic.
The city's jazz songs
By Andrys Onsman
The Age
January 27, 2007
From songs jazz improvisation flows to evoke the moods of place. Andrys Onsman hears Melbourne's music.
ART IS A TIME-consuming activity for the artist and the listener. A brilliant idea needs lots of work by the artist to maximise its potential to move an audience and the audience has to be willing and able to make that potential a reality. In any form of creativity, art happens when a creator has a conceptual vision as well as the skill and determination to make it available for an audience to share. Jazz music is no different.
In a way, jazz players have it easier than their rock 'n' roll counterparts. In jazz, improvisation happens around a tune; in rock it happens around a chord structure. This means anyone who has learnt a scale or two can play solos in rock, but they tend to be unrelated to the tune of the song. Someone like Eddie van Halen can come in and play a blistering, inventive piece of music in the middle of a Michael Jackson tune, without any reference to the tune itself. It sounds great, but it doesn't add anything to the overall song.
One of the masters at creating little symphonies within songs is Tony Banks from Genesis. Each one is marvellous and tightly constructed but rarely adds anything substantial. In the rock world Angus Young from AC/DC is probably better at constructing solos that actually improve the song. When you realise that he has only the three basic blues chords to work with, his genius becomes more appreciable - even if you don't like the style of music.
Jazz musicians tend to rely on the tune more and, because of that, the improvisation and the decision-making tend to be more subtle, simply because they can't leave the existing notes too far behind, regardless of how familiar the melody is to the listener. The reason some tunes (Summertime, Autumn Leaves, The Saints) become hackneyed is that people love playing them. Hackneyed doesn't mean bad or boring. Beethoven's Fifth is hackneyed - it's been used for all kind of things - but it is still a brilliant piece of music and any orchestra in the world would love to have a crack at it. Why, when it's already been done to death? The answer is in the interpretation. The music itself sparks off ideas and possibilities and musicians generally get their enjoyment from trying to make their ideas and interpretations work: which means that someone else hears the same thing that they hear, and feels something similar to what they feel. For that to happen they need the skills as well as the idea.
When players have the skills - and with the training available nowadays, who hasn't? - but not the vision, music becomes pedestrian. At best it can be good. And there are times when the greatest musicians in the world have to rely on that because things aren't going their way. That's understandable and when going to a concert it is a part of the deal that the audience accepts.
It's less understandable in recordings. Too often players settle for technical accuracy, possibly because as a permanent record it (and they) will be subject to ongoing critique. To be dull is considered better than to be flawed, even when they know in their hearts that to be dull is to be flawed. A dull piece of music is when the tune is played accurately but unimaginatively, and that is when hackneyed becomes cliched.
There are very few records that have captured genius. And there are no CDs that are all genius. By genius I mean when the music is so compelling that the listener virtually has no choice but to be moved by it.
A fantastic album is where all the music is great and there are enough moments of genius to help the listener move from one to the next. That's an important point because the listener has to work as well. It's a bit like sex - both parties have to be willing and able to contribute to the process for it to reach great heights. The more you know about it, the more you bring to it and the more you engage in it, the more you will enjoy it. Jazz, that is.
There are a number of CDs that have captured a stunning performance, CDs that become personal favourites as well as "classics": Billie Holiday's At Storyville and The Gentle Side of John Coltrane, Miles Davis' A Kind of Blue and Patricia Barber's Verse. Ask any jazz enthusiast and they will swear on the life of their firstborn that their list is obviously, unarguably, definitively the best. And we do like to make lists.
High on my list (unarguably and definitively the best) is an album released in 2005 by local saxophonist Robert Burke, called The Edge of Today: a mapping of the Melbourne sound (Jazzhead HEAD059).
Burke has a substantial pedigree as a jazz musician, including a long history of playing with one of Melbourne's stalwart pianists, Tony Gould. Their earlier albums (A Tin Roof for the Rain and Gateway, both now sadly out of print) were just the two of them, talking, sharing ideas, and contained a few moments of pure, clean genius.
Burke's next album, Wide Eyed (Jazzhead HEAD033), added bassist Nick Haywood and drummer Tony Floyd, and the title track is one of the most beautiful pieces of music in Australian jazz history. There are passages that come as close as anyone ever has to expressing the love a man has for his daughters. You can imagine it as tracing the footsteps of a pair of little girls as they skip and dance and run and stamp their feet, and then scoot off again to smell a flower or jump into a puddle.
Like a great wine you can list the flavours or emotions in the tune: admiration, anticipation, concern and unbridled joy. A novice may not be able to articulate them - the wine simply tastes great - but it will move him or her. That's enough, the job's done, but there is much more in there for anyone willing to look for it.
That's the difference between wine and jazz. The better the wine the more expensive it is. CDs cost more or less the same: a brilliant one costs no more than a pedestrian one. And of course you can listen to a great CD again and again, enjoying it more as you learn more about it. So, perhaps it's not like a bottle of wine at all.
