Aaron Goldberg Trio
Sound Lounge, Sydney
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.
Read the full review on the SIMA website.
