Bill Martin’s messing with time again tonight but we needn’t fear rips appearing in the space continuum.
On the other hand, moments of transcendence are a chance.
Martin’s lab for these experiments in shifting perspective is once again the Dunedin Jazz Club, at Hanover Hall.
The occasion is the launch of Over to You, an album of Martin’s original compositions. The album, released earlier this year, was recorded live at Hanover Hall with a seven-piece band last year, and a slightly tweaked Bill Martin Septet will reform tonight to perform the compositions — and four new charts.
Leading the horn section are symphonic players Ralph Miller (trumpet) and Nick Cornish (alto saxophone), who will be joined by young guns Finn McKinlay (trombone) and Isaac Randel (tenor saxophone) — the latter two members of the Martin-led Dunedin Youth Jazz Orchestra.
The four new pieces will be "littered" through the night, Martin says.
"Not to get too technical," he says, "but I have been working on this idea of metric modulation, and it is the idea that you have a basic rhythm or meter to a piece and as the composition evolves, each new section just slightly modifies the rhythm as it moves into the next section of the piece."
An example is a piece called 1978, which starts out in 7/8 time but the seven-beat pattern goes through various permutations to give each section a distinct feel and rhythm.
"We’ve also got this piece called Carl’s Groove," he says, named for the group’s drummer Carl Woodward.
"He had recorded a drum groove for me, which was in 3/4 but the way in which the drum groove was played could have three beats in a bar or four. So, that piece, Carl’s Groove, is just a play on the different possibilities that were contained in the original drum loop."
It’s an indication of the direction the band’s heading in, and takes a leaf from the playbook of American jazz pianist Bill Evans, Martin says.
"He wrote a lot of music but he didn’t arrange it heavily, he just expected the other guys on the bandstand to be able to follow what he did — and he tended to improvise these things.
"So, after one chorus of a solo he would pick a new type of rhythm that he would superimpose over the same sets of chord changes."
Martin says he hopes that by recording and releasing original Dunedin Jazz, young musicians will be inspired to do the same.
"We have our own style of jazz in Dunedin," he says, "and we can draw on our unique strengths to present music that is a reflection of this city."
The gig
- Bill Martin Septet: Over to You album launch.
Tonight, Dunedin Jazz Club at Hanover Hall, 7.30pm. More info at dunedinjazz.club.
