Jazz greats Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea in harmony

The most comprehensive Australian jazz festival opened with two greats: the Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea duo.

Herbie Hancock (left) and Chick Corea. Melbourne International Jazz Festival 2015. Picture: Kim Densham. Image supplied.

The most comprehensive Australian jazz festival opened on Thursday in Melbourne’s Hamer Hall with two jazz piano greats: the Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea duo. It was a night of musical camaraderie in a spectacular ­collaboration delivered in a fairly populist style.

Hancock mostly led with quick, precisely executed chromatic runs and Corea provided embellishments, parallel reflected inventions and occasional ­percussive effects.

After three totally improvised pieces with both men sporadically using synthesisers, they played standard pieces including a ­rhythmical version of Hancock’s Cantaloupe Island; Corea’s signature tune Spain; and a big finale version of Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez in which, comically, audience vocal participation was invited. A standing ovation was a foregone conclusion.

Friday night brought Richard Bona’s quintet with snap-smart arrangements in a nimble fusion of jazz, rock and humour. Bona sang his originals, playing a very agile, jazz-inflected, five-string electric bass. Most songs were in his native Cameroonian, in styles from Latin jazz to Afro-beat, backed by a powerhouse group of trumpet, guitar, keys, and drums. Soaring trumpet solos came from Tatum Greenblatt while skilfully quick guitar was provided by Adam Stoler. Bona is a great musician and entertainer with a range of laugh-out-loud banter. Another standing ovation.

A regular visitor to Australia, US vocalist Kurt Elling has never performed here with such ­comprehensive backing as on Saturday. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, sensitively conducted by Benjamin Northey, plus ­Elling’s quartet, brought more than 60 performers on stage. A symphony orchestra doesn’t ­always fit into jazz, but these ­arrangements proved to be well suited to the material, opening with an un-Sinatra-like rendition of Come Fly With Me, including a standout piano solo from Mads Baerentzen.

Elling’s characteristics were all evident: his bending of melody and individual phrasing, his four- octave range, and inspired scat. Vocalist Michele Nicole joined Elling for a Latin jazz duet in Portuguese. His most expressive song in the jazz sense was Nature Boy, featuring four choruses of mind-boggling scat as he ­effortlessly arced through octaves, scattering groups of eighth-note phrases. Standing ovation number three.

The Bad Plus is a US piano trio like no other: a post-bop group with attitude. They play their ­esoteric originals, one titled The Empire Strikes Backwards, with elan, great ability and self-deprecating humour. Pianist Ethan Iverson delivered intricate lines with stabs of atonality as David King worked his drum kit with manic energy, and bassist Reid Anderson provided grounding. Their many fans proved too hip for a standing ­ovation.

Melbourne International Jazz Festival. May 28, 29, 30. Until June 7. Various venues. Tickets: $25 to $112. Bookings: melbournejazz.com.