The John Butler Trio Living 2001–2002 2-CD set, Jarrah Records, JBT 004, rrp $29.95
This is John Butler’s fourth release, on his own Jarrah label, and is a compilation of live tracks that make you envy those audiences.
Listening to Butler’s fiery playing on a range of guitar types and styles, you are forced to reflect on the extraordinary potential of three instruments: guitar, bass and drums. Three basic instruments can sound, in these master hands, like smoky-simple blues that hark straight back to Robert Johnson and the Delta. Or again, complex layered impromptus that recall Cream at its most oceanic, most monumentally symphonic. Then there is more contemporary legato electric wailing that floats over deep acoustic bass punctuated by bongo staccato. Butler’s voice is baritone, but clean and flexible with a Hendrix darkness. His vocal obbligati have a lyricism that rivals the counter-tenor keening of the late Jeff Buckley. The Trio are very Australian, with lyrics that are strongly political, with a bolshie load of pro-conservation, refugee, reconciliation baggage that never weighs the music down. If you were wondering who was going to fill the gaping hole left in Australian music by Midnight Oil’s retirement, here is one answer.
Juliette Hughes
Stephanie McCallum, The Liszt Album. ABC Classics ABC 472 763-2, rrp $29.95
McCallum is a pianist of formidable technique and musicality. Yet Liszt’s fireworks can seem strangely thin at times, and that is puzzling. Is it that the melodious nature of his improvisations is too sweet for a 21st-century ear? Or are we so jaded that we can’t cope with a bit of sheer 19th century? Horowitz and Gould have trodden the same measure without making one uneasy, but perhaps it is almost impossible for a young player to do ‘On Wings of Song’ today without invoking the memory of it muzaked in lifts and supermarkets. McCallum—whose career overseas was notable before she returned to join the permanent teaching staff at Sydney Conservatorium—does negotiate Liszt’s rapids with great fluency, making it all sound so easy. Sometimes it comes with layered surprises: McCallum’s reading of Liszt’s reading of Schubert’s ‘Auf dem Wasser zu singen’ is an example of how far one can travel. The CD is good value: over 78 minutes of terrific playing. This is absolutely a CD to play when you’re having the in-laws to dinner. It goes with Double Bay dining rooms stocked with Riedel goblets and serious large white