Eric Pozza
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Canberra Jazz
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Articles by Eric Pozza
Canberra Jazz blog
I'm always on the lookout for musical events wherever I venture to, and this was a doozy. I've heard historically aware concerts with various techniques and instruments but this spanned a millennium of European music, with a string of firsts highlighted and a cupboard full of instruments, including some I'd never heard of.
Canberra Jazz blog
It's a massive weekend of jazz in Canberra but I'm off in Adelaide for family matters, but Quentin Angus and MSFS was on tour and performing at Adelaide Universityjust the day before their Canberra gig. Great. In a hall, ~150 in attendance with plenty of seats to move around. First up, first row to see details; later, seats near the mixer to hear the PA more. An it was a fascinating outing.
Canberra Jazz blog
I've had to explain SCUNA to a few people over recent days and maybe the abbreviation ANUSOM is much the same, but I haven't done it. [BTW, another difference: SCUNA is an acronym; ANUSOM is an initialism). Anyway, this was the annual fund raiser concert for the ANSOM (ANU School of Music) jazz school with the jazz orchestra led by Con Campbell and a small ensemble led by James Luke and the whole introduced by Greg Stott.
Canberra Jazz blog
I think it was Hampton Court Palace where Henry VIII strolled in while we were in the room. But then it was not the real Henry VIII and the room didn't lend itself to intimate music anyway, like that was played in chamber. I think of such things when I hear harpsichord and a solo instrument, or here, voice. Ariana was playing with alto Teresa, starting with Couperin on solo harpsichord then Cesu and Vivaldi, again solo harpsichord by Zipoli then Giacomelli, Conti and Handel to finish.
Canberra Jazz blog
It was another opportunity to play some great music with a choir and I loved it as always. These choir spots are short on rehearsals, perhaps one for the musicians then a get-together with the choir and the performance, usually with a good run of a capella singing. And how I love choirs, given my contention that the voice is the most intimate and emotive of human musical sounds. But in addition, this was SCUNA with the University lark of their title, SCUNA.
Canberra Jazz blog
It can be quite intriguing watching young players as they develop over the years. Thus it is with Charles Huang. This concert featured Schubert impromptu Abmaj, two Chopin Etudes, op.25 no.3 and no.5, the longer and more developed 3 and the unexpectedly short 5, and Beethoven Sonata no.3 Cmin, early, in four movements and dedicated to Haydn, and lengthy, lasting ~25mins. The Schubert impromptu and Beethoven were easily recognised but the two Chopin etudes less so, at least to me.
Travels and memories
I associate saxes with jazz rather than classical, but I was taken by the Andromeda Sax Quartet that played at Wesley. I was recording and I had recorded them before and the theme of the concert, Mass transit, seemed pretty pedestrian (well, not on foot, but you get the idea) but it was anything but.
Canberra Jazz blog
I record Wednesday lunchtime concerts at Wesley and I often hear upcoming pianists, experienced with great teachers and Eisteddfod and the likes and it's a pleasure. This day was Shreyas Sunkaraneni who I had seen before but not as a solo concert performer. He was seriously impressive, capable, memorised, authentic and emotive, playing Haydn, Chopin, Brahms and interestingly and more diversely, Debussy.
Canberra Jazz blog
There was a second choral concert at Wesley and I stayed on to record that one too. This was The Australian Voices, a very professional and young outfit singing original Australian compositions with very much creativity and originality. I wrote of CCS earlier as the Sound of voice, as the voice as the most human of instruments. I'm not sure I agree after this concert, hearing voices sounding as cockatoo shrills, Aboriginal motifs, wind and water and birdlife.
The sound of voice
I've come to love the sound of the voice, the most human of instruments. I've also come to love a choral concert, so our annual outing of National Capital Orchestra and Canberra Choral Society is a highlight of my musical year. We have done some amazing pieces in that format with 150 or even 180 people on stage at Llewellyn, singing Beethoven or Brahms, a mass or other. It is something powerful and invasive.
