An Adelaide audience was treated to a fabulous blend of classical, jazz
and world music at the hands of a world class trio of guitarists this
week.
MGT is in its third year of a very fruitful musical association, and
not only was this more than apparent, we were also privy to their
obvious appreciation of and respect for each other’s masterful
musicianship, and their joy in making remarkable and ground breaking
music together. There were sounds one might not have thought possible
being brought forth from their guitars, individually and collectively.
Slava Grigoryan has beautiful hands, and what he does with them on his
fret board and strings wove an instant spell over the audience with his
opening offering of Tchaikovsky’s gentle The Seasons - now meditative and mellifluous, then chromatic and crunchy – followed by a stimulating performance of the quite different Incantation by Bill Loveday.
This bracket not only set the tone for the evening, but opened the
gates for Wolfgang Muthspiel to show an extraordinary range of
sonorities on several different electric guitars with some Theolonius
Monk and his own Waifs, which was played over a ground running almost throughout in the background.
Another change of style came next from Ralph Towner. The stronger
influence of Jazz on his music was apparent in his tense and exciting Catching Up, and then in his luscious Solitary Woman
played on his twelve string. At last these three masters were together,
and the audience enthused over this fabulous combination in some
precise, rich-textured and complex inter-weavings of rhythms and runs,
tunes and tempos.
After the interval, the variety continued as each played in a duet with
each of the others, and a beautiful rendition by Towner and Grigoryan
of Towner’s From a Dream sealed the sales in the foyer afterwards of the trio’s recent CD by the same name.
Together again for the final bracket and welcome encore, crisp
precision of ensemble was expressed through their clear simpatico
colleagiality in works such as Towner’s evocative and almost hypnotic Beneath an Evening Sky and Muthspiel’sBird’s Eye View. And there was plenty of fun as Towner turned the body of his guitar into a drum.
This remarkable trio can extract uncommon sounds form this most common
of instruments. Here was no simple strumming. MGT thrives on complex
rhythms and sonorities, the interaction and respect between the three
of them, and in the music itself. They have moved guitar playing into a
new orbit.
Adelaide Festival Centre's TRANS:MISSION Program MGT Wolfgang Muthspiel, Slava Grigoryan & Ralph Towner
Venue: Her Majesty's Theatre Dates: 20 August 2008 Bookings:www.bass.net.au
Short+Sweet Sydney 09: Week One
All-in-all, I must confess a creeping notion Short 'n' Sweet
might be riding its own wave a little too ambitiously. Is there a whiff
of veritable corporatisation about, in its quest... Read more
An Adelaide audience was treated to a fabulous blend of classical, jazz
and world music at the hands of a world class trio of guitarists this
week. 
