I have been thinking about how little live Jazz music is presented in Christchurch, especially considering that we have a Jazz school attached to out local Polytechnic. Looking through the gig listings on several web sites for the area seldom throws up much Jazz, occasionally some small time local band doing a residency at some bar and we recently had a Jazz and Blues festival earlier in the year, but there wasn't all that much that enticed me to attend. Maybe I just don't quite know where to look or the stuff is too underground. When I see something like this advertised, I investigate closer to see if it would be something that would interest me and I soon discovered that Reuben had several releases out on Rattle Records, a great NZ Jazz and contemporary music label that I have been exploring their catalog of late. I checked out some of the videos on his website and decided this was just the thing I would be into.
The gig was held at a place called Orange Studio, which turns out to be an actual recording studio but puts on small gigs and other events in their main recording room, a very cool venue, with a bar and all. I was most impressed an am looking forward to attending more gigs there in future.
This concert was also something that my partner could hopefully enjoy and so we both arrived at the venue about 15 minutes before the due start time and settled in to a couple of seats on the end of the front row.
It was good to see the place pretty much full to capacity with maybe 40 odd people taking all available seating and a few standing at the back. The Trio of Bradley, Drums, Rodger Manins, Sax and Brett Hirst, Bass, wandered in about 10 minutes after the advertised start time and after a quick spiel from Reuben, started in on a John Coltrane piece. The sound was excellent and louder than I expected and the bass did get a little drowned out when the group was in full noise, but what a great room for live Jazz. They played several original compositions from Reuben and one from Rodger, all impressing me very much, as well a Joe Henderson piece and also Tami Neilson's "Don't be Afraid". They played mostly up tempo Bop like stuff and were really getting into it, all three played some great solos as they do. They were having a great time playing with some great banter between them and presented two most enthralling sets. I also managed to pick up two of Reuben's Rattle CDs that he had for sale for a very goo price, so i'm really looking forward to listening to them as he did play several pieces off both CDs and I was most impressed. A great gig and My partner enjoyed it even more than I thought she would. I didn't attempt to record ant video for this gig so here is a clip from Reuben's website. A slightly different band but still with Rodger and Reuben.
Check out Reuben's website, http://www.reubenbradley.com/
And also check out Rattle Records for some great NZ Jazz and other music.http://www.rattlerecords.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=1
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