(Jazzhead)

Local avant-jazz mainstays flex their creative muscles

If modern jazz combos had a power device equivalent, Brisbane’s curiously named Misinterprotato would most likely amount to a V8 engine. Internationally acknowledged as a top-category Australian jazz export, the trio have been exercising their formidable instrumental skills since 1999, with leader Sean Foran simultaneously growing as a composer. The Gentle War, the trio’s fifth album, sees the musicians reach the pinnacle of their studio craft. Opener Chase is a fittingly fast-paced, dynamic piece, the Q Song Award-winning Sync is – also quite aptly – densely syncopated and all the more groovy for it and the lengthy, elegiac Blues For The Space could be a strong contender for “2010’s most elegant jazz composition” title. As ever, Foran is an unstoppable force of nature on the piano, Pat Marchisella (whose own reflective composition Time is included here) pulls off one astonishing double bass passage after another and John Parker plays drums as opposed to hitting them in time. Being Misinterprotato, the three extraordinaires don’t stick to one chosen: strictly speaking, Cute’s piano figure is more ‘pop’ than ‘jazz’, yet the track bristles with rhythmic complexity and Keith Jarrett-like ebony-and-ivory flourishes. Most importantly, you don’t have to be a jazz fan to enjoy this album as it predominantly features pure, bracket-defying music.

DENIS SEMCHENKO

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