Steve Barry / Roy Issac / Hamish Stuart - Green Thumbs (November 1, 2021)

You can cut all the flowers, but you cannot stop spring.

- Pablo Neruda

And here spring is!

Saxophonist and hot-sauce-afficionado Roger Manins planted the first seed of this record – the sound of Jack McDuff’s squabbling chords and punctuated bass lines will be forever linked with driving to gigs in Auckland in Rog's beat up old Hiace. As the first 2020 Covid lockdown hit Sydney and coincided with a personal upheaval, Green Thumbs the band and the music you hear here burst into bloom, driven by the joy, playfulness and groove so iconic of the Hammond organ.

It was an easy choice of partners, too. One of my oldest mates, Roy Issac and I have played countless an organ trio gig since an early regular stint at a low-ceilinged, often-crammed Oxford Street basement bar and eatery. Roy is also in my opinion one of this country’s finest and most versatile guitarists. Drummer Hamish Stuart needs no introduction as the go to drummer for jazz luminaries like Mike Nock, Barney McAll, Jonathan Zwartz, Cameron Undy, and having worked with legendary names such as Jackie Orszáczky, Ayers Rock and Marcia Hines. Before Green Thumbs we had played together just a few times, and it was never for long enough!

After a few months in the rehearsal lab, we played one show at Sydney’s Foundry 616 and hit the studio. A year on with spring upon us after a winter of lockdown, it's time to set this record free!

Cop Show Rip Off tips the hat to the 70s and Starsky & Hutch. The first tune off the pencil for this band, Green Thumbs is a nod to John Scofield and takes its name ironically from very unsuccessful attempts to grow passionfruit. Roy plays a sublime solo on Repose, something we all need a little of after the last few chaotic years. The late great Dr Lonnie Smith was the embodiment the soul of the Hammond organ, and Lonnie pays homage to his indelible spirit. If It Ain’t Broke is a testimony to keeping it simple…well, mostly. We get our “jazz nerd” on a little bit in Spooky with some irrational meter. After all that, Hymn offers a moment of pause and prayer, with a little bit of Burt Bacharach as its launching pad. Lastly, Fiesta Sequester indulges in the party after a long hiatus.

Steve Barry

1. Cop Show Rip Off 07:45

2. Green Thumbs 08:40

3. Repose 08:04

4. Lonnie 07:46

5. If It Ain't Broke... 07:11

6. Spooky 08:07

7. Hymn 05:24

8. Fiesta Sequester 07:54

Steve Barry – Hammond organ

Roy Issac – guitar

Hamish Stuart – drums

Recorded by Richie Belkner at Free Energy Device Studios, 9th December 2020

Mixed by Richie Belkner

Mastered by Michael Lynch at Shoehorse Sound

Cover design by Jim Grimwade

Photography by Peter Woodbury

PREORDER

Steve Barry - Hatch (RATTLE RECORDS 2018)

It’s not hard to be daunted by the vast repertoire of music for solo piano. Propelled by my background in improvisation and jazz performance, my fascination with harmony and melody led me deeper into modernist classical music during my doctoral studies, across the gamut from Schoenberg to Ligeti, Boulez, Feldman, Cage, Stockhausen, Tristan Murail, Elliot Carter & Michael Finnissy, et al — a veritable baptism by fire. After a few initial years of research, it was oddly enough a five-week trip around India that catalysed the two-year consolidation of the insights gleaned from these masters with my existing practice as an improviser - the products of which are partly represented by this selection of original compositions for solo piano. Varying in construction from intricately notated to freely improvised, this collection reflects in various ways the milieu of influences that have occupied my ears for the past few years. 

Microcosm and Codify short sketch-like platforms for improvisation inspired by the cellular melodies wide-ranging improvisations characteristic of the new school of experimental & free improvisers – the likes of pianists Matt Mitchell, Kris Davis and drummer Tyshawn Sorey. Avian Bagatelle grew out of an extended period of listening to Ligeti’s Piano Etudes, while A Dance? owes at least some of its genesis to the work of Milton Babbitt. The pieces spawned by the latter — Tag! and Canon — divulge a love of counterpoint, marrying the linearity of Bach with free atonality of Hindemith’s harmonically wandering Ludus Tonalis. 

Mice echoes Debussy’s early 20th century character pieces, with its quirky melody and bi-tonal tendencies. Roundabouts (one of the bonus tracks available online) echoes the rich, harmonically dense chord structures of Messiaen’s piano music, using 8-note units as a platform for improvisation.

Dreamreader adopts the spaciousness and stemless notation characteristic of Morton Feldman’s piano music, while also — for the most part counter to Feldman’s aesthetic — calling upon the performer to use the piece’s inherent structures for their own personal improvisatory ends. Plink takes this concept to its nth degree, consisting of an open, time-space style array of notes with minimal performance instructions, limiting each realisation only to the imagination of the performer. 

Finally, interludes such as Meander owe much to the incredible pianism and improvised counterpoint of pianist Fred Hersch. 

I’m also grateful to the many Australasian pianists for their inspiration and encouragement: Mike Nock, Barney McAll, Paul Grabowsky, Tim Stevens, Matt McMahon, Tom O’Halloran, Marc Hannaford, Kevin Field, Mike Walker, Mark Isaacs and particularly Judy Bailey, with whom I’ve had the great pleasure to periodically collaborate with over two pianos since my undergraduate study with her in 2011. 

The list could go on, but I’ll let the music do the rest of the talking. Happy listening!

Steve Barry Quartet - Blueprints & Vignettes (January 19, 2018)

Blueprints & Vignettes, the third album from leading Sydney based pianist-composer Steve Barry will be released January 19 on Earshift Music/MGM with launch dates in Sydney, Wellington and Auckland. 

With virtuosic playing from Barry and his quartet, the album features highly forged compositions and riveting ensemble work. The music is a kaleidoscopic exploration of the sonic and melodic possibilities of contemporary jazz. 

Joining Barry are longstanding collaborators Jeremy Rose (alto saxophone, bass clarinet), Max Alducca (bass) and Dave Goodman (drums). Beautifully captured at Sydney’s Sony Studios by Ross A’Hearn, this album is set to be an important contribution to Barry’s growing output.

A product of Barry’s recently completed PhD at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Blueprints & Vignettes reflects his parallel interests in jazz, creative music, 20th century classical music, new music and improvisation. The album dances back and forward between intricate compositions and free improvisation in an exploration of harmonic hues and the spontaneous re-imagination of pre-set structures. 

Barry maintains a busy schedule composing, teaching and performing across Australia, New Zealand and Japan. He is the co-founder of Orbiturtle, recently curating and collaborating with Koto player Michiyo Yagi at the Joganji Buddhist temple in Osaka Japan. An album of solo piano works, also a product of his doctoral studies, is set for release in early 2018. 

Barry has a growing list of awards and nominations, amongst them the Bell Award for Young Australian Jazz Artist of the Year, 2nd in the National Jazz Awards, a finalist in the APRA Professional Development Awards and a nomination for the Freedman Fellowship.

1. Mammoth part 1

2. Mammoth part 2

3. Primed part 1

4. Primed part 2

5. Grind

6. Umbric Symmetry

7. Progeny

8. In the crepuscular forest of forked paths

9. #34

www.stevebarrymusic.com