CD liner notes - Tell It Like It Is
In 2006 I recorded my previous CD Resurgence – also released on ABC Jazz – in Los Angeles. That album was in every way a studio project. Not only was it made in a recording studio, the band itself had never – nor has it ever since – played live. It’s a unique way of working, and when one engages musicians who are not only formidable jazz players but also consummate studio musicians – as I had done with Vinnie Colaiuta, Bob Sheppard and the rest of the American team – it is quite possible to work very successfully despite the band meeting each other and the music the day before the sessions. I think of the results as being as crafted, polished and succinct as I could ever want them to be.
On New Year’s Day 2007, feeling in the doldrums with the LA recording yet to find a label, I sat down at the piano and came up with the melody of You Never Forget Love surprisingly quickly. It instantly became a song in search of a band and I realised how much I wanted to continue with the particular instrumentation and subgenre of jazz I had explored on Resurgence.
Integral to the sound was the sheer genius of Australian guitarist James Muller who had joined me in Los Angeles. The ‘subgenre’ I’ll call my take on jazz fusion, melding the rhythmic feels and sound worlds of gospel, blues, soul, Latin and classical into a largely acoustic jazz framework while approaching the composing in a way that contrasts highly arranged – even through-composed – sections with the ‘blowing’ (or improvised) soloistic passages.
An email chat with James helped me find the ideal players for the Australian edition of the band. Bassist Brett Hirst had played superbly in some previous music of mine in a similar format on a tour in 2000 and had played hard to get with a busy schedule ever since. I knew the warm and friendly grittiness of his sound would suit the new project perfectly. Matt Keegan’s loving approach to melody and beautiful sax sound had already knocked me out at a concert I had curated in Brisbane. Drummer Tim Firth was the wild card, a young player whom I had in fact never heard play, but he was James Muller’s drummer, which was recommendation enough. Tim grew into being the perfect drummer for the band, sensitive and strong, creative yet accurate, virtuosic and subtle. Since so many seminal ideas pertinent to the band had emerged from the Resurgence CD and we would be touring on the back of its release, it seemed natural to call it the ‘Resurgence Band’.
At the soundcheck for the first gig in March 2007 I felt the balance of personalities was perfect with all opposites neatly in place, as I hoped they were in the music – in turn serious and fun, edgy and pensive, the list goes on. With a brand new repertoire written since LA we became a touring – rather than a studio – band, and we certainly got around. An Asian tour in 2007 took us to Japan, Korea and Thailand followed by an extensive Australian tour later that year and concerts through 2008.
Unlike the studio project, with a working band like this the music can develop organically on the road. As well as bringing in new tunes, I’d endlessly refine the arrangements, bailing up band members with yet another idea (or scribbling) whether in a motel room in Mackay, as our seatbelts clicked in on an international flight takeoff, or at soundcheck and backstage. Eyes would sometimes roll in response to my ‘Guys, I’ve just thought of one more thing’, not least because it was never the last tweak. Of course, much changed of its own accord without direction from me or anyone else. I became delighted with the dynamics and pacing the band achieved, and felt we were reaching for a larger-scale narrative beyond merely presenting tunes and solos.
When the opportunity to record arose in the second half of 2008 it was pragmatic factors that led me to a live rather than a studio recording, but as so often is the case, what was practical was also the perfect aesthetic. The band was distinguished from the previous project by being a working band, so how better than to capture it than in performance? And without losing any of the polish of a studio project, I knew that playing live we could also stretch out and really go for it. We recorded two nights for safety but everything here came from the second night, which had that required magic. At the end of the first night filmmaker Roen Davis offered to document the second night with a five-camera video shoot and subsequently edited it painstakingly to the CD mixes. I don’t think I’ve yet had a better offer at the end of a gig and I hope that the pictures along with the sound of Tell It Like It Is will soon be coming to a screen near you.
To tell it like it is simply denotes honesty and I hope you’ll feel the music coming from just this place.
Mark Isaacs
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