WHALE; Solo trumpet

My latest Solo project is in development. Through the generous support of the Australian Arts Council, I am working on incorporating foot pedal percussion into my established Solo work. It's an intense and enjoyable process, as well as very noisy! I'm getting excellent guidance from Simon Barker, who is sorting out my foot technique.

There may be some introductory performance this year, but the big debut is at MoFo in January, link below.

Inspired by Indian Carnatic and Korean music, these compositions for solo trumpet and percussion combine extended rhythmic and melodic structures with acoustic resonances triggered by cymbals and water.

Fri 15 Jan , 2pm Nolan Gallery, Mona

https://mofo.net.au/scott-tinkler

DRUB

Scott Tinkler Trumpet Simon Barker Drums Carl Dewhurst Guitar Brett Hirst Bass Elliot Dalgliesh Saxophone

"DRUB" Independant

https://scotttinkler.bandcamp.com/album/drub

Scott Tinkler Trio

1995-200 Scott Tinkler Trumpet Simon Barker Drums Adam Armstrong Bass

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday December 16, 1996

JOHN CLARE

SCOTT TINKLER: Dance Of Delulian. Origin ORO28.

EVEN your lowly reviewer can yearn for immortality. Not often, it's true - but when Scott Tinkler asked me to write the liner notes for this album, a certain conflict of the vanities was set up.

On the one hand I wanted my name on an album that will be seen in future as one of the main achievements of this period. On the other, I wanted to be the one to bring it to your attention. After all, my only claim to fame is that I was the first by many years to champion, in specialist and mainstream publications, such now-acclaimed local musicians as Bernie McGann, Dale Barlow, Roger Frampton, Chris Abrahams, Lloyd Swanton, Sandy Evans, Warwick Alder, Bob Bertles, the late Charles Munro, Stewart Speer and Keith Barr, and a number of others. Myself and Trevor Graham, that is.

My solution was to waive payment. Tinkler is an important talent as trumpeter and composer, who now steps into the ranks of those listed above. He has recorded twice before, but this is the first to fully reveal the strength of his playing and the depth of his originality. Six tracks feature the sensational trio he has led for the past year or so, and on four tracks the extraordinary multi-reed player Elliot Dalgleish is added on bass clarinet (on one track he plays a duet with Tinkler).

Trumpet, bass and drums is on the face of it a gaunt and rugged combination, and that aspect is exploited here rather than disguised. It is pushed so stringently and powerfully that its superficial limitations are forgotten in the stark forces and the tonal and rhythmic variety that accost the listener. Bassist Adam Armstrong and drummer Simon Barker are voices conversing with Tinkler's trumpet with equal weight and intensity. This is quite an achievement, as Tinkler deploys a unique tone - hard and soft at the same time, as Warwick Alder has described it, brilliant and ringing, but surrounded by a kind of haze of fuming overtones - in perhaps the most forceful trumpet lines we have heard in this country. The fact is that they are important talents, too.

While Tinkler employs a very wide range, including low notes that groan and bark massively in the trombone register, he avoids those high note set-ups that cry out for applause. No names, no pack drill. Rather, he uses his range to execute huge and often distinctive shapes, and sometimes to come jabbering out of the stratosphere when you least expect it, with spine-chilling effect.

When Dalgleish joins in the expansion of sound is practically orchestral. Bass, drums, trumpet, bass, all find additional tonal resources, and new textures appear. On Fregs Logs Dalgleish plays a superb solo, brilliantly alluding to Eric Dolphy and Oliver Nelson but avoiding direct quotation. Recorded sound on all instruments is brilliant. The trio will launch the CD this Wednesday night at Cafe de Lane, Brisbane Street, off Oxford. *

"Dance Of Delulian" Origin recordings 1996

"Sofa King" Origin Recordings 1997

"Shrike Like" Independant 1998

Solo recording and performance.

"Backwards" Extreme recordings 2007

From the fine cover art on this CD, through the 'real time' untampered production values, to the artist himself, BACKWARDS is anything but! Scott Tinkler is a jazz trumpeter from Australia, a highly regarded musician with many awards in his home country, but with the release of this exciting new CD be becomes something more.