Leading from the bottom
I walked in on Ben's Sextet playing some of the most authentic sounding Miles hard bop that I'd heard, given great playing but also the right format, a front line of tenor, alto, bari saxes and a rhythm section of piano, bass and drums. It was Molly on a Friday night and the scene was good and standing room only. I greeted Wayne and Con and Chris and we stood listening. Then Bolivia, another stock and stunner.
Canberra Jazz blog
We didn't do too well finding local jazz, the venues mostly appearing to be bars and maybe with recorded music. There was a Blue Note in Shanghai and some other locals of interest, House of Blues and Jazz, Heyday, Fairmont Peace Hotel with its old-time swingers, and perhaps a few other interesting spots, but by this time we were pretty worn out. These were last days our crew was not up to the adventure.
Canberra Jazz blog
The four cities had specific tourist sites supplemented by pagodas, temples, palaces, restaurants. Beijing featured Tien'anmen Square, Forbidden Palace, Mutianyu Great Wall, Temple of Heaven, Birds nest, old Hutong alleys and a Chinese Opera and another historical performance dedicated to a revered female emperor, Wei Zetian (Second Zhou Dynasty, ~690 CE). Zi'an was the first capital of CHina featuring the Summer Palace and Terracotta Warriors (~210 BCE) which were only discovered in 1974.
Canberra Jazz blog
Our group was originally 16, meeting up in Beijing, going on to Zi'an by fast train (300kph). We split up after Zi'an, leaving 7 to fly (5 hours) to Zhangjiajie then Shanghai by plane (2 hours) and out. The formal component was only 11 days and physically and nutritionally demanding, meaning plenty of big meals and plenty of buses to carry us around more locally. It was great fun running into mother and daughter Sonia and Mailee (NZ) in Shanghai after losing them earlier.
Canberra Jazz blog
It was just a quick trip to China. China, huge as it is with a history going back thousands of years? Yep. A cousin of Megan's was going and we joined in. It was easy, being a guided tour, but a set of 12-hour days and regular 15,000 steps and one 999 step cultural outing thrown in. Four cities, some very significant historical or natural sights and some great guides to inform us. Saves on reading too much. Upmarket hotels, too: considerably more than my normal selections.
Canberra Jazz blog
Tuesday night, Smiths jam. Megan's busy and less classical so I've got to a few jams recently. And enjoyed them immensely. Tonight was Greg Stott with Chris Pound and Gus Henderson for a very lovely host band. Playing several tunes by the greatest composer of the C20th, suggested Greg, only partly in jest.
Canberra Jazz blog
Shortis and Simpson often appear with offsiders and this was one and it was apt, given the theme was 1966 and all that, about that key year in popular music when The Beatles released Rubber Soul and Revolver and the offsider was a member of The Seekers, the Australian folk outfit who had kept the fab four and The Monkeys at bay with hits in the US and Britain and Australia.
Canberra Jazz blog
We discovered the ACT HUB with another play just weeks before, Five lesbians eating a quiche. The ACT HUB is located in that century-old community hall in the Causeway, next to the Kingston Railway station and home of at least one very big kangaroo we saw hopping by as we left, and it hosts a string of local theatrical presentations, seeming to be amusing and worthy and cluey. This one was I love you, you're perfect, now change. Again a funny title and a significant off-Broadway history of success.
Canberra Jazz blog
I'll put a spot here for Tilt Alt. gig at Molly just because I really enjoyed it. A Thursday night, shorter but later, 9.30pm start. The room wasn't too busy but it was responsive and I enjoyed the playing immensely. The mystery of playing continues.
Thursday on Wednesday
It's a different gig when Ben Hoadley plays with Ariana Odermatt, not for the music itself or the competence (both are mightily worthy) but for the tones. Ben plays bassoon and that satisfyingly fat deep tone that merges into more reedy in the higher reaches is so satisfying and his playing is wonderful, fast, always neatly timed.
