Martin Kay

GIGS 2012

5-15 January

• McGregor Summer School Toowoomba

GIGS 2011

5-15 January

• McGregor Summer School Toowoomba

15 January

• The Fantastic Terrific Munkle @ Bar 505 280 Cleveland St, Surry Hills, 2010

4/5 February

• Kenny Rogers with SSO @ Opera House

18/19 February

• James Morrison with SSO @ Opera House

24/25/26/27 March

• Tim Minchin with SSO @ Opera House

18 April

• Song Fwaa CD launch @ 505 280 Cleveland St, Surry Hills, 2010

25 April - 1 May

• Bundanon Residency with Clocked out Duo and Continuum Sax

20/21 May

• Sydney Writers Festival. Ma with the Chaser question time

• Song Fwaa plays Jazzgroove @ 505

25/26 June

• Sonnets and Sax. Continuum Sax with LEC choir. Italian Cultural Centre. Italian Forum Leichhardt. 

16 July

• Jeff Usher Coltrane and Usher Originals 1 Annie St Kangaroo Point. Brisbane, Australia

Groups 

Song Fwaa: The wrong band for the right people

Continuum Sax: Australia’s leading sax quartet.

The Fantastic Terrific Munkle: quirky and very cool group.

Musicians

David Reaston: Guitarist/composer

Tim Davies Big Band: Composer

Christina Leonard: Saxophonist

Nick Russionello Saxophonist

Nathan Henshaw: Saxophonist

Barry Cockroft: saxophonist

Michael Duke saxophonist

Organisations

Australian Music Centre: Represents Australian composers

National Library of Australia: All published Australian work

Jazzgroove: Record label/grassroots jazz organisation

Reed Music: Music publisher

Sydney Symphony Orchestra

Novelists

David Thomas Kay: Historical fiction

Cold Trannie

Cold Trannie was initially a working title referencing John Coltrane and meant to inspire an edgy sound. The piece itself was built layer upon layer on protools, with my friends laying down long notes, grooves, and whatever other ideas occurred at the time. Through post-production and deconstruction the initial impulses became obscured and subverted. The clarinet duet began life as a unison line fleshed out with mirrors and various internal symmetries. Through spontaneous displacement, methods of erasure and directed disruptions of the constructed logic, the parts diverged creating a funky heterophony. The end result creating a portrait of a cross-dresser on a fresh antarctic evening. 

Habanera  

Alto saxophone and piano.

The habanera, as a genre, originated in Cuba during the 19th century. It evolved from the contradansa, which arrived in Cuba from France via refugees fleeing the Haitian revolution. By the 20th the habanera had become a musical relic in Cuba, but after travelling back across the sea with sailors, it became so popular in European salons that composers as illustrious as Ravel (Piece en Forme De Habanera) and Georges Bizet (Carmen) had composed tunes using its characteristic rhythm and exotic flavour.

Martin Kay’s Habanera employs the tradition very freely. The form can be summarised thus:

(Introduction) Introduces bassline (L.H) and descending scalic figure (R.H) and basic phrygian tonality.

(A) section. Melody enters in saxophone. The opening phrase ascends (bar 13), contrasting the descending piano part. The two bars (13/14) are sequenced diatonically up a third (15/16). Bars 17/18/19 bring in a flowing quality to the melody and descends seqentially in tones. Bars 22/23/24 play a game rotating a four note melody through a six note rhytmic sequence, creating an interesting permutation reaching the beginning again after two bars. After this through composed, in that each phrase grows from the one before, gradually calming before the eruption of the (B) section.

(B) section: New material. Exuberant mood introduces. Shift to 6/8. (A) section suddenly intrudes for a few bars at a time. (Bridge). Material from the A section but in the mood of the B section. Gradually calming for the recapitulation.

(A) section. 

(Coda). Becoming spacious but harmonically complex. Rhythmic unisons.

