Talented trio is jazzing up Australian music scene

New jazz improv group The Others comprises the instrumental talents of the three outstanding Australian musicians.

Trumpeter James Morrison, drummer Kram (aka Mark Maher) and pianist Paul Grabowsky make up the new jazz improv supergroup The Others. Picture: Britta Campion

As Paul Grabowsky sees it, The Others is an improvisational group built on three principles.

Firstly, the instrumental talents of the three musicians, as well as the ability for those players to listen to each other. The third — and most important — factor is trust. “Out of that triangle, the music emerges,” he said.

The award-winning pianist and composer has partnered with multi-instrumentalist jazz musician James Morrison, with whom he first performed in the late 1980s. The third is something of a wildcard: Mark Maher, who is better known as Kram, the drummer and vocalist in alternative rock band Spiderbait.

“Paul is much more cerebral, coming from a classical background,” Morrison said. “He’s forever surprising and innovative, and opening up new vistas, musically — but Kram is this primeval force of nature. I have absolutely no idea what he’s going to do, but I always trust that it’ll take us somewhere interesting.”

Having performed in public just a handful of times, The Others will next play at the Perth International Arts Festival on Sunday, followed by the Adelaide Festival and next month’s Blue Mountains Music Festival.

“I’m used to playing with all kinds of musicians within the very broad church called jazz or improvised music, but I don’t often get to play with a guy like Kram, who’s coming from a really successful rock band,” Grabowsky said.

“He makes me play differently, and I think what emerges affects all of us. It’s really exciting.”

When the trio first set up their equipment at Morrison’s studio at Sydney’s northern beaches, the results were “spectacularly unsuccessful”, according to the trumpeter. “It was good playing, but it wasn’t great music,” said Morrison.

After a dinner break that ­involved Italian food and some red wine, however, they returned to the studio reinvigorated, and ended up improvising for more than two hours.

“I think it’s a fantastic piece of music,” Maher said of what emerged that day.

“Paul was so pleased and surprised by it that, right at the end of the recording, you can hear him cracking up laughing, as he couldn’t believe how good it was.”

While audio from that session has yet to be released, that may not be the case for much longer.

“The plan is to put something out soon — maybe a live album,” Maher said. “In all the years I’ve been playing music, I’ve never ­encountered anything as surprising as this. I just love the danger of pure improvisation.”