Jazz without borders....

There was something for every ear at a recent Thailand Cultural Centre concert
EZRA
The danger of billing two jazz acts on the same evening is that you are bound to come away contrasting the two, or humming a melody from the first timed to a beat from the second, and when the performers differ as completely as Lua Hadar and James Morrison, the comparison may be an unfair one. An attempt will be made here, at least initially, to relive the performances separately.

Jazz thrives in an atmosphere of intimacy. Lua Hadar and her band Twist began the evening with the daunting task of creating a lounge ambience in an expansive overclimatised auditorium not yet full. The Culture Centre's prerecorded announcements, electronic buzzer (imagine a robotic frog's prolonged death rattle) and initial sound problems didn't help, but Hadar made a solid and professional effort at warming up the crowd, with humour, a stab at Thai, and between-song translations of some of the more romantic lyrics.

Beginning with Soon It's Going to Rain, though, a "lovesong for a thunderstorm", as Hadar described it, was a bit jarring on the overcaffeinated, or those frazzled from rushing to arrive on time, as it was a forceful ballad with high notes that those still stuck in traffic might have heard. Lua Hadar is an expressive performer, gestures and facial contortions trying to emphasize points made in the lyrics, when at times the innuendoes and double entendres should be left to speak for themselves. There was no time to ease into the group's unique style, though, because they quickly jumped musical genres, languages and tempo, while Hadar's strong personality imposed itself on each number and made them less distinct than they perhaps should have been.

They moved into a composition by pianist and musical arranger Jason Martineau ("Dr J" to Hadar), half sung in (her US accented) French. Next they dipped into the Great American Songbook with George and Ira Gerschwin's Soon, returning to French with Chemins de l'Amour, which was coupled with Hi Lilli Hi Lo, swinging back and forth between languages, then with a Latin flair dipping into All I Want - originally a folksong from Joni Mitchell's famous Blue album - then a ballad written by Candace Forest called When Your Face Flew by My Window.

This was an attempt at borderless music, "twisting" language or genre often even within the same song. Their seventh number, co-written by Forest, Hadar and Martineau, was fittingly called No Borders, and while the sentiment behind it was noble and rich in potential, it was rather prosaically rendered: War is bad; you can't see borders from the air; how horrible the news is. Perhaps unfair considering the breadth of music on offer, the thought that kept coming to mind was: Sing us something we don't know!
This was followed, though, by a Cuban number, Ernesto Lecuona's Siboney, which gave the instrumentalists a little more chance to express themselves (and when they did, they invariably impressed), Hadar a chance to try another language, and heads in the audience to start swaying to the rhythm. Now we were getting somewhere!

Moving on from Spanish, it was Italian numbers that would round out the evening. Italian was definitely Hadar's best Romance language, suiting her natural exaggerations. The five years she spent in Italy likely determined the shape and form of her later musical endeavours, and the band's penultimate number, the Italian pop song Vorrei, made this clear. This was the one piece that seemed to have a genuine personal significance to Hadar. The song softly explored the higher ranges of her voice, and while the meaning of the lyrics was lost on most, the sentiment behind them wasn't.

By the last number, Pink Martini's Una Notte di Napoli, played to a rumba beat, the audience was warmed up; a connection had been established. While it was a good and original interpretation of a catchy song, again it felt a little exaggerated, gestures overembellished, r's overrolled, face as expressive as a mime's, voice finally letting loose and hitting the notes but just missing the depth behind them.

A number of analogies came to mind during the performance, all of them perhaps unfair: Nagging mum; that person at every party who needs only the slightest encouragement to pointlessly and falteringly launch into a foreign language which hasn't been mastered and no one else understands; your first English teacher, the one whose patronising articulation you and your friends mimicked after class. Martineau gave very capable (but short) piano solos, as did the saxophonist (three times briefly) and percussionist (once), but the instruments rarely busted loose and expressed themselves to their full potential. It seemed at times as if the pace, language and genre diversity and vocal range took priority over the emotional essence of the songs. This impression might have changed if the band had been able to play another set, or at least an encore, but as soon as Napoli finished the recorded announcements cut into the applause to usher the band off-stage, as if to sever the new emotional connection between performers and audience.

