Pianist and composer Alister Spence has been a prominent figure on the Australian music scene for nearly two decades. He leads his own highly acclaimed trio, featuring Lloyd Swanton and Toby Hall, is a member of Wanderlust and the Australian Art Orchestra, and contributed to the success of Clarion Fracture Zone.
Alister recently returned from India with members of the AAO where the ensemble continued a collaboration with musicians from the Carnatic music tradition. He spoke to Jazz Australia about the experience and his trio’s 2006 tour of the UK and Canada.
Jazz Australia: What was the context of the Indian tour?
Alister Spence: This was the Orchestra’s second trip to India. On this occasion, only seven members of the AAO went plus a sound person. We performed with four musicians from southern India – two percussionists, a flautist and a gottuvadhyam player. It’s like a fretless sitar.
We played a cross-section of material – some of their music and some of ours – so most of us contributed one or two pieces to the mix. We had to be mindful that Guru Kaaraikkudi Mani’s drum was in the key of D, so I had to transpose one of my pieces down a semitone.
The tour started in Hyderabad, where Mani’s cousin, who is a well-known dancer, joined us. We then went to the Mumbai Festival, which is an arts festival and played a fantastic concert during the evening at the Gateway of India, which is a big stone arch that sits at the water. From there we went to Calcutta and played twice, including a concert for the Calcutta Book Fair. This year Australia is the host country, so there was a connection there with the Australian Government. We finished the tour with a concert for the Alliance Francaise in Bangalore.
The two-and-a-half weeks we were there allowed us to immerse ourselves more deeply in Indian music and the Southern Indian way of thinking, which is the Carnatic music tradition.
JA: What are the challenges of playing music from the southern Indian tradition?
AS: It’s very technical and very strongly rhythmically based, and often based on musical episodes that sound different to the underlying pulse. So you might be playing groups of fives or groups of sevens over an underlying beat of six or something like that. It took a bit of time, for me at least, to keep focused on both these things.
Trombonist Adrian Sherriff was our musical director for the tour. He was absolutely crucial to the success of our musical integration as he knows Indian and Western music fluently and was often our go-between.
JA: How were you received?
AS: Fantastically. The word fusion is used a lot in India. They thought of what were doing as fusion music and there are a lot of Western musicians trying to connect with Indian musicians. The people who spoke to us said that this was one of the most successful fusion events. I took that to mean that we had studied each other’s music a bit more deeply than last time. We weren’t just adding on a Mridangam player or they weren’t just adding on a piano. We were getting into each other’s music and elaborating on that.
JA: So there was an equality in the collaboration?
AS: There’s a lot of musical pastiche these days in this era of sampling where there is a tendency to use the sound of an instrument if it sounds exotic.
JA: What are the things you enjoy most about performing with the AAO?
AS: I have to say there have been times when I haven’t enjoyed it just because it is such a big group and sometimes you feel a little bit like you’re just bit playing. That’s fair enough – that’s what an orchestra is and sometimes you just have to expect that you’re going to do a little bit of something or other. But just being surrounded by the calibre of musicians in the group and the breadth of experiences the different musicians have is very inspiring. There will always be something that will make you go, “Wow – that’s fantastic!”
Also, the AAO casts a fairly wide net artistically. In March we go to New Zealand. Part of the trip is to work with Richard Nunns, who plays indigenous instruments. Very quiet and very minimal. I’m working with Phil Slater and a few other people on an interactive computer-meets-prepared-piano-meets-prepared–trumpet-meets-Richard-Nunns project, which will be wonderful.
JA: You released a trio album, Mercury, last year. Were you happy with the way that turned out?
AS: I am happy with it. To be honest, last year was a big year for me so by the time I got to the end of it and the CD was out I was like, “Phew! That’s all over”. A lot of thought and planning had to go into making the tour happen and to make sure that when we finished that we could then record as well – that the studio was there, the songs were ready and we were all ready to play them. But, yes, I’m very pleased with the result. We did a few different things. Engineer Ross A’Hearn has upgraded his recording medium to another medium called Piramix and it seems to deliver a very warm sound and we brought that system into Electric Avenue recording studio. The studio choice was different for me because the Sony studio was no longer available.
We had played the tunes a lot on the tour so we were pretty familiar with what worked and what didn’t, and what direction we might take things. I guess we had our interactive chops happening.
JA: Is it always advantageous to have played the material a lot before you record?
AS: Yes and that’s why I wanted to do this one at that time so there was some experience behind the tunes. My music can be quite difficult to play in the sense that it might have some odd time bars or an unusual sense of harmony or it might rely on something else conceptually like trying to build up textures over simple harmonic things. There is a wide range of things expected of the players so I don’t think it’s easy to just step up to it necessarily.
**JA: Despite the fact that you had been playing the material on the road were there any surprises that came out of the recording? Did you listen back and think some things were unexpected?
AS: Definitely. Some things you thought were going to be absolute killers didn’t quite work out that way and some tunes just rolled out and you think, “that’s great – let’s not do any more with that”. It’s always confronting to do a recording and you have to face up to it – it is what it is.
