Mike Nock Trio
The Sound Lounge, Sydney
June 23, 2006
How exactly to “wade into the waters?”, wondered the pianist at the Sound Lounge. After leading his trio through a pleasant but restrained rendition of Get Out Of Town, Nock confessed to the audience the difficulty of finding suitable “entry music”. But almost immediately his hurried encouragement (“yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever!”) nudged open-faced bassist Mike Majkowski and drummer James Waples into a spontaneous dark melange. The agenda was reconsidered. Majkowski’s fingers were scattershot over the fingerboard while Waples looked cramped in his corner of the tight triangle. The drummer kept his mouth pinched shut and his elbows close to his waist. The cymbals were heavily resonant under felt-covered mallets. Nock, whose brown eyebrows leap from his face, joined in when it became a funk–rock groove.
Nock has been leading trios in Sydney since 3-Out in the late ‘50s but Majkowski and Waples are both under twenty-five and recent graduates of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. It’s not the first time Nock has sought collaborators from the Con. He told the audience in his genial US–tainted Kiwi drawl that “this new band is taking me back in time. You don’t know what’s happening. You’re just out there.” That fixed the mode of working – the performance would have the freedom of a workshop. It was no bad thing.
The gig – well-structured with blues, bop and free improvisations – continued with a powerful reading of Bernie McGann’s world-weary Spirit Song. The new graduates were elastic and dynamic as they dragged the beautiful waltz through drifting moods. Nock’s solo paid passionate respect to McGann and his “anthem for the Australian jazz movement.”
A soulful blues piece with a neat lead melody showcased Majkowski on his burgundy-dark bass. Then Nock played a brilliant improvisation – a kind of blues cadenza – accompanied only by his wavering humming. The band resumed energetically after a 12-bar chorus of thunderous, widely-spaced chords.
“Play more! Play more!”, Nock encouraged Waples during a hardboiled bluesy tune whose descending bassline made the snare rattle. The most interesting composition of the second set evolved kaleidoscopically from the delicate to the mallet-moulting. To conclude, the trio played Sam Rivers’ Beatrice in honour of Rivers’ recently-deceased wife.
In September this youthful edition of the Mike Nock Trio will tour all the other capital cities as well as Cairns, Devonport, Townsville and Kiama. This tour is not to be missed.
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M.K. Asprey’s short fiction has appeared in Island and Total Cardboard. His website is www.mkasprey.cjb.net
