Aaron Goldberg Trio
Sound Lounge June 12 & 13
There are times when a great jazz piano trio will give me the satisfaction of a Beethoven string quartet. More accurately, a related satisfaction. There is rarely extended development of a theme, the appearance of a second subject, et al. I do not fool myself that jazz improvisation is the same as a development section. But it can have elements that are closely related. Great jazz improvisations do develop according to their own logic. The fact that they are created on the run, sometimes at ridiculously high metronome markings, affords a particular thrill -like a movement in sport that, despite violent obstacles in its path (that unexpected drum accent must be absorbed and incorporated as one has to deal with the tackler appearing from nowhere) fulfills itself with seeming inevitability, as if it had been plotted beforehand in all its unforeseeable elements.
The Aaron Goldberg trio were the rhythm section for Joshua Redman, and when Joshua moved on they felt that they were playing so well together that they would continue as a unit. I think that if at their current level they had emerged in the 1950s or 60s they might have taken their place with the great trios of Ahmad Jamal, Bill Evans, Wynton Kelly, Oscar Peterson and company. I don’t claim they would have been as great as any of these, for such speculation in absolutes is pointless over separated eras. Their contribution would have been felt.
A trio out of time? Yes and no. it is unlikely that they would have done some of the things they do now back then. Like such local trios as those of Mike Nock, Alister Spence, Tim Stevens, Gerard Masters, Paul Grabowsky and Gerard Masters, they show that the great tradition is capable of being refreshed and extended without grafting influences of other contemporary musics too obviously or clunkily.
One of the glories of a great piano trio arises from rhythmic, melodic and contrapuntal routines before the improvisations begin: piano/bass theme statements, theme statements by the bass – plucked or bowed – counter accents and patterns from the drums. Then the release into sparkling, driving improvisation. This trio was breathtaking in its cohesion, thoughtfulness and ingenuity. On Unstable Mates, based on Benny Golson’s Stable Mates, Goldberg set up a tricky left hand broken pattern against which he ran a long brilliant line that moved through separate metres. The broken pattern never shifted. A selection of notes from that vamp was then held by Reuben Rogers’s immaculate bass into the improvisation while drummer Greg Hutchinson struck accents that implied another time again.
Sometimes they held a tight, compacted groove that seemed both forceful and understated; both funky and subtle. Its containment somehow internalised its force; yet the listener felt it. These are the subtle weights and measures with which great trios play. Goldberg’s touch was so precise and yet swinging that when he stacked a sudden complex cluster on the beat the piano rang and shimmered like silver hammers. A lovely tune by Brazillian singer/songwriter Djavan was at times like calypso and bossa nova combined. Rogers’s bass solo was full of infinitely pliable, ingenious and euphoric figures in the high register.
On the second night the energy level rose and the glittering momentum was absolutely irresistible. I had not followed this trio, but John Shand has and he said that the level of play has risen each time he’s heard them.
The brilliant Goldberg Trio came to us under the auspices of the Judith Wright Centre. Just as I began this review (well after the event, for it has been a flustered time) I saw an ABC feature on the Australian poet and I remembered that I had met her daughter in Japan, where I lived for six months with my Chinese girlfriend of that time. Both Yoke and Ms Wright were deeply involved in things Japanese, and I was having a marvelous time as well. Wright showed us a couple of photos of gum trees in a field, possibly from the poet’s property (it’s years ago now) and the soft creamy fawn of their trunks against silky dry grass was so beautiful and so much of another world that I began raving as if I had seen a vision. The two women were a little puzzled, but I don’t think Judith Wright would have been.