Canberra Jazz blog
Maruki always aims for a challenge and this concert was no different. Strangely, we started with a symphony, then ended with smaller works, smaller but still with their challenges. Suffice to say, Tchaikovsky symphony no.4 is no lightweight outing. Mvt.1 is all odd counts and offbeats and rapid unexpected phrases; mvt.2 is comfy, then a fast mvt.3 played all pizz is strange but attractive and inviting; mvt.4 is rabidly rapid from the very top.
Canberra Jazz blog
Many jazz players tend to post-bop and instrumentals but I have huge respect for lyrics and love a singer. Tilly Street is a walk back to the glorious history of women singers in jazz, to the love songs, the '30/'40s musicals, the '50s/'60s which she spoke of as Beatnicky (nice!).
Canberra Jazz blog
I reckon hard bop is the fave, the high peak, of any jamming jazz instrumentalist. I dropped in on Molly after the Cowboy Shakespeare and that's exactly what we got. This was like a jam session but at the highest level. Tunes I recognize but can't always name (lyrics help to remember song titles) but Salt peanuts (again, Dizzy's "Salt peanuts" refrain is exactly why I remember this tune), Caravan, Whisper not, Watermelon man and the like.
Canberra Jazz blog
This was fun. A session recording at ANUSOM that ended up in the recording studio, although I wasn't on the massive Neve desk. But a decent Yamaha piano and comfy space and Rhodes and more gear to inspire in the background, even if not in use. We were there to revisit a track by Jessica on trom with accompaniment from Hilda. It sounded different here, and it was different, recording in a studio instead of for listening ears. It's a different world from a a live recording, both more and less tense.
Canberra Jazz blog
Piano teacher Elena Nikulina returned to Wesley with 3 current students and they were mightily impressive and this was not unexpected. It's a daunting task to learn these tunes by memory given demands of Handel, Brahms and Bach but they did it with panache while all still at school. The performers were Amber Ye, Kaylem Kua and Rosy Zhu. Each played two tunes, Handel and Chaminade, Brahms and Sabin, JS Bach and Glinka.
Pleasures and confusions
A day of both pleasure and confusions but it all worked out well in the end. I planned to record Apeiron Baroque and expected a 3pm start but that was the start time for AB's children's concert. It interested me and I enjoyed it immensely, if not really quite so closely involved.
Canberra Jazz blog
The National Gallery appears to own all the Arthur Boyd tapestries in his series on St Francis and they are all on display together for the first time. There are 20 huge tapestries taken from "source images" 20x smaller and often enough monochrome, so the experience of the tapestries is something far beyond. They are supremely beautiful, detailed, each tapestry containing 4-8.5 million stitches, created by women working in shifts for years.
Canberra Jazz blog
This was the Canberra Men's Choir in its 40th anniversary year singing in Wesley and slightly amusingly directed by a woman. But so what. The voices are what we come to hear, this close harmony from male voices, TTBB (Tenor 1, Tenor 2, Baritone, Bass) so also pretty close and rich even if for one tune they took 5 tenors to sing countertenor, high voices, female like, but not enough in this context to stand out too much. There were lots of other low voices around.
Canberra Jazz blog
I got to another Smiths jazz jam and the host band was playing a cute tune/song in Cantonese called Eyes on me from the computer game Final Fantasy VIII. Suffice to say I didn't know it but there were sounds of recognition through the room. Then a renowned pop hit Sukiyaki, originally by Kyu Sakamoto, with and introduction about the lyricist's sadness after the 1960 ANPO Treaty that allowed the location of US nuclear weapons in Japan despite the US nuclear bombing of Japan in 1945.
Canberra Jazz blog
This was a fascinating choral outing, perhaps limited in theme and definitely in lyrics but consistent and varied in style and periods. This was a concert by the Llewellyn Choir under Rowan Harvey-Martin with accompaniment from Anthony Smith and the content was 9 versions of Dona Nobis Pacem (= Give us peace), that hymn sung in Catholic churches, sourced from an earlier Da Pacem Domine taken from various Biblical quotes and finally introduced into the Mass in 687CE.
