Jazz And Dancing In Mixed Concert

The Tournament jazz concert provided a miscellany of the creative streak running through New Zealand Universities. It proved to be a combination of good and bad jazz, good and bad modern dancing, but all of it with an underlying sense of enthusiasm that could not be denied, not even by the uncertainty of the programme or the state of near chaos backstage that must have made organiser Don Palmer wonder why he ever took the job on in the first place.

Honours in the dancing went to the Canterbury University Dance Group with two outstanding presentations—Moods for Two and Free Flight in 4/4.

John Casserley anil Marie Polsen did Moods, a fiercely expressive duet against the background of Ahmad Jamal's composition Ahmad's Blues.

It was inevitable, I suppose, that after watching Moods and Free Flight one should find the rest of the dancing something of a let down, for it suffered by com pavison.

Choreosonics by the Victoria Contemporary Arts Group deserved a prize for originality.

An interesting—and humorous—interlude was provided by an attempt at poetry readings with jazz. This is something in the nature of a permanent experiment because many attempts at successfully integrating poetry and jazz have been made over the years and only on relatively few occasions have I ever seen it approach anything near success.

This was one experiment that never looked like succeeding though not for want of trying by Nigel Roberts from Victoria, who in rare moments read well, and flautist Joe Evans who. I thought, blended well.

Later came the Victoria Jazz Group with Craig Mcleod (trumpet) Neville Porteous (plano) Rob Clark (bass) and Johnney Hasset (drums). Despite good support from bass and drums. Porteous seemed a colourless pianist, sadly lacking in ideas. After a couple of numbers they were joined by trombone, French horn and sax for "Blues by Five". This looked promising but stilted solos made it a disappointment.