Review by Lloyd Bradford Syke – 505 is a congenial venue. And my happy excuse for being there, last Saturday evening, was the double single launch (not as much of a contradiction in terms as it first appears) of Mr Ott's first two recordings. Mr Ott being a new project steered by master, commander, composer and saxophonist and flautist, Matt Ottignon, of the prodigious Ottignon clan, which perhaps had its genesis with Granny-O, who toured internationally, playing harp and, presumably, second fiddle, for Liberace. And big Daddy-O (I'm presuming he has elongated stature, similar to his sons') played sax and flute with Manfred Mann.
Matt has another passion besides music. Travel. And Mr Ott fuses the two. Specifically, traditional Ethiopian music and jazz. Oops! Let's not say jazz. Apparently, Matt's not fond of using that word. He seems to subscribe to the old Leonard Bernstein maxim. You know. That there are only two types of music. No, not country and western. But good and bad. In the former category, sometimes, the good tends towards great. So it is with Mr Ott. I have to say, though, much as I know little about it, it seems to me traditional Ethiopian music and jazz have much in common. Well, yeah, ok, Ethiopian music tends to rely on a whole other set of scales and rhythms, but it does welcome improvisation which, surely, puts it right in the ballpark.
Mr Ott is really building on something for which the foundations have already been laid, by Mulatu Astatke, who's regarded as the father of Ethiopian jazz; Ethio-jazz; Ethiopi-jazz. It goes by a number of names. Essentially, it's a hybrid of traditional Ethiopian music and jazz and regarded as melancholy in flavour. Overwhelmingly, however, Mr Ott has subverted these characteristics, making it funky and upbeat. Ott, like Astatke, calls it Ethio Groove. Sounds good to me. Nay. Great.
But before talking about the sets, let's look at the players. Matt himself, of course, out front, musically directing, in the loosest sense, but clearly the convening presence nonetheless. Of course, a crucial part of the musical director's job is recruiting and, in this, Mr Ott couldn't have chosen better. At the back of s the stage, Ben Panucci smiles even less than the Mona Lisa. I don't think I detected so much as a curled lip. But man, does he play. His heritage might be Italian, but he has the deceptively benign look of a zapata. Appropriate, because he scorches on his electric guitar, which sounds like it's set to 'attack' mode. He's kind of like a jazz Hendrix, if you ask me, throwing off all the shackles of genre, to do his very own thing, wielding an axe like a branding-iron. He's not afraid of colouration, or raucousness, that's for sure. No wonder it's only taken him a half-dozen years to climb to the top of the jazz tree, playing with the likes of Bob Barnard, Bernie McGann, George Golla and Phil Slater.
Next to Panucci is another Ottignon. Eden, on electric bass. (He's interesting for reasons other than his very individual stylings, too. For example, by way of his band Sunchasers, he's a pioneer in solar-powered live shows, having built a portable rig that coverts solar energy into useable power for amplification. An environmental science degree no doubt comes in handy.) To play, or not to play? At least one of his solos was notable for his confidence in deploying pauses and punctuation: a too often forgotten component of music, surely, is 'negative space'.
Moving clockwise, there's Dan Kennedy on drums (there's a bit of a Kiwi mafia on stage, as I understand the Otts and Kennedy all hail from Aotearoa), providing jet propulsion. Like Eden Ott, he's a highly individual player, with a big, phat sound, though delicate at times, that's never overly busy; it's all in the service of the tunes. And he's so adept that unfamiliar time signatures and African feels faze him not a jot. Versatile is a word that springs to mind. As does sympathetic. Mike Nock and James Morrison seem to think so, 'cause he's performed with both those legends. Lately, he's been playing with Gerard Masters' Random Acts of Jazz, to boot.
Alongside is percussionist (principally, on bongos, congas and cajon) Steve Marin, founder of internationally touring Latin band Son Veneno, that's supported Aloe Blacc, Los Lobos, Sharon Jones and Ozomatli. Marin is in demand in his own right, too, regularly recruited by Damien Leith, among others. You don't have to look far to find him behind a kit, or rattling, shaking and beating some other form of primal instrument. He's disciplined and, like Kennedy and the others, has the discernment not to overplay, yet will fill the narrowest of openings with a challenging cross-rhythm. He was a guest, sitting in for the launch.
Ellen Kirkwood rates on the prodigy scale as highly as the many and various Otts. If you were blindfolded, you'd be oblivious to her youth, because she's a much more seasoned trumpeter than she has any right to be. She's also a composer and bandleader. Only last year she won the 2012 Jann Rutherford Memorial Award, implemented to foster professional development of an outstanding, young, female Australian jazz musician. She's been busy. Captain Kirkwood. Sirens Big Band. The Bakery. And more. She trades breaks with MO as if they're identical twins, with an intrinsic rapport.
