If a tourist asks what is happening in contemporary jazz in Sydney, point him or her towards The World According to James. The A.A.Milne overtones of the name say much about the warmth and playfulness of James Greening’s project.

An integral part of the catholics, Wanderlust, Ten Part Invention, the Australian Art Orchestra and the Umbrellas, among many other bands, Greening is best known as a trombonist. In the course of this performance, mainly of his own wonderfully imaginative compositions, he also played pocket trumpet and didgeridoo. With Andrew Robson on alto saxophone, Steve Elphick on bass and Simon Barker now on drums, his world adds up to probably the best unrecorded band in the country.

A sense of humour is never too far removed from Greening – the man or the musician. His trombone playing has always carried a buoyancy in the phrasing and shaping of the notes, above and beyond the ripe tone and wit of many of the lines. His compositions further the cause, and sit neatly beside those of Robson’s that have been incorporated into the repertoire. Medicine Man for instance has a zaniness reminiscent of Willem Breuker.

Beyond the humour, Greening and his cohorts ooze that ephemeral jazz quality of unleashing furious energy while retaining a serene sense of relaxation, to which the rhythm section’s ability to expand and contract like a rubber band, without disturbing the pulse, was crucial. Elphick and Barker have worked together extensively, notably in Mark Simmond’s Freeboppers a band to which this one bears certain oblique parallels.

Neither Robson nor Greening ties his emotional peaks to histrionics or any kind of false emotion derived from technical flourishes. There was a naturalness – an inevitability, even – to the storming heights achieved by Robson on Me Me Me and by Greening’s pocket trumpet on Mosman. Ornette Coleman’s classic When will the Blues Leave? Saw Greening, now back on trombone, showing his ability to slide from pathos to satire in the time it takes to wink. His use of tuba on the reggae of Second Wind was indicative of the constant investigation of fresh colours within a quartet of inherently broad range; a quartet which can also swing as forcefully as any in town.

THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1998