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.