Keyboardist Daniel Pliner's official bio sums him up as follows. DP 'performs, tours and records with bands such as The Asthmatix, Dereb the Ambassador, Darth Vegas, the Strides, Slimey Things, Zohar’s Nigun and more. He has also worked with Afro-Cuban legends such as Felix Baloy and Ordequis Reve. He spends much of his life out doing gigs or locked up at home with his Mac working on production. Either way, he doesn't sleep till sunrise.' His sleep deprivation, however, isn't betrayed in his playing. His skills on piano, clarinet and organ are equal to each other in having few equals.
Peter Farrar was guesting, on C melody sax (that's a step up, literally, from tenor). Not only is his playing thrilling, innovative and virtuosic, such as to align him comfortably with the abilities of his co-workers, he has the added advantage of having played quite extensively with Dereb Desalegn, so is already au fait with Ethiopian music. For several years, Peter was instrumental (excuse the pun) in bringing us The NOW Now, which is, at once, an organisation for experimental and improvised music, an annual festival and concert series. He He performs with the masked band Prophets and works in hip hop production, too. Perhaps that's how Mr Ott came to have Miguel and Fenix as guest dancers. They may not have been (or aren't yet) the world's best hip hoppers, but they're good-natured enthusiasm was contagious.
But they weren't the only dancers.
Eden Dessalegn is a human dynamo. She (and her colleague, Bubsy) seems to have as many things that shake, rattle and roll as Kennedy and Marin put together. The Ehtiopians have a word for it: eskeusta. As the phonetics suggest, a rough translation would be ecstasy, but even that hardly does it justice. Suffice to say, it's a quiver that begins at the shoulders, rippling down the spine through the legs and feet. Whether you're feeling or merely seeing it, it's something to behold. With sunbeam smile she beckons audience members to dance and has what looks like half the capacity crowd up in no time. She might've been raised here, but she was born in Ethiopia, so only but adds to the authenticity, even if her style embraces hip hop, dancehall, salsa, samba & afro. She probably danced her way out of her mother's womb (it's been almost that long since she started). She has her very own, all-girl African dance troupe, Saea Banyana, which released a video last year and, 1.5million views later, it's still going strong. No wonder Baz Luhrmann featured her in The Great Gatsby.
Before the band got underway, it's well worth mentioning the contributions of Marko (Mark Ottignon), who you might well know, if in the know, as instigator of the Massive Reggae dances of the mid-80s, which started in the UK. He went on to found Sydney reggae crew Firehouse. He certainly spun some grooves which put us right in the mood for Mr Ott. I'd like to get my hands on his playlist for my regular listening pleasure.
From the very first bars, Tesfa Maryam Kidane's Heywete, a ballad, proves emblematic of the indefectible fusion between east African musical sensibilities and jazz. It affords Matt O a sublime opportunity to show off the timbre of his playing, since it opens with a sorrowful solo part. With subtlest backing from the rhythm section, it's a tune that communicates pain, loss and recognition. It breaks out, albeit gently, into some sharp, staccato, bluesy phrasing by Panucci and I was particularly moved by Eden O's throbbing, insistent, quietly wicked bassline. At the same time, it sports a dead cool groove; the kind the wouldn't be at all out of place in, say, a Tarantino film. But this is no lounge music, it's too rootsy and real for that. Mellow, sure. But soul food, too. Tenor player Kidane was one of the very first Ethiopian (though, strictly speaking, he's Eritrean) musicians to go to the US and he still lives and plays there (around Washington, DC). Mr Ott does this overlooked masterpiece profound justice, enshrining it as a rediscovered classic by way of superlative rendition.
Getatchew Mekuria is another Ethiopian tenor saxophonist, now 76. His Akale Wube took things up several gears. Perhaps the best clue to the sound is that Mekuria is inspired by warrior music. In practice, the sax parts sound for all the world like the freest of free jazz, yet Mekuria insists he's never heard any. Whatever. It gives Mr Ott's front line plenty of space to furiously improvise: it was as if all the oxygen in the room was burned up. It's certainly a heroic piece for sax players and a hypnotic one for the rest of us. One can well imagine being whipped into militaristic frenzy; or any other kind, given the right circumstances. It's drug-like. Steroidal.
Hot on the heels of Akale Wube came Eywat Setenafegagn, another Mekuria tune. This one is distinguished by a loping rhythm, beat out primally on bass-drum, switched-off snare and toms. Though of quite a different ilk, like Akale Wube, it's mesmeric, with a repeated riff. The guitar part puts me in mind of Dick Dale or The Shadows, while sax permeates every bar, sounding like a jungle animal, or tortured soul crying out for release. Heady. Sorry Matt, but this is jazz. At its best. Imagine someone really out there, like Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and you're getting a glimpse of the picture.
