Some readers may have seen some weird e-mails circulating, one of which expressed surprise that SIMA was still presenting music (now at Side On, as it happens). Here were a couple of nights that would quickly have cleared up the mystery for anyone who was there. Both were very well attended, following minimal publicity, and on each there was a sense of occasion.
The Pascal Schumacher Quartet, with members from Luxembourg and Belgium, were in Australia for the Melbourne Jazz Festival. SIMA grabbed them for a Sydney performance before they left the country.
The sometimes amusing, or perhaps you might say cute, accents of the Europeans when they spoke in mostly perfect English (with the occasional amusing construction) were certainly no barrier to communication. Quite the reverse. They were instantly likeable, and so was their music. Likeable and quite serious. The two are not mutually exclusive. The sound of vibraphone (Schumacher), piano (Jef Neve), bass (Christoph Devisscher) and drums (Teun Verbruggen), is an immediately attractive one, as the Modern Jazz Quartet demonstrated for many years.
The MJQ was not, however, the reference that came to mind. Some of the harmonies and blendings of piano, vibes and bass actually reminded me a little of Andrew Hill, Bobby Hutcherson and Richard Davis (with drummer Elvin Jones) on Hill’s Blue Note Classic Judgement! Individually, though, the Europeans were quite different to the abovementioned, and Verbruggen took a specially different tack to Elvin.
Compositions from all members were outstanding. Most employed rhythm—or at the least, tempo—changes, and all were obviously rigorously rehearsed. The energy and relaxation with which the engaging arrangements were played eliminated any sense of fussiness, and the solos took off with propulsion and inventiveness. Chucho’s Groove by Devisscher did become funky dance music in sections, but it also employed perhaps the most dissonant and angular figures of the night. Even the funky parts might have proved testing for some dancers. It did not throw the listeners, however. Its excitement caught hold and was wildly applauded.
Now, it is unlikely that many listeners were pondering the complexity of that corner of Europe between France and Germany, where Luxemborg is an area or province within Belgium as well as a separate Duchy beside it; where French is spoken, along with a variation of Dutch in one small section; but German and French as well as American music certainly coloured the atmosphere. I suppose French and Spanish influences were most apparent in the charming and ingenious Satieology. A fresh look at Summertime (also essayed recently by American vibraphonist Stefon Harris) revealed too a deep knowledge of Gershwin’s idiom.
Schumacher employed a minimal vibrato on the vibes, and this created its own atmosphere. Fleet lines and chords, with very precise note separation contrasted with sections where the very complexity and speed was allowed to build up over a sustain, creating a kind sheet of electronic sound, subtly oscillating at its edges, so to speak. Neve was rarely content to ‘comp’ routinely. He either dropped out behind the vibes or constantly expanded on what they were doing with tiny increments of development. His solo playing was quite brilliant. Devisscher and Verbuggen were constantly within the music, expanding it tonally, texturally, while driving it rhythmically. It is wonderful to hear so much musical skill and education channelled into sheer beauty, invention, excitement.
Right back in the 20th century, bassist and composer Cameron Undy had a full realisation of Ornette Coleman’s importance for the future of jazz-related music. Coleman’s Prime Time band took one giant leap into space for funkiness and world music rhythms, while his earlier acoustic bands could be heard, from one angle, as the apotheosis of swing, from another as pure blues; again as country and western and yet again as avant garde jazz. Cameron has formed a number of bands that have worked variations and extensions of this idiom – and in his 20th Century Dog you can hear another realisation: that Thelonious Monk also has a place in the future—each one becoming more distinctively Undy-like and more purely exciting and expressive.
If rhythm was king at their Side On performance, melody was queen, and the two monarchs spawned glittering colour. This ridiculous metaphor, with its suggestion of fish propelling showers of sperm and eggs into water, or of the snow storm of pollinating coral in the barrier reef at night, should be dropped immediately, but if you can arrange the elements in some more compelling image you might gain some idea of how brilliant, fresh, exciting and curiously magical this music sounded. Certainly the Belgians and Luxembourgers, who had been playing with locals in the Side On jam sessions, listened with open mouths and eyebrows raised.
A word about tenor saxophonist Matt Keegan, whose trio (with Cameron and drummer will be playing at Side On in July and at the Opera House studio in August). This is one of the finest tenor sounds you’ll hear. It’s not a bulging muscular tone, but a lean, sometimes soft-edged sound, that is brilliantly projected. Playing a rootsy raunch or avant jazz solo Keegan creates huge excitement and passion without sounding macho or overbearing. In lyrical and impressionist mode he is a weaver of spells.
Simon Barker is one of the great drum stylists I’ve heard. His manipulation of time can make you fall over, almost, before it sets you back on your feet. The range of darkly brassy cymbal texures and deep drum sounds he produces is very much his own, and it contrasted beautifully with Ben Hauptmann’s wide, bright, biting and superbly placed guitar notes. Cameron Undy has been one of the top handful of bassists in the country for quite a while now, and he’s only getting better.
The mystery of why how SIMA keeps going is no mystery at all. They keep coming up with nights like these that rise above even their own standards of excellence, when the feeling that something very special, from locals or high level internationals, communicates itself to the audience.