BACKWARDS is a solo album: Scott Tinkler has created a full CD of experimental music, alone in the studio, with only a few other instruments (piano used by stroking the strings, bass drum, cymbal, and a bucket of water) in his private space, instruments he himself plays as part of his music. The result is a sound few of us have ever heard before. The opening track suggests the sound of a didgeridoo ("a wind instrument of the Indigenous Australians of northern Australia sometimes described as a natural wooden trumpet or 'drone pipe'. Musicologists classify it as an aerophone" according to the dictionary). On other tracks he shines as a trumpeter of enormous range, adding the sound of dripping water, of zither-like piano strings, of echoes from the bouncing of his sound off a cymbal, and of using dissembled parts of his trumpet to make the instrument create strange tones.

Is this classical music or jazz? It is impossible to classify experimental music such as Tinkler has created on this solo venture and that fact may just be the next step from jazz into classical music we have all been pondering. Some of our finest composers today will doubtless become familiar with this groundbreaking album and incorporate Tinkler's ideas into works for orchestra. For those whose interest in music is broad and open to 'new work', this album is most certainly one of the landmarks in contemporary experimentation - a rewarding aural experience.

Grady Harp, May 07

Chiri

Chiri; Scott Tinkler, Bae Il Dong, Simon barker.

From All About Jazz (http://www.allaboutjazz.com/scott-tinkler-bae-il-dong-simon-barker-chiri-by-ian-patterson.php)

If the earth's core had a voice it would probably sound like Bae il Dong's. Bone-shudderingly powerful and utterly primal, his delivery is both awe-inspiring and just a little unnerving. Dong has the bass profondo of an opera singer and the raw, emotional power of the finest flamenco or qawwali singers. His sound is that of the human soul uncaged; whether song or wounded cry, it is the blues by any other name, Korean style. Dong's art is pansori—the traditional spoken and sung story telling theater of Korea. Together with drummer/percussionist Simon Barker and trumpeter Scott Tinkler—respected Australian jazz improvisers—the trio produces a bold music which celebrates music for music's sake, irrespective of meaningless categories, yet respectful of tradition. The coupling of pansori and jazz is not really so farfetched or "out there," as rhythm and improvisation are of equal importance to both traditions.

The two-part "Chirisan Sinawi" opens with Tinkler's choked trumpet emitting high-pitched whinnying like a small bamboo whistle, though by and by he finds fuller voice in short, rasping exclamations. Dong bursts in dramatically; his primal scream raging against Tinkler's energetic contrapuntal runs. Barker's rhythms build subtly, coaxing and mirroring the intensity and contours of the vocals. After seven intense minutes calm ensues and Barker's softly pattering percussion has an effect like fat rain drops sliding from leaves at storm's end.

The second part evolves from this lull; trumpet is subdued and Dong's gravelly yet unmistakably tender voice stirs small pockets of silence. This reverie is jolted by Barker's sharp drum raps, very much in the pansori style exemplified by the late Kim Seok-Chul, a singer/percussionist whose playing has greatly influenced Barker's approach to the drums. Kim Seok-Chul was a shaman reputed to be able to communicate with the dead. Dong is no shaman, but his voice could wake the dead, and haunt them eternally. The quietly gathering thunder of drums and urgent trumpet, darting like streaks of lightening, are swept up by Dong's long, rasping intonations. The singer eventually cedes to Barker's own fury and a final crashing cymbal brings a quite exhilarating 15 minutes to an end.

A casual listen could lead to the simple conclusion that the remaining music follows much the same pattern, but deeper attention is rewarded with the subtle but powerful dynamics at play. An almost subliminal vibration of gongs introduces "Echoes," the shadow and light between Tinkler's tortured trumpet squeals—as though deprived of air—and Dong's lung busting roar, Barker's maze of inventive, sympathetic rhythms and timbres, the staccato sharpness of somewhat unexpected lyrics from the singer in sharp contrast to his drawn out, wordless cry, and, notably, silences.

