AntD
To my shame, I have to say I haven't even been able to lurk for a while because of pressure of work. That includes 10 days travelling up from Cape Town to Joburg to help man our stand at the Ront show).
But ...
I am tapping this out in my in-laws' cosy lounge while the Vienna weather outside tries its best to freeze the shivering buds off the trees. We're in Austria to visit the family and run the Vienna half-marathon.
It's entirely coincidental that the Wiener Konzerthaus is presenting a 5-part series titled The Art Of Jazz Guitar in the first half of the year.
I've missed Pat Metheny, and I'll miss Adam Rogers, John Scofield and John McLaughlin. But somehow Jim Hall arranged to have his trio date at just the right time. We got the last two tickets at an eye-watering 40 euros apiece (thanks, Mrs D).
Jim Hall first hit my radar in the pages of downbeat and Guitar as a regular poll-winner, the sort of person who'd be described as a guitarist's guitarist. On one of my regular visits to Andrew McKenzie at The Record Centre in Church Street in the 1970s I walked out with Concierto: Hall leading a group of first-rank performers creating the classiest kind of smooth jazz. Smooth, in the sense of polished, not bland; a timeless mood crafted by players at the peak of their considerable powers. Later I acquired his trio album, Live! from the same period, on the short-lived Horizon audiophile label, which highlighted his ability to weave harmonic logic with subtle texture and melody, using minimal chording and maximum suggestion, like he'd done years before in collaborations with piano (Bill Evans) and without (Sonny Rollins and others).
The Konzerthaus, home to the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and also host to the likes of the Vienna Philharmonic, houses a large concert hall and 3 minor halls, of which the 700-seat Mozart hall is the biggest. The Mozart's compact accommodation, with several hundred places on floor level - the seating is not raked - and a gallery lining the walls near the ceiling's baroque ornamentation, seems suited to chamber music. It's an apt venue for Hall's intimate style.
Last night's performance was styled a farewell concert. Even so, not having seen Hall in person before, never mind recently, I have to confess to a gasp when he made his appearance. Helped onstage by bassist Scott Colley and drummer Joey Baron, he appeared pale and gaunt, and shuffled along with the aid of a stick. That's really not surprising; he's endured a series of back operations severe enough to have curtailed his playing for an extended period.
Besides, this year Hall turns 80.
Yet it became clear that grace and wit are descriptions as applicable to the man as to his music. Brushing away a few early moments of fragility, he gradually warmed to the bluesy groove of Furnished Flats. His attack became more certain, his direction assured: hinting at a melody, spinning elliptical lines in his trademark liquid tone, teasing the metre with characteristic chromatic block chords that slipped and slid, a pause for breath, a sudden sidestep marked by an abrupt splayed chord.
The sound is dark, sometimes almost un-electric. As he has done for some years now, Hall plays the Sadowsky he has preferred for more than a decade, run into a Polytone combo amp. Effects are minimal, with a mild chorus on some sections.
Hall's CV is dominated by small groupings that seem the natural home for his minimal, barely amplified sound. Yet, being both an established composer and a performer, he is as familiar with life in an orchestral context as he is trading fours in a small group. Playing off Colley's lively, growling bass and Baron's energetic, playful and exquisitely tasteful drumming provided a lesson in the art of the ensemble: where listening and playing need not be mutually exclusive.
The playlist, characteristically of the man's wide-ranging tastes, encompassed the Blues, standards, original compositions, a nod to contemporary stuff and even Free. The Blues of his Furnished Flats segued into a ruminative intro to the riot of modulations that is All The Things You Are, digressed into a Latin-groove for Beija Flor and then pulled the Surprise switch to stretch boundaries in a duet with each of Colley and Baron in a piece titled Free. With drummer Baron, the free association idea felt less bound by the beat and the harmony; in contrast, with bassist Colley, the harmonic tug wouldn't be denied, eventually locking the two in a steady groove. Baron got to stretch his own limits further before the end of the evening with an engaging look-ma-no-sticks solo using his hands to pound out the beat. A masterful, tasteful, poignant yet biting My Funny Valentine restored the evening's harmonic equilibrium before the group's swinging exit with the basis of it all, the Blues.
From time to time, volume, speed, technique and bombast threaten to become guitar's sole currency. We're fortunate that Jim Hall is still around to show us that such qualities as elegance needn't take a back seat.
Graeme
You're very fortunate to have seen Jim Hall live, I'm really jealous! He is one of my all time favourite musicians. Jim hall has always played with the utmost taste and uses beautiful sophisticated, modern harmonies.
I hear strains of Jim Hall in so many other guitarists - from Scofield, to Bill Frisell and most especially Pat Metheny.
Thanks for a well written piece and for reminding me to re-visit some albums I haven't listened to in a while.
