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
WAVETELLER
WAVETELLER
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Independent
Four stars
Published in the Weekend Australian, July 11, 2020
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Dave Brubeck once said there’s no reason why all jazz should be in 4/4. In this spirit the brilliant left-handed double bassist Michael Mear, recently back in Australia after many years in Paris, has devoted this whole album to explorations of pulse, time and rhythmic displacement. Seven of his compositions are here, plus Neil Young’s Don’t Let It Bring You Down, where the simple pulse of a great pop tune is effectively transformed. With such complicated music, Mear is lucky to have two excellent musicians, pianist Casey Golden and drummer Ed Rodrigues, who steam through rhythmic minefields with virtuosic ease. The album’s great strength is the melodic flare of Golden who, on the lead instrument, has primary responsibility for keeping the music flowing. This he achieves, assisted by the sort of brightness in his playing possessed by only the most talented jazz pianists.
Eric Myers
JAZZ
PISTILS
RAJIV JAYAWEERA
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Earshift Music
Five stars
Published in the Weekend Australian, July 18, 2020
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This is such a lovely album that it’s difficult to know where to start. Drummer/percussionist Rajiv Jayaweera now lives in New York, where this album was recorded. Born in London of Sri Lankan parents, he grew up in Melbourne and graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2000. His nine compositions on Pistils, exploring an array of contemporary time-feels, feature two Americans in Chris Cheek (saxophones) and Aaron Parks (piano), plus two Australians in Hugh Stuckey (guitar) and Sam Anning (double bass). The Spaniard Lara Bello sings on the title track. The basic character of the music is determined by Jayaweera, a drummer of unusual subtlety and good taste, always alive to punctuating the music but never intrusive. Anning’s bass lines, beautifully recorded, can be felt as well as heard. It’s such a pleasure to know there are modern jazz musicians in the world playing like this.
Eric Myers
JAZZ
THE MOVEMENT REVISITED
CHRISTIAN McBRIDE
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Mack Avenue/Planet
Four-and-a half stars
Published in the Weekend Australian, August 8, 2020
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This inspirational album from 48-year-old African American bassist/composer Christian McBride is a musical tribute to four icons of the black civil rights movement: Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali. A formidable suite in 13 movements is performed by a jazz big band, four actors who narrate selected words of those icons, and the gospel choir Voices of the Flame. This major achievement began in 1998 as a modest work for McBride’s quartet and a small choir, but was expanded for large orchestra in 2008, when it was performed in Los Angeles. In that year a movement to celebrate the election of Barack Obama was added, and excerpts from Obama’s famous “yes we can” speech were added to the narrations. The album’s main virtue is that the moods established by the narrations are uncannily reflected and extended in brilliant arrangements and improvisations. This was recorded in 2013 well before the recent death of George Floyd, but its release in May 2020 still serves to epitomize the passion behind the current Black Lives Matter movement. In musical terms, McBride shows how jazz, amplified by gospel music, can be a healing force, and act as an antidote to the hatred that underlies racism. The last track Apotheosis: November 4th, 2008 with its “free at last” incantation, ends the album on a note of mighty optimism.
Eric Myers