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
AFTER-IMAGE
LILLIAN ALBAZI
____________________
Independent
Three stars
Published in the Weekend Australian, September 4, 2021
____________________
Melbourne singer Lillian Albazi‘s brief forty-minute album inhabits a competitive space. It features new interpretations of songs which already have distinguished versions in the collective memory. Her accompanying quintet bristles with youthful enthusiasm. A bright spot on the album is a two-out version of My Funny Valentine where Albazi is accompanied by guest pianist the veteran Tony Gould. Unlike pop music, overnight success in jazz is rare. Moreover consummate female jazz singers such as Kristin Berardi, Chris McNulty and Kate Ceberano have already set the bar very high in this country. I hope Albazi can find an audience in a media environment where jazz is now severely marginalised. But jazz itself is a hard taskmaster. Albazi’s main problems are a stridency in the upper register of her voice, which will need to be rectified, and the waywardness of her melodic variations. She has a lifetime of study and hard work ahead of her, and I wish her well.
Eric Myers
JAZZ
THE LAND OF IF
BALL HANLON SCHULZ
____________________
Earshift Music
Four-and-a-half stars
Published in the Weekend Australian, September 18, 2021
____________________
This album reveals Melbourne’s Eugene Ball to be a genuine pioneer in what one might call the post-Scott Tinkler trumpet era. It has ten originals either by Ball or Anthony Schulz which place Ball’s thought-provoking trumpet style against the sounds of Schulz’s piano accordion. Schulz’s playing subdues elements which some consider essential to jazz, such as the blues and the swing feel, and the immaculately correct playing of double bassist Ben Hanlon underlines this approach. The result is the flavour of classical chamber music, rather than the usual rollicking ambience of jazz. However, Ball is in no way inhibited. His playing is a tour de force, freely exploring the trumpet’s sound possibilities, and transcending what appears to be on the surface a rather stringent context. Ultimately this is an album of somewhat playful music, filled with subtle nuances, which are revealed more and more through repeated listenings. I would expect the receptive listener, coming to the music with open ears and generosity of spirit, to love this album.
Eric Myers
ART MUSIC
CLOSED BEGINNINGS
AUSTRALIAN ART ORCHESTRA: TARIRO MAVONDO REUBEN LEWIS PETER KNIGHT
____________________
AAO Recordings
Four stars
Published in the Weekend Australian, September 25, 2021
____________________
Two extraordinary musicians are providing here an electronic soundscape to accompany the evocative poetry of Tariro Mavondo, an African woman born in Zimbabwe but raised in Melbourne. Reuben Lewis (trumpet, pedals, percussion, synthesisers, electronics) and Peter Knight (trumpet, electronics, revox B77 tape machine) have substantial credentials as jazz performers but it would require a very broad definition of jazz to describe the music thus. Still the brilliant improvisational ability of both musicians is a key element, along with their apparently pre-prepared passages. On two of the four movements a string section includes Lizzy Welsh (violin), Erkki Veltheim (viola) and Zoë Barry (cello). As a somewhat unreceptive poetry student I am particularly unqualified to comment on Mavondo’s spoken words but I can say that I found them beautiful to hear, and frequently highly moving. She is exploring large themes: revolution, isolation, connectedness for example, and Mavondo herself aptly describes her task, “to find the nuance, whilst bringing in the underbelly of deep emotions and shining a spotlight into our deepest psyches.”
Eric Myers