The Melbourne International Jazz Festival aspires to be recognised as a world-class jazz festival. This year, it got it mostly right. The artistic direction – 10 days of concerts across a range of venues throughout the city – was exemplary. Showcasing leading female artists from the USA and UK was smart, progressive and long overdue. What seems to have been missed, however, is the uniquely Australian content and collaborations that lit up last year’s festival with sold-out and critically acclaimed performances in site-specific venues such as a converted powerhouse and the city baths.
This year’s festival kicked off with a New Orleans second line snaking along the Yarra River, led by the TBC Brass Band sharing musical duties with local exponents, the Horns of Leroy. A great start, segueing into Jazz at the Bowl later that evening, at which 7000 people, a huge crowd for a jazz concert in any city, were treated to a Marcus Miller and Herbie Hancock masterclass.
Both have long and impressive pedigrees working with most of the greats of modern jazz, but it was the spirit of Miles Davis and Wayne Shorter that carried the evening. At one point, Hancock asked his young drummer, Jaylen Pertinaud, now 26, what age it was he first played in his band. “24,” he replies. Herbie laughs. “I joined Miles when I was 23.”
Miller tells of the time he wrote Mr Pastorius as a tribute to Jaco, and wanted Miles to play the tune in his earlier, more acoustic style. Miller couldn’t bring himself to ask Miles to look backwards – it just wasn’t done – but Miles ended up playing the tune just as Miller intended, without any prompt. Miller then goes on to play Tutu, the title track he wrote for one of Miles’s later albums. Miller’s young trumpeter Russel Gunn Jr manages to channel Miles, while somehow inflecting a Latin feel, reminiscent of Arturo Sandoval.
As good as Miller and his band was, it was Herbie Hancock the large crowd had come to see, perhaps a little unsure about what to expect from an 84 year-old living legend. Hancock paid tribute to his best friend Wayne Shorter, and then astonished the crowd with his energy and skill. He played keyboards with a fiery intensity and his piano solos were delightfully and masterfully constructed.
Hancock clearly relished playing with a stellar quartet. Terence Blanchard has been responsible for a string of film scores and operas. On this night in Melbourne he is a trumpet sideman, bringing all the flourishes and chops of the New Orleans street musician he once was. Drummer Pertinaud is an extraordinary new talent. When he learns to play silence and space with the virtuosity he unleashes on solos and fills, he will surely earn a place in the pantheon of great jazz drummers. James Genus is a different kind of bass player from Marcus Miller – comparable at holding and driving the beat, he soloed with technically gifted restraint. And then there is Benin-born Lionel Loueke on guitar. Herbie introduced him as being from “another planet”, playing tempos that should jar but somehow fit. He plays the guitar like it’s a keyboard, extracting all manner of sounds. To close the show, he duets with Hancock, keytar around his neck. They face-off, trade licks and bounce in time together – yes, literally bouncing at the age of 84 – to the crowd favourite, Rockit.
Following this impressive opening stanza, the festival took a somewhat gendered turn, mostly showcasing prominent women in jazz from both sides of the Atlantic. Starting with the UK, Nubya Garcia gave a first performance in her Odyssey tour, playing with a full, “phat” sound and stamping herself on stage as a very physical player. Her backing band was very busy, but managed to maintain a balance that avoids clutter. Garcia’s London colleagues Steam Down transposed the street sounds of south-east London to a club venue in Melbourne. Mixing jazz sensitivities with dance beat and rap, the party pivoted around the saxophone of founder Ahnanse.
Crossing the Atlantic, four very different New York-based artists provided world-class performances. Brandee Younger led a trio paying homage to the influence and intricacies of the harp. Channelling Alice Coltrane and Dorothy Ashby, she was reverent, but not stagnant. Her new composition Pinnacles, premiered here, was lithe and alive. Dexterous hands skilfully plucked the harp’s strings, inviting rhythmic counterpoints from her very accomplished rhythm section (Allan Mednard on drums and Rashaan Carter on double bass) that were sensitive and very beautiful.
Nicole Zuraitis, fresh from her Grammy award for Best Jazz Vocal album (How Love Begins), was clearly very proud of her unique status as the only winner of this particular Grammy to have both written and arranged all the compositions. Describing herself as a “self-taught pianist and recovered opera singer”, she is not trying to forge new ground or break new directions in jazz – rather, she relies on a strong and powerful vocal to traverse a wide range of musical styles from blues and scat to music hall, the American songbook and even country: Jolene and Wichita Lineman had their cowboy boots dusted off and replaced by stilettos.
