FROCK
JAZZ. AUSTRALIAN. ORIGINAL
Charts
The Doyen
Adam Starr, 2010
This piece was written for my friend Steve Peskoff, a wonderful person and guitarist. It was first performed by me and Steve in Jerusalem in 2010. The A section is in different metres and has a nursery rhyme kind of melody. The melody for the B section is based on a 5/8 clave I came up with; it's a two bar pattern.
Hope you like it!
Leo
Anthony Schulz, 2008
Written in 2006, Leo is one of a number of works that I wrote as a response to my love of German and Russian literature. This particular piece is inspired by the opening passage in Dostoevsky's "The Idiot". The scene is set as a train makes its way into St Petersburg from Switzerland. Prince Myshkin and Rogozhin meet for the first time and embark on a complex and ultimately tragic journey.
Russian Cutlet
Simon Starr, 2000
This piece was inspired by a number of major influences. First and foremost, the wonderful titular dish served at my favourite restaurant, the dearly departed Scheherazade in Acland Street St.Kilda. I grew up going there with my parents, proposed to my wife there, took my children there, and unfortunately it is no longer in Acland Street. The Russian Cutlet was a wonder of Old World flavours from Eastern Europe, where part of my family comes from. It was a constant and fond reminder of the food my grandmother ( still alive) made when the whole family would go to her place for dinner on Friday nights.
Another major set of influences were the two big pop artists of serious jazz, Duke Ellington and Joe Zawinul. I loved how they added sophistication to the simplest ideas and then rammed them home repeatedly to leave them in the listener's ears. When writing this tune, I was aspiring to bring more people to Frock shows, and thought this a possible 'hit', which in its own extremely modest way for an underground uncategorisable world/jazz ensemble featuring accordion and vibraphone in Melbourne, Australia, it became.
The Plan
Anthony Schulz, 2000
Written sometime around the year 2000, The Plan is my musical comment on the way that we organize our lives and how more often than not, life takes its own course. The Plan is about life’s ever constant reminders to let go.
Someone Before
Craig Beard, 1986
After spending time away from my instrument, the vibraphone, I always tend to write something almost straight away when I get back from holidays. Someone Before came from one of those times. The piece basically wrote itself from the opening vamp to the 3/4 ending.
As with a lot of my tunes I don't think too much about form and the guys in the band complain about my odd number of bars such as the 23 bar head and 13 bar solo repeat form. The piece is titled for one of my besties who I have known longer than most of my friends, over 30 years, Judi Mitchell. As the title suggests there's always Someone Before.........
Discount City
Adam Starr 1996
I wrote this just after my VCA student experience. Frock had just formed and this piece evolved while practising a diminished scale. The piece holds a special nostalgic place in my heart, for a few reasons: because I remember rehearsing it and how tricky the band found the 11/8 bar at the time; because of the great excitement in the studio when we recorded it; because it was chosen for a compilation release for the Montreux Jazz Off Festival a few years later.
Then I start thinking about that tour, the festival, the croissants, getting to really know the guys in the band, climbing up a mountain and actually hearing cowbells (on a herd of cows that materialised out of the fog), water skiing in Veve, checking out the Musee de Brut in Lausanne (awesome). And that was just the Swiss leg of the tour!