Mike Nock Trio Plus - Hear and Know

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Mike Nock, piano
Ben Waples, bass
James Waples, drums
Ken Allars, trumpet
Karl Laskowski, tenor saxophone

Review - John McBeath -  The Australian -  5 Stars

THERE are few, if any, on the Australian jazz scene who can equal the length and depth of experience possessed by New Zealand born pianist-composer Mike Nock.

He has played with top US, Australian and European names and led important bands during a lifelong career. His compositions, recordings and performances in jazz and classical music have won many citations, including an induction into the Bell Awards Hall of Fame.

This latest recording, adding to Nock's collection of more than 30 albums, features Karl Laskowski's tenor sax and the trumpet of Ken Allars, 20-year-old winner of the 2011 James Morrison scholarship, plus the pianist's longstanding trio.

Ben and James Waples, on double bass and drums respectively, have accompanied Nock for 10 years, since they met at the Sydney Conservatorium where Nock still teaches and where he also met Laskowski and Allars.

This is a stellar quintet of four younger players led by a grand old master whose compositions and arrangements here are like a 21st-century reinvention of the legendary works of Gil Evans for Miles Davis's famous quintet of 1963 to 1965.

A similar achievement to Evans's luscious textures and understated themes is immediately evident in the title track, opening with a placid piano, unhurried yet authoritative with a gospel hint, as a slow rhythm emerges and the horns arrive with the theme majestically voiced.

The arrangement continues with first a soft piano, then added hushed horns, underscoring a truly inspirational bass solo of singing intensity. If the composition ended here it would be impressive, but Nock orchestrates a final section in 3/4 time, interspersed with bars in 5/4, starting in a stately Viennese waltz manner, then lifting off with joyous trumpet and tenor swinging hard in counterpoint before a soft-landing conclusion: just sublime.

Each of the seven tracks is a different revelation, from the blase ennui captured in Slow News Day to the upbeat post-bop excitement of Colours, or the trumpet tremolo and sax response beginning to a "birth of the cool" style Komodo Dragon. All of the solos are not only talented improvisations; crucially, they also embody the spirit and meaning of Nock's melodies.

The CD includes a booklet of high-class shots of the musicians recording, taken by Melbourne photographer Gerard Anderson.

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"Ben, James and I have been making music together since we met at Sydney Conservatorium’s jazz studies program some ten years ago. A couple of years ago we began playing quartet gigs with Karl and in January this year we invited Ken to join us. With the trio touring Japan in mid September and Ken winning the James Morrison “Generations in Jazz Scholarship” in August we decided it was time to go into the studio. Its been a real pleasure making music with this awesomely talented group of young musicians and I hope you’ll get a sense of that while listening to the album ……. "

Mike Nock