Then it was time for James Morrison and the Group to take the stage. Perhaps it was the coincidence in surname, or perhaps it was the fact that the Nobel Prize-winning US author wrote a novel titled Jazz, but as I listened to the second performance I kept remembering the words of Toni Morrison describing the most important element of her immaculate prose: "It musn't sweat." She could have been describing jazz at its best: Cool, intimate, richly expressive, finely tuned but seemingly effortless. James Morrison and the Group was all this and more - a world class act at the top of its game.

They began - the house nearly full now - with There'll Never be Another You. In a welcome departure from the opening act (here come the comparisons), each instrument was given time and reign to express itself. Morrison's trumpet solo was first, and the rest of the band followed: Blaine Whittaker's sax, James Muller's guitar, Phil Stack's bass, brother John Morrison's drums, each letting loose but without tipping the band's balance, returning to play its part in the natural ebb and flow of the music. The audience connected immediately.

When vocalist Emma Pask emerged for the second number, her voice didn't seem to have the range or classical training of Hadar's, but it had a great sultry, almost husky timbre that perfectly complemented the personality of the band, never overimposing itself but never superfluous.

It was clear by the third number, Easy Living, that the band would keep reinventing itself as the evening progressed. This one was a ballad featuring Muller on guitar, and Morrison switched to trombone. Next came the 1938 Ray Noble classic Cherokee, played at an extremely high tempo and featuring Pask's scat vocals following Morrison's trumpet lead. Rather than trying to outdo Charlie Parker, who on saxophone recorded perhaps the most famous Cherokee bridge solos, Morrison performed it with an original and refreshing exuberance. Pask didn't quite keep up in the end, but it had the audience buzzing.

Now it was time for more subtle musical expression, and the band shifted accordingly. Morrison seemed to have a great intuitive feel for reading the collective mood, or from long years of practice timing the right compositions for the right moment. For Autumn Leaves, the band thinned to a trio, and brought out fully the one musical advantage of holding a jazz concert in a vast auditorium: Wonderful acoustics. Morrison switched to piano, beginning slowly, creating the foundation of the atmosphere for the piece.

The other instruments eased in, then went solo, then came together again, carrying the piece and its listeners along so melodically it wasn't like listening to jazz any more but delving into the very essence of art and musical expression. Philip Stack's double bass had a wonderfully deep and rich resonance in the hall, and though his solos weren't without small mistakes they were so sincerely and emotively rendered - John Morrison shouting out encouragement from behind the drums - that listening became a very moving experience. The instruments came together so melodically, intricately and intuitively that the music assumed an almost liquid form, rippling, surging, flowing, crescendoing, while smoothly carrying the audience along with it wherever it went.

Between numbers, Morrison entertained us with a few jokes. Though the band members rolled their eyes at lines probably already heard countless times in theatres around the world, they were genuinely funny and timed with a comic's precision.

Next came the Thelonius Monk classic Round Midnight. Morrison carried the piece with rich and subtle texture to his trumpet, and although in a couple of brief instances he even lost his breath, it was breathtakingly clear why he has played with many of the world's great jazz legends, from Wynton Marsalis to Dizzy Gillespie: He is a legend himself.

For Things Ain't What They Used to Be, composed by Mercer Ellington (Duke's son), Morrison returned to trombone to try his hand at "multiphonics", or playing more than a single note simultaneously - no mean feat on trombone. As the piece swung into life Morrison alternated between trumpet and trombone, one in each fist, with a bit of showmanship and a bit of comedy involved (it does look a bit silly). His playing never descends into the pomposity sometimes associated with jazz because his band is quick to poke fun at him and he is also not one to take himself too seriously.

For an encore they played Mack the Knife, Morrison moving from piano back to trumpet, and Pask's voice was perfect for accompanying the Group's spirited rendering of the popular Kurt Weill classic.

While sticking to more familiar conceptions of "jazz" than Lua Hadar and Twist, Morrison and the Group were equally borderless with their repertoire, the music at times so expressive that it took us into unfamiliar or long-forgotten emotional territory. Needless to say, they finished to a standing ovation. Cool, effortless, and all without breaking a sweat.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/151008_Outlook/15Oct2008_out65.php