Canberra Jazz blog
There was something very Japanese about Mitsuru Tabata and Shoji Hano performed at Smiths, single minded, committed, excellent, but also connected in joy. It's not an image we think of but it's what I saw well enough in Japan when there for a few weeks. Very busy so that's a first image, distant, private, but not that way really. I chatted with Mitsuru and he was friendly, welcoming, perhaps given a pic of a Tokyo club with free improv. So what of it?
Canberra Jazz blog
I heard only hours later on BBC World Service a passing comment that there are more punk bands and the like now than in the '70s/'80s when it all happened and also that those old punks are still pogoing. It was something like that for band and audience when Fowl Weather Vein played at Smiths for a very mixed-aged audience who enjoyed all this immensely. Their spiel talks of post-punk, post-blues, post-whatever and sea shanties and spaghetti westerns.
Canberra Jazz blog
We don't hear music like this too often, meaning authentic performers from Sicily or otherwise, but we did this night, upstairs, in the bar, at Smiths. It was a small gathering, Fabio and Barbara were travelling and performing in various cities, with daughter Adele who sat in for the final song. And they performed quite a mix, what with Fabio on classical guitar playing solo music of Spain and more and Barbara joining in for a string of songs from Naples (Napoli) and Sicily (Sicilia) and more too.
Canberra Jazz blog
Miro returned for Geoff at Smiths and we got what we love, his tuneful glorious tunes, his fabulous players, his good understated good cheer and this time there were extras. Firstly up a second set with a dedication to Miles to celebrate the anniversary of Miles' birthday (26 May 1926) playing All blues and Blue in green and Footprints, presumably celebrating Wayne Shorter and Miles' second great quintet, and another I missed.
Canberra Jazz blog
We heard a few CSO Kingsland Fellows before but not a feast of them as in this concert: flute, violin, trombone, accompanied by piano. It is a good thing to see our local symphony orchestra offering this positions, it being an opportunity to develop and test yourself, I guess, amongst the pros (or part-time pros here in our modestly funded Canberra SO. The theme was Ladies and gentlemen of French romanticism and the program cover was the flag-carrying Liberty leading the people.
Canberra Jazz blog
I got to the latest Smiths jam and it was a string of varied players of various levels but as always a love of the art. Many were local I'd seen at this session, but there were also new people with various instruments, not least singers. This incarnation was led with inspiring bass playing and inviting stage management by Ben O'Loghlin. Several names I've mentioned before at these jams, not least Mic, Oliver, Mark, Simon H, Jeremy.
Ancients don't go cheap
I'd been to some live or recorded presentations to ABC radio and they were interesting but essentially just a chance to see what you hear on radio, although there were live questions. This was a chat for a podcast, perhaps a video podcast, and the first of this group's (HistoryHit) first international tour. This was the podcast The Ancients, hosted as An evening with Tristan Hughes as the Canberra Theatre. It was two hours with an interval ~20 minutes.
Canberra Jazz blog
Two outings had me contemplating bass playing. First up was a duo gig with James at Gundog Estate, playing a few hours and chatting with some of the visitors and staff. The sound was so soft. I thought we were hardly hearable yet we were asked to turn down, but we were playing just feet from a table of ten.
Canberra Jazz blog
There were so many ways that this was an unusual Canberra Symphony Orchestra outing. We walked in to find no printed programs, but a QR code with a link to CSO program for the year and the program for this concert. Walking to our seats we find almost no one we recognised: this seemed a new group, different, perhaps younger and that's OK.
Canberra Jazz blog
It may not be the way that soldiers battle with woodwinds but it would be a better world. This day our ADFA colleagues were playing at Wesley as they do a few times a year and they had woodwinds in their hands, so a Sax and Clarinet quartets and a mixed Wind quartet and one duo of oboe with (dare I say, not wind) piano. And the whole was a wonderful outing.