Then came the first of the brand spanking new singles: an original by MO, in Take It Higher. It has that African rhythm, to be sure, but it's in a straighter, catchier format, more familiar to western ears and feet; so you don't have to be able to shake it down like Eden to get physical. And you'll be hard-pressed not to hit the floor. Resistance is practically useless. There are lapping waves of wah-wah, 'organic' flourishes, a crisp unison between baritone, C melody and trumpet, an elemental percussive pulse, prancing bass pattern and, above all, a pervasive, nostalgic sense that life is good. It's a vital, infectious sound that's bound to get toes tapping and dissipate negative energy. It's under five minutes in duration, but if played for twenty or more, I doubt anyone would complain.
Kulun is a very sophisticated Mulatu Astatke number. I love the bass motif, which leans the whole tune forward and pushes it along. It allows Marin to interject with Latin dynamics, a piano solo that sounds very Semitic in flavour, a pitter-patter of finger-controlled taps on snare and cymbals and the ascension of the horns into a full-blown, yet sweet crescendo. This tune could charm a snake. Cool as a duke.
If I remember correctly, Shalimar The Clown (another Matthew Ottignon composition) was the one that sounded like the bent style of Tom Waits, with its wildly wavering tempo and gruff aural fabric. Named, I understand, after a Salman Rushdie book about a Kashmiri tightrope walker, you'd expect it to be idiosyncratic, I s'pose.
Chik Chikka is another Astatke tune from the polytropic (he plays piano, organs, vibraphone and other percussion) parent of Ethio-jazz, a genetically-modified music that embraces pop, modern jazz, traditional Ethiopian music, Latin rhythms, Caribbean reggae and Afro-funk. The rhythm section builds a subtle, yet dense percussive backdrop, over which the horns lay down another of the entrancing riffs that seem to characterise the form.
Samuel Yirga is a much younger Ethiopian pianist. Just 26. The astonishing far being he didn't even touch a piano till he was 16. Despite this, he's already cited as being in the league of Keith Jarrett and Herbie Hancock. Besides jazz, it's reasonable to say he's influenced by classics, too. Mr Ott plays what was originally recorded as a solo piano piece as a duet: Yeh Bati refers to a town in northern Ethiopia, but is also the name of the scale. Though based on an old melody, Yirga has subverted the time signatures, making it well-suited to the improvisational skills and range of Pliner and Matt O.
After a quintessentially African piece by Eritrean, Bereket Mengistab, Mr Ott played a few originals, including Gonder (after the hometown of Dereb Desalegn, with whom Matt O's performed for years now), Octopussy (with an interesting anecdote attached), and the much awaited other half of the double single launch, in Mattaraja. This is based, essentially, on a filthy, deep house groove that teeters on reggae. It's a blast, from start to finish. There's a stinging, almost psychedelic solo from Panucci; cross-rhythmic cajon fills; not to mention a world-beating baritone break in which Matt O argues himself into equality with the likes of Harry Carney, or Gerry Mulligan, in tonal dexterity. Oh my gouache, what a colourist!
There was something from Mahmoud Ahmed (Ye Woyen, I think), which exemplifies the man's status as a primary exponent of melding traditional Amharic music, with it's quintessential five-note scale and circular rhythms, with pop and jazz, creating something entirely distinctive. There's probably noone better able to invoke eskeusta than Ahmed and Mr Ott seems to lose none of his potency in their execution. The horns sensationally emulate Ahmed's famous multi-octave vocal capability.
Ellen Kirkwood has already proven quite a gifted and prolific composer on behalf of her own projects and, if Shererit is anything to go by, shows promise in the Mr Ott frame as well. It'd be interesting to hear what an Ottignon-Kirkwood collaboration might sound like.
Here endeth the second set, but not without two very much demanded, as opposed to merely obligatory, encores: Astatke's Yekatit, for one; exceptionally appropriate, as it's a very fitting companion piece to MO's Mattaraja. If you're a Jim Jarmusch fan, you might recognise this one from his 2005 film, Broken Flowers, featuring Bill Murray and Julie Delpy. It's Astake that's credited with introducing Latin rhythms to Ethiopian music, by dint of his interpolation of bongos and congas. This suits Mr Ott very well. In a way, Mr Ott's originals have taken Astatke's signature sound as a template on which the band has built, leaning just a little more heavily, perhaps, towards a funk element.
The parting gesture was Wallias Band's Muziqawi Silt, a tune very much in the same stylistic vicinity which afforded Pliner some play room.
That an Australian band comprised of hot, young jazz (sorry, Matt) players should delve so deeply, authentically, respectfully and inventively into this exotic music is courageous and laudable. Then again, it's so infectious, it's not like it's hard to sell. Let's hope they sell some singles, so they can keep this train on the tracks.
