Aaron Choulai opened his Sydney recital with the first track from his 2003 album Place, which was recorded in New York with fine American players, including saxophonist Tim Ries, who issued the invitation to the very specially talented young Melbourne pianist and composer. This was an East Coast bop piece written by Choulai in appreciation of the place he found himself recording in. It is one of those initially calm, creeping up on you bop tunes, with a flaring peak for the horns, and Choulai’s Melbourne players observed the dynamics just about as well, in their own way, as the Americans.
From there on we heard Choulai compositions from his recent album Korema. Instead of Julien Wilson on tenor, Eugene Ball, trumpet, and drummer Rajiv Jayaweera, we heard Ian Whitehurst, Eamon McNallis and Rory McDougal – along with bassist Tom Lee and guitarist Geoff Hughes.
As Mike Nock, standing beside me, remarked, Choulai’s writing is superb. On one tune, Hughes’s beautiful guitar sound—sometimes floating in that siren song region where the ethereal and the sensual meet—was blended with the horns, taking the lines beyond the bop influence that is still pleasingly evident in Choulai’s work. Hughes’s occasional comping behind a horn solo sometimes receded to a series of distant electric streaks (at first I thought they were coming from somewhere off stage) placed at or sliding across intriguing intervals. This is very different comping. Fantastic.
The composition Douglas Me Stupid crammed in a lot of elements, some jokey, including a solid old timey swing as the Art Ensemble might have played it, bumpy choppy phrases in another metre, and a hint of manic circussy waltz. Another piece used lovely minimalist patterns behind the soloists that touched on different beats with anticipatory spaces between. One rising and falling chant by the horns was triggered and floated forward from the top of the upbeat, then from lower down on the upbeat, then on the beat, the falling interval subtly changing, until a kind of rotating slow water wheel effect was created.
Against this Choulai soloed with uncommon invention and sustained intensity, holding a line of development almost Bach-like in the middle upper register, then striking with a restraint a repeated bluesy phrase.
There is no obvious flash in his playing, even dissonance is used in a structural, controlled way. It cast a spell. Solo after solo kept the crowd in complete silence. The place was still full at the end and the applause was as warm as the music.
But we were also treated to superb band playing and wonderful solos from everyone. McNallis’s chrome plated brilliance of sound was used with an individuality not so common in a high power trumpeter. The rhythm section dynamics were perfect for the music. Whitehurst—full of thoughtful expressivity. Bravo bravo bravo.
Grabowsky has called Choulai a genius. Cynics may see an identification with a player so strongly influenced by Paul himself, but that is a very powerful influence—one of the most important in Australian jazz—used by Choulai with great intelligence and feeling.