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
IMMERSION LURE
PHIL SLATER
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Independent
Four-and-a-half stars
Published in the Weekend Australian, January 27, 2024
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With his fourth album Sydney trumpeter Phil Slater continues the fascinating experiment he began with his 2019 album The Dark Pattern. His objective is “combining the sound palette and texture of the jazz quintet instrumentation with minimalist compositional devices.” Five of his beautiful compositions are played on a 52-minute album, with Matt Keegan (tenor sax), Matt McMahon (piano), Brett Hirst (double bass), and Simon Barker (drum set) once again on deck. All acknowledged jazz masters, their playing on this album is regrettably subdued in a minimalist soundscape where their contributions, despite occasional wonderful moments, to my ears sound tentative, uncertain and inhibited. Ironically this is not the case with Slater’s own playing which is the opposite of minimalist. Every track without exception reveals his exceptional mastery in trumpet solos which are breathtaking in their tone, ideas, virtuosic control of the instrument and freedom of expression. I have rarely ever heard such ravishing trumpet brilliance. One would have to go to the very best of Miles Davis to experience such comparable mastery.
Eric Myers
JAZZ
THE BEST OF ABC JAZZ ‘23
VARIOUS ARTISTS
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ABC Jazz
Four stars
Published in the Weekend Australian, February 3, 2024
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For some time the chief engine room behind the flowering of Australian jazz over say the last ten years has been Jeremy Rose’s innovative label Earshift Music. More recently, ABC Jazz has introduced initiatives which have made a real difference: its Fresh Start Fund, for example, dating back to 2020, as well as an impressive program of composer commissions. This 12-track album follows up the comparable Jazz ’22 album, and showcases an extremely impressive array of jazz artists. The ABC’s commitment to established musicians is underlined by the album’s opening with Sunrise from pianist Mike Nock, and closing with his sensitive reading of the Bernie McGann classic Spirit Song. Other big names are featured – Paul Grabowsky, Zela Margossian, Jamie Oehlers - but it is the emerging artists which most capture my attention, such as pianists Wilbur Whitta and Matt Thomson; bassist Kate Pass; singer Natalie Dietz; and alto saxophonist Holly Moore. With this generation of artists now in full flight, the future of Australian jazz is in very good hands.
Eric Myers
JAZZ
GREGG ARTHUR IN CONCERT: THE GREAT AMERICAN SONGBOOK
GREGG ARTHUR
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Juniper Jazz
Five stars
Published in the Weekend Australian, February 10, 2024
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This great album is appropriately subtitled The Great American Songbook. Since he returned home to Australia in 2014, cutting short a lucrative career in the US, singer Gregg Arthur has set the bar very high for Australian vocalists across a number of excellent albums, with his immaculate versions of standards from the Songbook. This album has four such standards, and Arthur sings his heart out, rising to the occasion in the knowledge that the performance is being recorded live. He’s accompanied by pianist Peter Locke, bassist Craig Scott and drummer Andrew Dickeson plus guests Craig Walters (tenor saxophone), and Jim Pennell (guitar). Three of seven tracks vary the repertoire: a jazz classic (Detour Ahead), one Jobim bossa nova (Corcovado) and an Arthur original (You With Me), but it’s in the four Songbook tunes that the album truly comes alive. To hear Arthur sing, for example, the great Lorenz Hart/Richard Rodgers composition My Romance is to know we’re in the hands of a masterful interpreter of lyrics and a superior purveyor of immortal melodies.
Eric Myers