High Tide – Volume 1 is The Brisbane Jazz Club’s first album to chronicle the music that has flowed through this former boathouse by the river since the mid-70s.
The 13 tracks draw the curtain on Brisbane’s jazz community: a diverse group characterized by hard core traditionalists, cool school swingers, relentless beboppers and sexy torch singers.
One or two of the tracks may fall marginally short of perfection but, overall, the music makes for good listening, with most, if not all, of the cuts recorded before a live audience.
It’s music played with honesty and spirit – two words that come to mind as John Braben’s soaring trumpet leads the Caxton Street Jazz Band’s into Duke Ellington’s 1929 opus, Stevedore Stomp.
The Caxton has been flying the dixieland flag in Brisbane for two or three decades. They understand how this music ought to be played – and they play it with verve and authority.
Next track, East of the Sun, finds guitarist-singer Johnny Nicol in his comfort zone – cruising effortlessly through the lyrics and lush harmony of this beautiful, if rarely performed, swing era ballad.
Guitarist Ewan MacKenzie’s band Mystery Pacific follows with a sensitive reading of Django Reinhardt’s Nuages. Flautist Susan Hall delivers the melody with restraint, aided and abetted by MacKenzie, Steve Cook (rhythm guitar) and Rick Caskey (bass).
On to the Graeme Norris Quintet – a group which, according to the liner notes, consists of only four members: Norris (reeds), Jamie Clarke (guitar), Joe Marchisella (drums) and Lachie Easton (bass).
The notes also spell Norris with three r’s, which is a bit unusual. Literals aside, this is one of the standout tracks on the CD, with accomplished playing from all of the players concerned, and some especially tasty stuff from Norris himself.
Norris and Marchisella also feature in the lineup of Finders Keepers – a six-piece outfit led by guitarist Toby Wren, whose agile and innovative style transports the old standard, Exactly Like You, into thoroughly modern territory.
After this, piano trio Jazz Australis delivers a subtle yet complex reading of Autumn Leaves, with some lovely collective improvisation from pianist Dave Spicer, bassist Lee Matthews and drummer Dave Cotgreave.
The pianist on vocalist Sandie White’s accomplished reading of It Shouldn’t Happen To A Dream is also rather good though I doubt that he is Ed Gaston, as maintained by the liner notes. More likely, he is Peter Locke who is credited with playing bass. Perhaps they swapped.
At this point, John Braben reappears as co-leader of the Braben Jenner Hot Five to revive Knee Drops, recorded by Louis Armstrong in 1928. Along with Braben is Andy Jenner (soprano sax), Bob Mair (drums), Joe Epps (tuba) and Wally Furst (banjo). It’s brolly twirling ‘Nawlins street music – one for aficionados of early jazz.
The ghost of Louis Armstrong lingers on the following track where that excellent trumpet player Mal Jennings leads his Jazz Giants into Got A Lot Of Living To Do. When Armstrong performed this song, he made it sound like jazz. But, then, Armstrong could make absolutely anything sound like jazz.
The Christina Kelman Quintet delivers a wonderful laidback version of S’Wonderful and on the next track, you can almost hear pianist Clare Hannson’s trademark smile as she powers through On Green Dolphin Street.
Reedman Rod Bridges’ labour of love, The Brisbane Big Band is the latest in a long line of Brisbane Jazz Club-based big bands, heard here performing a Paul Gibens’ original, Tailspin.
Pianist Rohan Somasekaran’s quintet, a faithful evocation of trumpeter Miles Davis’s lineups of the mid-60s, takes the album to conclusion with an original piece, Disciples Of Tone.
