JAZZ ALBUM REVIEWS IN THE AUSTRALIAN
In September, 2017 Eric Myers commenced reviewing jazz albums in the Review supplement of The Weekend Australian. All reviews in this folder are written by Myers.
JAZZ
PHIL SLATER
THE DARK PATTERN
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Earshift Music
Four-and-a-half stars
Published in the Weekend Australian, October 26, 2019
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Phil Slater, a ravishingly beautiful trumpet player, is one of the world’s great players of the instrument. Inspired by Australian landscapes he has produced a two-hour suite which, in jazz terms, is a radical new departure. He is accompanied by four brilliant musicians, pianist Matt McMahon, bassist Brett Hirst, drummer Simon Barker and saxophonist Matt Keegan. In a nutshell the compositions are fragmentary, and the resultant improvisations often sound tentative, suggesting that the music is subject to a variety of new, hitherto unknown, constraints. To some extent, the sort of minimalism one associates with The Necks is present. But while that trio eschews technical displays, Slater is not afraid to open out into fulness when appropriate, in breathtaking displays of trumpet virtuosity. The Dark Pattern will divide the jazz world. Some traditionalists may find it uneventful, while new music fans will welcome a bold and fascinating experiment.
Eric Myers
JAZZ
RICHARD PAVLIDIS
WITHOUT WITHIN
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Independent
Four stars
Published in the Weekend Australian, November 2, 2019
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In a year of outstanding Australian modern jazz albums, Without Within is one of my favourites. Melbourne saxophonist Richard Pavlidis provides eight clever, well-written compositions, which feature such lovely harmonic changes that, after repeated listenings, one cannot but warm to them. The quartet includes Adam Spiegl (double bass), Ben Charnley (drums, percussion) and Mina Yu (piano). While all are excellent players, Yu is something special, one of the most elegant and tasteful pianists I’ve heard for some time. Originally from South Korea, she met Charnley in New York, and they subsequently relocated to Melbourne. Her comping - the underrated art of accompanying the improvisations of others - is faultless, her contributions to Pavlidis’s compositions are definitive, while her bright and melodic solos give the album real distinction. Her empathy with Pavlidis is palpable. Underneath the lyricism in her playing, I detect a steely dedication to the music. Still, this is Pavlidis’s album. A versatile and passionate player who can really burn at bright tempos, he gives the tenor saxophone a solid workout. At times his tone is unusually strident, but at the same time he is a sensitive player in the ballads, such as in Up Late. Throughout the album, he inches his way towards the high-energy expressiveness that has been stock-in-trade for tenorists since John Coltrane, and finally goes to town in his composition Someone’s Version of the Blues. Guest guitarist Matt Hoyne maintains the album’s high standard with an excellent solo in Pavlidis’s waltz Temps Perdu.
Eric Myers
JAZZ
VARIOUS ARTISTS
WE LIKE IKE
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Triangle Seven Records
Four stars
Published in the Weekend Australian, December 21, 2019
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This album celebrates the 100th anniversary of the birth on December 1, 1919, of guitarist Ike Isaacs. Born in Rangoon, Burma, he had a stellar career in the UK post-WWII as the dominant guitarist in British jazz. He toured with Stephane Grappelli, and interacted with international guitar greats such as Wes Montgomery and George Benson. This album of 17 tracks features various artists from around the world with a connection to Isaacs, brought together by producer/composer Roger Frankham, based in Japan. The UK guitarist Martin Taylor provides cover notes and opens the album with Isaacs’s composition After Hours. Ike’s nephew Australian pianist/composer Mark Isaacs also contributes a track Bagatelle (in memory of Ike) by his Resurgence Band. Ike arrived in 1981 to set up the Sydney School of Guitar’s jazz department, and died in Sydney in 1996. This album will ensure that he is fondly remembered.
Eric Myers