Post by Sydney sider on Feb 15, 2006 19:07:04 GMT 10
SCOTT TINKLER QUARTET
The Sound Lounge, February 11
Reviewed by John Shand
To explain the appeal of jazz to a non-aficionado, much of the talk would centre on sound and the way it plays on the field of rhythm. Scott Tinkler creates something close to the apotheosis
of a trumpet sound: blasting, growling, crying, and slicing through your ears to where brain and central nervous system fuse. The force of it is physical, like a 200kph scorch through inner-city streets in a racing car, and it carries the gusto of one who probably enjoys living, and definitely enjoys playing. Humour, triumph, anguish and anger are all played out on a very uneven rhythmic field.
Music is the perfect art for conveying energy. Jazz does it better than most music, and Tinkler's quartet does it better than most jazz. Pianist Paul Grabowsky, bassist Philip Rex and drummer Ken Edie match the leader as potent, confident, vibrant improvisers. Armed with a sheaf of written music, they deconstructed the contents like four over-grown urchins spraying lewd graffiti over a painstakingly-detailed mural.
Their collective impression of swing was of flying: not cruising in an comfy airliner, but hedge-hopping in a biplane. Much of the time the delight was in crashing rather than staying airborne, so the rhythmic effect suggested tumbling down a rocky precipice, shedding struts, wings and undercarriage along the way.
This was largely due to Edie's pouncing on stray beats and snapping their spines with lethal combinations of cymbal and snare. As dramatic as it was, there was scope for more grey zones between this and no drums at all. Rex's lithe virtuosity accommodated both this savage unpredictability and the canny, imaginative and often quite lyrical centring of the music provided by Grabowsky.
In a golden age for Australian trumpeters - Bob Barnard, Phil Slater, Steven Grant and Eugene Ball, to name a few - Tinkler may be out-passioned by Slater and out-swung by Alder, but no one is more fearless or blistering, or has such total command of the sonic options of the instrument.
The Sound Lounge, February 11
Reviewed by John Shand
To explain the appeal of jazz to a non-aficionado, much of the talk would centre on sound and the way it plays on the field of rhythm. Scott Tinkler creates something close to the apotheosis
of a trumpet sound: blasting, growling, crying, and slicing through your ears to where brain and central nervous system fuse. The force of it is physical, like a 200kph scorch through inner-city streets in a racing car, and it carries the gusto of one who probably enjoys living, and definitely enjoys playing. Humour, triumph, anguish and anger are all played out on a very uneven rhythmic field.
Music is the perfect art for conveying energy. Jazz does it better than most music, and Tinkler's quartet does it better than most jazz. Pianist Paul Grabowsky, bassist Philip Rex and drummer Ken Edie match the leader as potent, confident, vibrant improvisers. Armed with a sheaf of written music, they deconstructed the contents like four over-grown urchins spraying lewd graffiti over a painstakingly-detailed mural.
Their collective impression of swing was of flying: not cruising in an comfy airliner, but hedge-hopping in a biplane. Much of the time the delight was in crashing rather than staying airborne, so the rhythmic effect suggested tumbling down a rocky precipice, shedding struts, wings and undercarriage along the way.
This was largely due to Edie's pouncing on stray beats and snapping their spines with lethal combinations of cymbal and snare. As dramatic as it was, there was scope for more grey zones between this and no drums at all. Rex's lithe virtuosity accommodated both this savage unpredictability and the canny, imaginative and often quite lyrical centring of the music provided by Grabowsky.
In a golden age for Australian trumpeters - Bob Barnard, Phil Slater, Steven Grant and Eugene Ball, to name a few - Tinkler may be out-passioned by Slater and out-swung by Alder, but no one is more fearless or blistering, or has such total command of the sonic options of the instrument.
