Sydney Con swings as jazz festival returns after two-year lay-off

With 27 events at six venues stretching over more than nine hours, the Sydney Con was alive with the sound of wailing saxophones and groovy basses at the weekend.

Vince Jones sang and played a memorable set at the festival. Picture: Anthony Browell

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With 27 events at six venues stretching over more than nine hours, the Conservatorium was alive with the sound of wailing saxophones and groovy basses when the Sydney Con Jazz Festival returned after a two-year lay-off.

Cancelled last year due to the pandemic, the organisers relied mainly on homegrown talent – of which there is plenty, and top class at that – for the festival’s return on Sunday, but with a handful of US-based artists waiting out the travel bans here, including Perth-raised bassist-composer Linda May Han Oh who has recorded with a bunch of jazz megastars including Pat Metheny, Kenny Baron and Joe Lovano.

She combined with her husband, brilliant Cuban-American pianist-composer Fabian Almazan and Adelaide-born Jo Lawry – backing vocalist for Sting, Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel – for two of the main concerts, joined by Lawry’s husband, saxophonist-composer Will Vinson for the gala closer.

With so much going on over an intensive day, jazz fans had to plan carefully what they wanted to hear, with some of the concerts ticketed and a few of the events overlapping. So everyone would have come away with a different festival experience.

Sydney Con Jazz Festival 2021: Rai Thistlethwayte. Picture: Shane Rozario,

For me the day started with an appropriate – and I must say unexpected – swing with a dazzling 30-minute set by Thirsty Merc front man Rai Thistlethwayte, who studied jazz piano at the Con in the late 1990s before heading off in the direction of rock music. Using a loop to set up a vocal percussive beat he launched into four songs, often playing barrel house riffs on the Fazioli grand with his right hand and some pounding bass on synthesiser with his left.

Always one of our most attractive pop vocalists, the set showed us just what a fine jazz singer he is as well with high soaring lines and a fluid style sitting somewhere between Stevie Wonder and late James Taylor.

After this bracing start there was a taste of something cooler, more Nordic, with Luke Howard’s crystal piano chords and the beautiful mournful lines of Najde Noordhuis’s flugelhorn. She would later show her formidable blues talent in a solo with Vince Jones in the evening, but for now I had to forsake the night drive ambient of Howard’s music for the first concert in the Verbrugghen Hall featuring Almazan and his band Rhizome, comprising Oh on bass, Lawry, WA drummer Ben Vanderwal and a string quartet of students.

The Alcanza Suite fuses jazz and classical and its 12 movements last around 50 minutes. It covers a huge range of moods and styles, always with GRAMMY-nominated Almazan’s piano at its core, often driven by Oh’s bass and Vanderwal’s drums. At times we could be listening to Ravel or Messiaen, at others a Latin combo, all infused with the composer’s concern for wildlife and the planet. Occasional pedal samples and effects are fed into the piano lines and Lawry’s vocalise soars over the top. The quartet – David Carreon and Monty Guo, violins, Sophie Nickel, viola, and Noah Oshiro, cello – were only given a day and half to rehearse their parts and they were note perfect.

Fabian Almazan, Linda May Han Oh, Jo Lawry and Ben Vanderwal with the student quartet. Picture: Shane Rozano

They also joined Lawry for a rather patchy set of her folk-influenced songs – some shades of Joni Mitchell and Nick Drake – later in the day with Vinson forsaking his sax for piano.

As with previous festivals I found that it is the young musicians who sometimes inspire me most. Postponed a year by Covid, the ANJO Youth Big Band appeared with Vinson in a one-hour showcase of the English New York-based saxophonist’s works arranged by a variety of people and conducted by Mace Francis and David Theak.

Will Vinson with the ANJO Youth Big Band. Picture: Shane Rozano

Vinson’s strong melodies and arching solos were superbly backed by the 18-piece band with guitarist Josh Meader, whose John McLaughlin-type solos had also impressed two years ago, as one of the standouts. Other exceptional featured soloists were Tessie Overmyer on alto sax and trumpeter Tom Avgenicos.

The senior members of ANJO were in the Music Workshop for a memorable one-hour set by our greatest jazz vocalist, Vince Jones, who at 67 is still hitting those stratospheric notes with confidence and ease. This was a master class in how to put a song across, featuring five self-penned classics combining his love for soul, folk and blues. Characteristically modest – “I am not worthy playing with these fantastic musicians” – and sparing in his use of his haunting flugelhorn or trumpet solos, this was an hour to treasure and remember.

Another stalwart of the local jazz scene for several decades, New Zealand-born pianist Mike Nock, also featured in a memorable performance with three-quarters of his quartet This World. Saxophonist Julian Wilson was one of the victims of the latest Melbourne lockdown, but Nock and bassist Jonathan Zwartz and drummer Hamish Stuart played a wonderful, intimate set occasionally marred by sound problems in the cavernous Verbrugghen Hall.

Mike Nock, Jonathan Zwartz and Hamish Stuart. Picture: Anthony Browell

The highlight for me was a beautiful simple song Little Stars by Zwartz – that and some banter from a “discombobulated” Nock who had lost his sheet music! It was all carried off with taste and aplomb – three top guys who have been doing this for years and can put smile on your face.

Sound balance problems persisted with the final set of the evening featuring Oh, Almazan, Vinson and the in-demand Vanderwal. The opener Circles had too much sax and not enough bass – the fulcrum of the piece – while things improved with Firedancer. When midway through the bracket Oh switched from contrabass to five-string electric for Speech Impediment we were beginning to get the full benefit of this extraordinary talent – her wordless vocals melding with the bass, Vinson’s ghostly sax and Almazan’s treated piano effects.

By the time we got to the closing number, Yoda, those that hadn’t left early after a hard day’s jazz were rocking in their seats.

DETAILS

●EVENT Sydney Con Jazz Festival

●WHERE Conservatorium of Music

●WHEN May 30