Jazzmeia Horn confirmed her debt to the rich and soulful traditions of great jazz vocalists like Betty Carter, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone. She sounds like all of them, but none them. You can hear the rich tones of this jazz history in her phrasing, and the signposts to the future in the way she scats and screeches.
While she brought her own pianist, the tastefully understated and very precise New York based Victor Gould, I’m not sure why she left her rhythm section at home. Sam Anning, on bass, was world class, and must be the busiest musician in town – seemingly backing half the gigs in the festival. He slotted right into the pocket, but the choice of drummer was not as successful: a better bet might have been to match her with one of the more inventive Australian drummers like Jim White or Hamish Stuart.
Audrey Powne flew the flag for Australian artists. Her homecoming concert after a year in London was warmly received and emotionally charged. Her star is ascendant. She has just been given a prestigious Victorian Music Award and been nominated for awards on both sides of the Atlantic. She confesses to imposter syndrome but immersed in her music she becomes a confident musician and band leader, coaxing cinematic imagery and dance-tune energy from familiar musicians, emboldened by the lush sounds of a string quartet. Powne is a fine singer, a songwriter of growing prowess and she plays a warm, rounded and powerful trumpet. She is definitely one to watch as she navigates the next steps of her musical career.
The last of the visiting Americans, Esperanza Spalding, closed the festival with a tour de force in the city’s premier concert venue, Hamer Hall. The previous evening, Japanese pianist Makoto Ozone, accompanied by Orchestra Victoria, had performed three extraordinary compositions on the same stage. This former member of Chick Corea’s band led Corea’s Spain For Sextet & Orchestra. An Australian horn section and a Japanese rhythm section filled out Makoto’s sextet, demonstrating the power and breadth of sound that modern jazz composers can harness from combining the improvisational flourishes of a jazz ensemble with the power and precision of a conducted orchestra. Makoto then went on to perform Deviation, his own reflective composition, before launching into Rhapsody In Blue on the 100th anniversary of the Gershwin composition. He is no stranger to this role, having performed it with the New York Philharmonic 10 years ago. It remains an awesome experience – in the true rather than vernacular meaning of the word – to hear the familiar stanzas and cadenzas filling a concert hall.
The following night, there was nothing so grand as an orchestra. Esperanza Spalding brought a pared-down trio – although this was really a quartet if you consider that Esperanza was effectively filling two roles – bass or piano, and vocal. She also brought two dancers, and they were by no means incidental. There was both joy and mutual respect in the way they interacted with the trio.
It is probably fair to say that the works presented are not yet fully resolved. They feel like separate projects pieced together, and while there are overlapping and connected themes such as the body, movement, love, touch and respect, it comes across as a work in progress. This is one journey, however, that might be as good or perhaps even better than the destination, if there ever is one. The overarching impression is that Esperanza Spalding is exploring a mix of new and old narratives, and how they meld with music and dance. With all three musicians dressed in white on a sparse stage, it brought to mind the latest incarnation of David Byrne’s highly stylised concerts, or perhaps a Laurie Anderson or Phillip Glass performance piece or opera.
The dancing was modern, free-form and balletic. It got hip-grindingly earthy when Spalding invited the crowd to exercise their “Stride Grease for to loosen up your hip joints”, and then joined her two dancers to demonstrate how it’s done. The music was centred on Esperanza’s bass and vocals – both of which are world class – with drummer Eric Doob sticking to the basics and guitarist Mathew Steven playing with a kind of distilled Adrain Belew/King Crimson style intensity.
Spalding interacted with the audience as if she were a friend and confidante. She asked us whether we prioritise our phones or our bodies, imploring us to reflect on themes of connection and love: “I sure think you’re neat – could you love me?” She talked of the under-utilisation of touch, providing one of the most memorable sequences of the night when she played bass with one hand while touching the hand of one of the dancers, who in turn held hands with the second dancer, weaving an undulating wave pattern in time with the beat.
Her encore was strikingly stripped down, but designed to be upbeat. She talked to the musicians in the room, counselling them that the technical stress of playing jazz is not what matters, and then demonstrated with a simple melody and sing-along that had an enchanted audience singing and humming as they left the Hamer Hall and wandered the city streets outside. A perfect finale to a very fine festival.