Canberra Jazz blog
This is a theme that's around with the new film of The Odyssey but it's nothing new. Two of our major classical music groups combined to do a program on this very topic, Guerrieri et Amorosi, Warriors and lovers, highlighting madrigals by Barbara Strozzi and Claudio Monteverdi, two major composers in mid/late-1600s Venice, Monteverdi older than Strozzi but both prolific and renowned, if Barbara is lesser so these days. And a few instrumental pieces by Apeiron in respite by GB Vitali and Scarlatti.
Canberra Jazz blog
Luke Sweeting was in town again with his Soul-Gospel band, a project of Luke and singer Eliza Kate, playing in the Street Theatre with the full 12-piece outfit and great sound and a string of original tunes amongst covers. The theme is not my thing, but the music is and it was a blowout and the originals were every bit as good as those covers.
Canberra Jazz blog
I was intrigued by the idea of four-handed piano. I had heard it before, rarely, but this was up close and I was recording and the pianists were two Italians on their first tour to Australia. Of course there are four hands instead of two, 20 fingers instead of 10, so I could hear bigger sounds, more dense chords, moving melodies in different octaves, but also one finger can only play one note, so that's another rule.
Canberra Jazz blog
Ah it is fun to grab the JB and tail it down to the Canberra Blues Society jam session on a Sunday arvo and have a nice simple blues blow with that loud and clear backline. The host band this day was Wally & Eric Crew and they are long termers in the CBS and authentic in their renditions and voices so a great pleasure. The first item I encountered the CBS was yonks back at a venue near the Manuka Oval, was it the first location of the Eastlakes Club?
Canberra Jazz blog
Bianca started with Bluesette, all scat over a classic standard, subtly interpreted and nicely felt then explained that she liked humour in her tunes. Not that that's all she did, but it was obvious and her chatter just confirmed it. The next tune was I'm hip then later Peel me a grape and Is that a monkey you've got. But there was also a twist with very effective story told in person concerning Greek politics, known to her if not to most of us.
Canberra Jazz blog
City Tidda was the name of this concert and it came with a veritable program like a classical concert, with tunes with explanations and performers with histories. This was obviously an important outing for Sophia Rose, a proudly aboriginal woman from Sydney. Tidda means sister, so City Sister, Soph who had studied at the Wollongong Con and plays trumpet and had written several of the pieces performed.
Canberra Jazz blog
It's a regular event and quite fascinating in its presentation of development through musical education. Jinbo Huang comes regularly to Wesley and I've seen him and the students playing this day over time. This time, Naomi, Daniel, Arabella, Charlie and presumably sons Frank and Charles. They play a range of composers, some obvious and challenging, Chopin and Liszt, some more forgiving, interestingly this time, one very much more theatrical or filmic.
Canberra Jazz blog
Could this become repetitive? No, never. Perhaps the greatest excitement I have in music these days in a big orchestral choral concert. Doubly so in a good location. This was my second play of Carmina Burana, again with National Capital Orchestra and Canberra Choral Society and the Woden Valley Youth Choir and the soloists, again in Llewellyn, second choral concert in 2 weeks in this our major Canberra concert hall.
Canberra Jazz blog
Mike Price talked of a band with two Carls, Dewhurst and Morgan, sometime in the past and I've got reports on CJ of various combinations of the 3 guitarists. Mike was teaching and leading the jazz scool while the Carls were there, although at different times and has got together with them at various times. It's all part of an ongoing jazz experience. This gig was another incarnation. Mike Price and Carl Dewhurst with James Luke and Nick McBride: a formidable combination.
Canberra Jazz blog
Mark Jurkiewicz presented a string of Chopin works for the latest Wesley lunchtime concert and I was mulling over such depth of immersion in the topic and long term commitment.
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