To speak more specifically of details: Over the basic rhythm (with rhythmic values doubled but retaining the flavour) a rhythmic elasticity and ambiguity is achieved by the use of a 3:2 ratio (bar 27). In bar 37 a more complicated example of this is evident. 9:8 occurs, meaning nine semiquavers in the space of eight semiquavers. These should be interpreted as each tuplet being divided into three equal parts. Although it creates the ambiguity of two tempi existing momentarily, the effect should be of floating. The left hand of the piano outlines the rhythmic pattern and occasionaly elaborates the pattern to harmonise with the solo instrument (bars 17/18/19) or to enter the foreground momentarily during a sustained tone in the saxophone (25/26). Often, this departure will set up a dialogue with the saxophone in a simple call and response pattern. The tuplets in L.H piano in bar 26 flow into the saxophone tuplets in bar 27 providing a logical unity or a ‘communal thread’ between the parts, momentarily blurring the roles of bassline and melody. The right hand of the piano explores the shapes of the phrygian mode. The intervallic structure of ST/T/T/T/ST/T/T immediately signifies a Spanish quality, particularly the tension of the semitone playing against the root of the scale. More specifically, the key signature of this piece is six flats, most commonly perceived as Gb major. However, when the third is persistently repeated in the the bass, it becomes anchored in the listener’s ear as the root of the scale. So in this case we can say that the piece is written in Bb phrygian (or the third mode of Gb major). As the bass is persistent, the right hand can cluster the notes in any formation without losing the phrygian characteristic, leaving it free to create interesting countermelodies. When analysing the chords in the right hand, speak of them modally, and in numbered scale degrees (Bb is the tonic, or 1, Cb is the 2nd etc). In bar 36 the first chord is Cb/F/Bb so analyse this as the 2nd, 5th, and tonic. The second chord is Ab/Db/Gb, abstracted as the 7th, 3rd, and 6th. The motion is of parallel fourths, a simple way for the hand to move as it retains the same shape. The next chord is Cb/F/Ab, or the 2nd, 5th, and 7th degrees, forming a second inversion triad (F diminished). Once again, it has been achieved by a small shift in the basic hand position. Notice the following five chords are all second inversion triads travelling in parallel. The entire A section never leaves the phrygian scale. 

The (B) section of Habanera (bar 53) is not a habanera any more. The world has suddenly and inexplicably whirled out of control. The circus has come to town. There is a riotous party where noise and joy overrides logic. This is reflected harmonically. The bassline maintains the shape of the opening section but has morphed to 6/8 and begins to rise chromatically, leaving the mode for the first time. The melody is slippery and chromatic, and occasionally at a rhythmic crosspurpose with the piano. In bar 57 the dotted quavers give an even four over the pulse of six in the bass. In bar 61 the tension breaks and the opening idea comes back. The shape of the bassline is played in counterpoint by all three parts. This is a three time repeat with each successive wave becoming more exuberant. The challenge is to sound barely in control, when in fact there is complete mastery. The music is the kite and it is windy but you have the string. 

The second time bar is in 7/4. The bassline in fourths gives an epic quality. The right hand is the foreground melody, playing with the shape of the bassline. The trill should be rapid, disturbing the air, providing emotion. This section acts as a bridge for the recapitulation of the A section (bar 72). 

The piano R.H shadows the saxophone melody until the final crashing chords of the coda (bar 87). Here are six note chords travelling in parallel motion along the contour of the bassline. These are bitonal with two sets of fourths stacked at various intervals apart. The first chords in bar 92 are an octave and a major seventh apart. The piece ends with a V-I motion in the bass and a Bb major triad, a tiers de picardie, where a piece in a minor key suddenly finishes in the parallel major key.

Groups 

Song Fwaa: The wrong band for the right people

Continuum Sax: Australia’s leading sax quartet.

The Fantastic Terrific Munkle: quirky and very cool group.

Musicians

David Reaston: Guitarist/composer

Tim Davies Big Band: Composer

Christina Leonard: Saxophonist

Nick Russionello Saxophonist

Nathan Henshaw: Saxophonist

Barry Cockroft: saxophonist

Michael Duke saxophonist

Organisations

Australian Music Centre: Represents Australian composers

National Library of Australia: All published Australian work

Jazzgroove: Record label/grassroots jazz organisation

Reed Music: Music publisher

Sydney Symphony Orchestra

Novelists

David Thomas Kay: Historical fiction