JA: Is there a sense of trepidation when you release an album?
AS: I think everyone is different but for me, yes. I wonder what people will think about it. It’s good to think of it as a document of a particular period. You can then move on to something else.
**JA: The recording came after an extensive tour that took in the UK and Canada. Can you give us an overview of where you played?
AS: Firstly, a bit of background. We were thinking of going in 2005 but didn’t end up with enough work. Thankfully, we had some offers that we could extend into another funding application. We received word quite early that we had been successful in our application, which meant that it gave me the chance to build the tour.
Initially, the idea was to play clubs and festivals in the UK and Europe but we would have been in Europe in the summer and that meant World Cup time. We were offered one gig in Munich on the night when Brazil was to play Australia – in Munich. So I’m not sure that would have been very successful.
JA: So where did you end up playing?
AS: In the UK we had two arts festivals – one in Salisbury and one in Chelsea in London. The latter was a support for [British saxophonist] Courtney Pine and that came in very late. But it was absolutely brilliant because it meant we had a ready-made jazz audience – that wouldn’t have known us from a bar of soap of course because we were first-timers in the UK – but they got to hear us and seemed to like us.
We also went up to Scotland to some clubs and to do a workshop with the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra. Some of the contacts I had from Clarion Fracture Zone days. Then off to Canada where we played in seven different centres and in each place we did a gig for as part of an international jazz festival circuit.
We started off in the middle – in the prairies – in a place called Medicine Hat. Lloyd’s partner Nina is from that part of the world and people seemed to enjoy the fact that we had a connection.
So here we were in Medicine Hat – a tiny little town – and you’ve got Bobby Hutchison coming through to play. It was great. And then on to Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Vancouver Island, then Vancouver and we finished off in Montreal.
JA: Did this festival circuit attract a large international contingent?
AS: Yes, very big. Even in the small towns they had internationals coming through but in the big towns it was like the who’s who. I managed to see The Bad Plus play in Montreal, which was fantastic, but there were all sorts of people coming through there.
In Montreal, we played an outdoor stage at a good time of the day and had about 5,000 people listening to us, which was absolutely brilliant and they seemed to like it, too, which was good.
JA: What’s it like playing in front of so many people? It’s more like a rock gig than a jazz concert.
AS: It was certainly like that, yes. And it was the last gig and we had our performing chops up by then and we were pretty comfortable with our set and were able to deliver it well. The audience was glued to the stage and we were having ball. We have played together a lot and trust each other musically, so I think people picked up on that straight away.
**JA: You mentioned the Bad Plus. What made them stand out?
AS: They were distinctive and unique and had set about creating something for themselves and I found that pretty exciting.
JA: What are the challenges of organizing a tour of that scale?
AS: In many ways it’s like organizing a holiday for yourself – finding accommodation, finding cars – except times 1000 because it’s hard work finding vacancies at venues! Then there’s the PR thing – making sure that you have a good list of media people to contact before you go, and getting used to the idea of sending stuff out there regardless of the cost. It sounds like an exorbitant thing to do but there’s no way you’re going to make any connection with people unless you send them CDs to listen to.
In that regard, I think The Necks have been role models. They are constantly trying to connect their music with people. That hard work is quite inspiring.
JA: You have worked with Toby and Lloyd for many years. One assumes there are advantages to this sort of musical intimacy. What has your experience been?
AS: There is an unspoken thing that someone will think of something to do if the rest of us can’t. You can stop playing and know that the music will continue and I think that is fantastic. We’ve been together since Clarion Fracture Zone days – Lloyd was the first bass player in the band and Toby came along in the early 90s and Lloyd came back at that time. In the mid-90s we started doing the odd trio gig together.
Some people think about this issue differently and are always trying to change the structure of the band to see what new people might bring in. But with my trio it’s more a case of trying to think up new things, pushing each other in different ways and into new areas. The trust that builds up really does enable some good things to happen.
JA: What is it about the piano trio format that still attracts you?
AS: I think I came to it quite late. I was in Clarion Fracture Zone through the 80s and 90s and it’s almost as though I have been discovering the potential of the piano trio since putting out my first CD in 2000. I’ve had fun and have been thinking about ways to augment or extend it, hence the use of the glockenspiel and some use of samples. But everything I use in the sampling context has been of recordings that I have made of drums, bass, piano and glockenspiel to try to introduce an abstracted version of ourselves, to shade and colour and offer other points of view.
JA: What are your plans for 2007 and beyond?
AS: It’s pretty busy for me at the moment. I’m musical directing with Paul Capsis. Paul has another CD in the pipeline so I’m helping him write songs for that and there’s some touring. There’s also the Art Orchestra tour I mentioned earlier.
I’m looking forward to writing some more music. I got a lot of ideas on the tour last year so I have been thinking about how I might develop them for the trio. I’m looking forward to doing that and seeing if I can match what my thoughts were. And do some more practice. It’s been a while.
Time to get back to the piano.
Find out more about Alister and his work on his website
