Memory Of A Tranquil Age

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday July 16, 1990

GAIL BRENNAN

IN YOUTH it was very pleasant to sit in a cafe and inspect the assembled pseuds, and it was humbling and good for the soul to realise that, as far as the weirdo in the corner was concerned, you were part of the assembly, just as was he from your viewpoint. Profound meditations like these need to be accompanied, not by cloying songs about relationships, whatever they are, but by Peter Dasent's Umbrellas.

This pure cafe music deals in pleasantries of the boulevard, whimsy, and gentle, untroubling nostalgia. Somehow, Mark Simmonds's tenor solos rise, tremendous as a python, from this context, without spoiling it all. May Peter Dasent prosper.

Ah, Roo Art, what gives? Adrian Mears's Free Spirits went into the studio after having played only a handful of jobs. Too soon. Saved however, by sheer energy and the solos of the leader and saxophonist Jason Morphett.

Now's The Time sounds like a band who have lost their inspiration while waiting for the technicians to finish messing about, despite some good moments from Warwick Alder and Bob Gebert.

Tom Baker's band, with the mighty rhythm team of Lyn Wallace and Don Heap, delivers an unstoppable, albeit very old-fashioned, bounce. Carl Orr's band sounds like very thin fusion.

Monica comes over surprisingly well on record, although the band would swing more if she sang on the beat. Michael Bukovsky's lyrical flugel horn solo, on her first track, is the highlight of the CD.

Look, it's not bad, but how it pales before the surging confidence, finesse and shouting vitality of Dale Barlow, Mike Nock, James Greening, Lloyd Swanton, Peter O'Mara, Allan Turnbull and Jose Marquez on the CD Horn.

Barlow, with his certified black New York tenor sound, is one of the most convincingly American players we have produced. Others have taken different directions that are equally valid.

While the master musicians listed have lent their skills wholeheartedly to Barlow's concept, they have produced a CD that is absolutely distinctive as well as rather startlingly impressive.

Clarion Fracture Zone has reined in some of the freedom and energy of their live performances to produce an atmospheric and sometimes piercingly beautiful album (don't know what happened during the mastering of the CD, but it has nothing like the presence of the LP).

This blending of acoustic and electronically sampled sounds, of pure melody and squalls of dissonance, of drive and danceability and calming, crooning lilts, of sombre sound pools and vivid splashes, etc, etc, is what jazz ought to be doing in 1990.

You will find some tracks instantly accessible. The others will soon grow on you. Alister Spence's La Mar Esta Enferma ("The Sea Is Ill") is a remarkably complete composition in a form that often relies heavily on improvisation to fill in the details, and Steve Elphick's arcetto bass solo is a real extension of the melodic material. Fantastique | (sometimes English is not enough, as I was saying in a cafe the other day).

With all respect, Mark Isaacs has risen well above his current capabilities in the company of Roy Haines and Dave Holland.

This is a series of freely improvised encounters - a first meeting taken to the extreme of having separate sound checks before they began playing together. Each moves calmly to a natural flowering - which might take the form of a dazzle of agitation or a passage of practically motionless serenity - and resolves perfectly. Play one track, you'll play them all.

In case you don't know, Haines has played just about every kind of drumming, from hurtling bop with Charlie Parker to subtle intricacies with Gary Burton.

His unobtrusive contribution here is inestimable. To single out one instance: last track, side one, he maintains a tight, soft, march-like feel until just near the end when his explosive release sends the trio into a breathtaking spin, whose resolution is a natural ending to that "composition"

Holland holds his formidable bass technique in check, but the majestic breadth of his tone rides beside Isaacs or rises from beneath to give him, obviously, the inspiration to produce the most poised, lyrical and inventive piano improvisations of his career thus far.