On The Edge of Today Burke draws his identity as a musician from his environments: family, colleagues, his town. The idea that a jazz saxophonist should sing Melbourne is in itself a strong idea because at its heart it is a guitar city. That doesn't make the idea unworkable though. It simply means Burke had to co-opt some of the city's finest guitarists to bounce his ideas off. The temptation must have been to pick one and record a bunch of tunes. But that wouldn't have been singing Melbourne. That would have been the Rob Burke Quartet with a guitarist. Instead, Burke used five very different guitarists either singly or en masse to cover Melbourne's major musical tram stops. So, on The Edge of Today Gould's piano doesn't feature.
In any music, every note has a range of dynamic harmonics that fly off it like a rainbow. The skill is in knowing which of those notes to play to bring a new dimension to the tune. Improvisation should add to the tune, take it in a different but meaningful direction. As a listener, you should, if you want to, be able to find an answer to the question, "How on Earth did he do that?"
There is a technical skills aspect to it that may alarm the music-as-pure-emotion crowd but any music that can't stand up to rigorous consideration won't last very long. Scarlatti was more popular than Mozart at the time - but Wolfgang's tunes stood up to the battering ram of critical examination and hackneyed interpretations, whereas Dominico's tunes live only in the domain of the purists and as a comparison to the boy wonder.
Some of the tunes on The Edge of Today don't work as well as others. Piazzola's Cafe 1930, selected by Slava Grigoryan and played by him and Burke, sits somewhat uncomfortably among the other more contemporary tracks. Grigoryan's playing seems a bit hesitant and the tune itself has nothing much of Melbourne in it. It's a fine piece to listen to on its own, but it is, to my ears, out of context as a chapter in a book about describing the city. Compared to Doug de Vries' Peregrine, it sounds somewhat stilted.
Peregrine is a brilliant, stunning piece of music. De Vries has matured without compromise into an inventive, demanding and emotional player and Burke bounces ideas and round-like harmonic inventions off de Vries' ethereal but robust melody. The music and the playing is sinewy and dynamic, and quite unlike anything else. Somehow, the effect is both cerebral and emotional. It is moving, in all senses of the word. It's Brunswick on a hot sultry night, when everyone is out on the streets.
Some of the other pieces have a readily discernible feel. Peter Petrucci features on two tracks: one of his and one written by Burke. What is immediately striking is that they sound very similar. Both are excellent - if they are singing a suburb it would have to be Yarraville, creeping westwards - and add a density of structure to the CD.
Petrucci sets up a rich, thick melodic structure and then invites Burke to stir the pot in any way he sees fit. Petrucci is a feel player, but one with a solid base of skill and technique. I'd want him to check my parachute before going up in the plane because you could then confidently muck around during the jump.
Geoff Hughes, on the other hand, has a more technically inventive approach: his solo playing on Burke's Foolish Fun is contained and tidy, like a well-manicured lawn. Structurally his approach works beautifully on that track and his own piece Same Time Same Face. It has faint echoes of Pat Metheny and it allows Burke to get aggressive and use the harshness to give the tunes a darker edge. Clean tones and harmonic aggression are the cornerstones of Burke's playing and they sit well in Hughes' landscapes. To me it sounds like the Yarra.
Perhaps Choro Negro by Paulinho da Viola is de Vries and Burke's nod to multiculturalism. Choro, like samba, is a South American dance and it allows Burke to take Stan Getz sensibilities and transport them to an Australian setting. The over-the-top sensuality of the music is honed to a sharp night-time edge. De Vries can bend time signatures with a subtlety and control like no one else.
It works better than the Grigoryan piece, with which it has some affinity, but it too stands alone. De Vries and Burke work so well together, they must have a significant history. They pick up each other's nods and winks, and like an old married couple finish each other's sentences.
Along with Peregrine, the other track that contains many moments of genius on the CD is Together Alone by Steve Magnusson. Magnusson has music in him that is simply astounding. It is angular and brutal one second and emotional and comforting the next, or even at the same time. It simply doesn't stay still: the piece pushes different buttons on each new hearing. It is sinewy and elemental enough to withstand close listening and fierce critique, and when started again, sound fresh and beguiling.
I don't know how Magnusson does that, but I know that even if I did, it would make no difference. Whatever he does is no magic that will lessen the song once revealed. That's not the point. The point is that whatever he does, it makes Burke up the ante as well and together with the beautiful and generous playing of the rhythm section they will move the spirit of anyone prepared to let them in.
Since the release of The Edge of Today the Burke-de Vries collaboration has developed further, with the pair being joined by local classical/Spanish virtuoso guitarist Ken Murray in a number of Latin-rhythm performances. The ultimate accolade came when the pair was invited to play in the home of the bossa nova, Brazil, last year.
There are a significant number of moments of genius on The Edge of Today. Big chunks sing the city stunningly well. Even the worst bits are very good. It's full of music that will move you, and it stands up to the closest scrutiny.
Turn off the TV and open that bottle of wine and listen to some of Melbourne's finest musicians sing you their city - and consider how high you place it on your own definitive, obviously and unarguably best list.
Andrys Onsman is a Melbourne writer, musician and academic.
) as a whole, even if the article, on the surface is not written as a review.