The stirring lament which is "Chiri" has special significance for both Dong and Barker. Chiri is a mountain in the southern Sobaek range of Korea where Dong spent seven years camped beside a waterfall at which he sang/howled for 18 hours a day—bursting his ear drums in the process—in order to build his voice for performances which can last upwards of seven hours. This was the original pansori training dating back to the 18th century, though perhaps unsurprisingly the practice has waned in modern times. Precisely why Barker was on Chiri mountain is recounted in Emma Franz's captivating documentary Intangible Asset No. 8, Bae il Dong, where the seeds of this collaboration were sewn.

Korean pansori was traditionally limited to a singer accompanied by a drummer, but like jazz, pansori has evolved over time, adding diverse instrumentation. The largely instrumental "Five Companions" features a free improvisation from Tinkler and an extended turn from Barker, whose rhythms wax and wane. All three voices merge and play off each other on the closing "Links," before Dong retires to leave Tinkler and Barker to fire each other's engines. Gradually, the music winds down, the trumpet shrinks to a barely perceptible whine, the drums diminish and all the sound disappears back into the bowels of the earth from where it came, though the reverberations linger long after the final note.

"Chiri" Kimnara 2010

"Return Of Spring" - Kimnara 2012

http://www.kimnara.com.au/Chiri.html

Scott Tinkler Quartet

1993-1996 Scott Tinkler Paul Grabowsky- Piano Phillip Rex- Bass Scott Lambie- drums

"The back of my haead" Origin 1993

"Hop to the Cow" Origin 1995

2005-2010 Scott Tinkler Paul Grabowsky- Piano Phillip Rex- Bass Ken Edie- drums

2006 Live – Tinkler/Rex/Grabowsky/Edie – Origin

Reviewer Jessica Nicholas April 5, 2005

Explosive improvisations: trumpet player Scott Tinkler.

Explosive improvisations: trumpet player Scott Tinkler.

Bennetts Lane Jazz Lab, April 1

For an artist whose CD titles often border on the eccentric (previous releases include Sofa King, Hop to the Cow and The Back of my Head), trumpeter Scott Tinkler has shown remarkable restraint in naming his latest recording.

But the title (Tinkler, Rex, Grabowsky, Edie - the surnames of the band members) is the only conventional aspect of the album. It's a live recording which makes a strong case for seeing the band in the flesh - bursting with the freedom that can be difficult to generate in an empty studio.

On stage for the CD launch on Friday night, the players were full of fire from the opening bars of the first tune, Mirror, Mirror. Like many of Tinkler's compositions, it kept threatening to develop a groove, but was prevented from doing so by the players' determinedly asymmetric approach to rhythm.

Often a piece would begin with all four musicians clinging to a knotty, angular theme that sounded more like a defiant proclamation than a melody. Then, as one musician began playing solo, the rhythm would dissolve into pools of restless energy that drove the quartet forward with irresistible momentum.

Drummer Ken Edie delighted in twisting and unfurling rhythmic patterns to form unpredictable shapes and accents, as though to throw the other players offbalance. Yet Philip Rex (on bass) and Paul Grabowsky (on piano) remained completely unflappable as they carved a harmonic path through this thicket of chopped-up beats. Rex and Edie worked like two hands of the same idiosyncratic mind, racing forward in crisp unison before suddenly slowing to a crawl with astonishing synchronicity.

Both Tinkler (whose explosive improvisations maintained their integrity even at breakneck tempo) and Grabowsky plunged into this rhythmic vortex with delight - though Grabowsky was also apt to pull against the others with a series of muted, dissonant chords.

Overall, the effect was a constant sense of tension and release - a shifting sea of ideas and impulses always seeking resolution, but only finding it in brief moments before being caught in another rising swell of excitement and uncertainty.

Marc Hannaford, Erkki Veltheim, Scott Tinkler

present improvisations born out of a long and continuing dedication to developing an idiosyncratic language for improvisation.

"The Unpossibility Of Lamnguage" 2013

http://marchannaford.bandcamp.com/album/the-unpossibility-of-language