Scott Tinkler
Backwards
(Extreme Records)
By John Clare
“Phil Slater and Scott Tinkler are the most important trumpet players in the world,” Paul Grabowsky told me recently. “They’re down here and nobody knows about them!” The tyranny of distance limits my ability to judge this “most important” stuff but I was not dismayed by the claim.
Slater has a superb new disc which we will review soon. Meanwhile Tinkler has succeeded astoundingly with the sort of project not heard since the heady days of free jazz: a disc almost entirely of solo trumpet. Many have said they would wait for the right mood before facing it. I put it on straight away, not in the mood and intending to sample a minute or so. I could not stop listening.
First there is astonishment at the resources of imagination and technique. Using a Harmon mute, pushed into the bell and frequently withdrawn part way, Tinkler creates an uncanny one-man duet. The partly open notes at first mewl and croon like an aroused cat. Soon the muted lines begin to race and into these the open notes are inserted so deftly and improbably that it is almost impossible to believe there are no overdubs. There are not. It is aural sleight of hand.
Read the full review on The Sydney Morning Herarld website.
Scott Tinkler
Backwards
(Extreme Records)
Rating: ****
By John McBeath
The new solo trumpet album by Scott Tinkler exemplifies the Melbourne label’s mission to release genre-defying experimental works that dip into a mixing and matching of various styles. While there are some additional sounds – bass drum, cymbal, strummed piano and a bucket of water – across eight totally improvised tracks, almost 50 minutes is devoted to solitary trumpet. Every imaginable intonation, and some unimaginable manifestations of trumpet tonal quality are expressed by Tinkler’s virtuosic technique. At one point he plays parts of a dismantled trumpet, and in Duet for Fingers & Bell End embarks on a twin track duet with himself, between open and muted trumpet. The music traverses a huge spectrum of moods from low down mysterious early dawn minimalist stirrings to impossibly fast phrases sometimes climbing to a high wild exuberance bordering on hysteria. The consideration given to spaces between notes and phrases, helps avoid what might have been a collection of complex trumpet exercises for a masterclass. Instead we have an astonishingly comprehensive, cutting edge exploration of ideas and sounds for contemporary virtuoso trumpet.
This review originally appeared in The Weekend Australian and is reprinted with permission from the author.
