Salient. Newspaper of Victoria University of Wellington Students Association. Vol 41 No. 5. March 27 1978
Jazz it up — Roger Fox Big Band
Jazz it up
Roger Fox Big Band
Jazz at its best is a uniquely exciting music. With improvisation as a vital element, it has a spontaneity, and excitement, that is sometimes lacking in the performance of other music. Jazz allows each musician a chance to speak to the audience directly, with a personal voice, creating their own music on the spot. The music can reach such heights that the performer, and ultimately the audience can feel a sense of exploration and creative energy.
In one sense the 1860 Band who opened the concert are blessed. They are five brilliant musicians: a trombonist, trumpeter, electric pianist, bassist and drummer, who have been playing together night after night at the 1860 pub for years. They know each other, they can anticipate and change direction, cadence and build together perfectly.
Yes, the 1860 Band is tight. But in the terms of improvised Jazz this tightness seems suffocating. Each number seemed to be too carefully moulded into the same predictable format. The trumpet, and trombone, and even the keyboard in octaves or unadventurous paralleled thirds would bang out the melodic in unison. Then each player was given a chance to improvise, always returning to the united melodic line. It's tried and true jazz method, but it needn't be a straight jacket. The brief improvised solos seemed tailor-made; they never gave the impression of breaking new ground, they didn't excite me or, apparently, the musicians. It was just another professional night at the pub with the 1860 combo.
The one exception was guest guitarist Malcolm Winch, who arrived that day from up north to join the group. He's a brilliant musician with a natural feel for the music, and because he hadn't rehearsed much with the group before the concert, his playing was fresh and daring. It's a pleasure to hear such good melodic improvisation, spiky, leaping, building, dying and building again, using the whole finger board, and getting colour out of the electric guitar without relying on a battery of foot peddles and fancy devices.
In fact the electronic special effects employed by the rest of the group, such as synthesiser, octavoice, and tape loop only served to confuse and muddle the music. Partial blame must be levelled at the techniques of producing the sound. The Opera House has excellent natural acoustics. We don't need such excessive volume to excite us. At times definition was lost and the music was a deafening row.
I question the constant reliance and the cop out of using a driving rock rhythm under each number to make the music cook. Walking is a rest from running, and it doesn't mean walking can't take you somewhere, and even perhaps let you have a good look around along the way.
The second half of the concert featured the Roger Fox Big Band (formerly the Golden Horn Big Band) augmenting the original 1860 group with a wall of brass and reeds. "Time Piece", their opening number, was messy, but the second number, "Nemesis", was excellent. The arrangement was clean and varied, bouncy and well crafted. And we heard the Roger Fox Big Band at its best, rich and full. I felt myself bouncing in my seat, my feet tapping wildly.
Big Bands by nature cannot have too much improvisation, but slots are left in the notated arrangement for solos and some excellent solos were played.
At this point in the review I must apologise for not mentioning those musicians who deserve praise. People such as the bassist, the drummer and the sax soloists. But unfortunately no programme was supplied with their names.
The Roger Fox Big Band is worth hearing and Fox should be commended for his organisational skills, bringing together twenty or so fine musicians and moulding them into a precision group. The sound of brass, building full, rich and complex chords is, to begin with, thrilling. But after the first four or five numbers, even with the addition of a guest vocalist to add new colour, the texture of the arrangements hadn't sufficiently changed. My foot stopped tapping (it was exhausted) and my mind wandered towards home. It's up to Fox now to come up with some arrangement that can best exploit the full range of colourful possibilities that the big band offers, and to take a few more risks.
Jonathon Besser