Starr’s back, and all that jazz
IT didn’t take long for Aussie expat musician Simon Starr to fall in love with Israel’s jazz scene, which he describes as a passionate, innovative beast.
So it’s fitting really that the Jerusalem-based double bass player is on his way back to where it all began to bring the beast Down Under.
After cutting his teeth at the Victorian College of the Arts in the early ’90s, Starr studied in New York with renowned bassist Dave Holland before releasing six albums with jazz quintet FROCK; all the while teaching, composing, touring and working as a session musician.
But after leaving Australia mid-2009, the 40-year-old was swept off his feet by the Israeli jazz scene.
“The level of musicianship and uninhibited self-expression … I’m blown away by it,” Starr tells The AJN by phone from Israel.
“Something new is coming out of here and it’s bloody amazing. It’s just a matter of time before some of these players break through on a much higher level. They are relentless. They work hard and they are great.”
Starr is returning to Australia for the International Jazz Festival as part of a quartet headed by Israeli saxophonist Eli Degibri, once heralded as a “rare find” by jazz luminary Herbie Hancock.
“[Eli] is very, very, very passionate without being crazy,” says Starr.
“It’s a fine line to toe as a jazz soloist. His language is articulate, but also very convincing.”
Starr ruminates on jazz as a language, describing the bonds that develop between experienced musicians when they can read one another and act on instinct.
“There’s a tremendous amount of trust involved and there’s also an openness each time you play this type of music. Part of it is to see how we can reinvent it every time and restate the same things when we say ‘I love you, I love the ensemble, I love the audience’.”
“It’s a complete mind, body and soul experience and often that means a one-and-a-half hour performance can feel like five minutes because you are so involved by every nanosecond,” he adds.
On his own band, Starr is reluctant to define FROCK’s style, or his own for that matter.
“I wouldn’t say I am funk or jazz … but any style I like to play with a jazz feeling, which is the language of surprise.”
“It is about making your feelings accessible to the audience,” he says, citing Louis Armstrong as a great influence.
“He inspires me with his incredible passion and what, at that time, was cutting-edge technique. He had a great message to spread to the world and he had a great way to spread it.”
Between performing, eating some decent Asian food and going to the footy, Starr will be launching FROCK’s seventh album in Melbourne next month. “
[FROCK] is my favourite musical experience. It’s the only band I’ve been in that’s lasted that long. When I talk about communication and responding with the Eli Degibri group, multiply that by 17 years. It is really telepathic, the rapport in that band is something I treasure greatly.”
Enquiries: www.melbournejazz.com
REPORT by Livia Albeck-Ripka
PHOTO of Melbourne bassist Simon Starr
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