David Rex revisits the Side-On

A few years ago when Melbourne alto saxophone King, or Rex, played in Sydney his brilliance flagged in a couple of places, but I felt that this was due to the local rhythm section—a trio usually as good as any in the country—not giving everything to the idiom. Having risen to the varied special requirements of Scott Tinkler, Sam Keevers, Phil Slater and others, it was inevitable that they would have a night on which they failed to fully focus.

When David Rex did the Side-On again on November 21, he found a mostly younger rhythm section that managed to sound as if it had playing for no one but him over the past few months. They were pianist Gerard Masters, bassist Cameron Undy and drummer Craig Simon. It’s a shame that this was not a crowded night at Side-On, because the music was special.

It was special in that it seemed to operate at a kind of nexus between two eras, because it worked brilliantly there without sacrificing the special qualities of either. First, there was the combined precision, tightness, tautness and toughness of classic hard bop. To some this may have appeared even straight-laced at first, but it set up a tension that projected statements of controlled emotion and conviction forward. For instance, a steel-fingered biting run of complex repetitions in the treble of the piano, a progression of chords, then another chime of interlocking patterns rght at the point of maximum tension.

As well, it opened a window on more recent extensions of acoustic jazz—evident in Rex’s writing and playing. Clearly, his inspiration has been bop. He plays fast and he piles up complex runs and phrases until they seem to be jostling each other aside—an illusion based on speed and rhythmic displacements, because every phrase is finished and clean—until a burning point is reached. The style in which this is executed has moved forward, however, into a somewhat cooler note production, influenced perhaps by Steve Coleman, which actually heightens the effect of accumulation, of rising heat. Only at climactic points does a high blues rasp burn at the edges of the notes.

There were times when Rex achieved his effects with a combination of ingenuity and passion that was quite astonishing. He really is a great player.

So too is Cameron Undy. I never imagined a time when he would be one of the older members of the band, and it’s hard to think of him that way now: he still looks like a boy. Cameron has won a acclaim and work in the dance area on electric bass, but he he has certainly kept his feeling for acoustic jazz. Superb playing. Near the other end of the age scale, drummer Craig Simon teamed with him perfectly, with a style that seems to combine the virtues of a crisp tight swing with free accents that slam everything forward. In the last set Sean Wayland took over the piano chair on Dizzy Gillespie’s Con Almo, playing with great authority and briliance.

A connoiseur’s night, really, but one that would have pleased more casual listeners if they had turned up.