Resonate Magazine | Australian Music Centre

Image: Mark Isaacs  

I've come to realise that my different activities in music - ostensibly revolving around the intersecting dichotomies of classical/jazz and composer/pianist - lie on a spectrum defined by their deployment of clock time versus imaginary time.

When composing, the imaginary time I inhabit means that I can write the third movement of my cello concerto before the first, I can take three weeks to compose three minutes of music and I can reverse the arrow of time and watch the music de-compose before my eyes as I screw up rejected pages. Being in imaginary time, rather than clock time, benefits particular areas of music-making: counterpoint, formal design and concoctions of instrumental colour come to mind.

Creating music in real time as a performer has its own strong cards, for example rhythmic and pitch subtleties that can't be readily notated, and all the opportunities arising from a sensitivity to the present moment and space. The role of improvisation in performance is simply a matter of degree. All performers make decisions in real time, and in that sense all are improvisers in some way, and certainly the primary part of what they do unfolds in clock time. This kind of virtual time/clock time dynamic is similarly played out in terms of emphasis across the classical/jazz divide as well the composer/performer one.

There are other areas of focus in music-making where this clock distinction is borne out. It's inherent in the difference between a live and a studio recording. And it's germane to the whole business of preparing music through practice and rehearsal, and to the process of programming repertoire. In the recording studio, rehearsal studio, practice room - and when deciding on repertoire or drawing up a set list - the performer too can work within something like the imaginary time of the composer.

A lot of my projects are at the extremes of this clock time/imaginary time spectrum. When I compose an orchestral work, I have maximal imaginary time. When I perform an entirely extemporised solo piano recital, the music's realisation maps to the clock as fully as it ever could. These extremes can in turn be moderated: a studio recording of a series of solo piano extemporisations allows more imaginary time than the recital since takes can be discarded or re-ordered.

I enjoy all these polarities and increments for their own sake. I like going to the extremes or having a lopsided bias toward one end or the other at different times in my work. All the models instantly create a framework that has its own characteristic ethos and that's a very liberating place to begin.

The Mark Isaacs Resurgence Band
back: Brett Hirst, Tim Firth, Matt Keegan, James Muller; front: Mark Isaacs.

The thing about the Resurgence project is that it seems to sit exactly at the centre, and from there it encompasses the whole spectrum: through-composition and free improvisation, the freest rubato and the tightest of pulse, studio recording and live recording, touring band and studio band, intensely-rehearsed passages and unrehearsed passages. It's all over the clock.

Concomitantly, it's also my most varied project in terms of subsumed genres, containing elements of jazz, classical, R&B, soul, gospel, Latin, blues, ambient and rock. It's simultaneously an acoustic and electric band both in instrumentation and sound world. Its dynamic range is singularly wide, from passages revolving around nothing more than isolated, monophonic, high ppp solo piano notes to densely drawn, electric guitar-driven rock.

The Resurgence project is so flexible because of the players I chose - all able to improvise freely in a wide range of genres but also capable of executing and interpreting complex notated music - and the nature of the instrumentation itself. Piano-based solos, duos and trios in jazz are great for spontaneous combustions in clock time, but I have never been that interested in preparing the way by composing much for them. There's the lack of instrumental variety and the fact that the piano is generally the main voice. Part of my joy in composing is hearing other instrumentalists play my melodies, and in my solo piano jazz spots and the trios I have therefore either improvised freely or interpreted the melodies of others.

In 1997 I formed a quartet and began to compose more seriously for it. The quartet recorded a CD On Reflection with guitarist James Muller as guest artist on one track only. I soon realised that the quintet format opened up many more possibilities by having both guitar and saxophone out the front. James Muller himself encapsulated the sort of freedom I was after: a consummate improviser who could beautifully interpret a written melody or passagework, making for a continuing collaboration between us of nearly fifteen years and five recordings.

In 2000 I released the quintet recording Closer internationally on Naxos with the On Reflection quartet plus James Muller. This quintet was really the forerunner to the Resurgence project, obviously in instrumentation but also in aesthetic. I realised that five players was the fulcrum on the axis. Not only were smaller groups less conducive to imaginary-time pre-composition, but ensembles larger than five reduced opportunities for clock-time improvisational flexibility. The quintet was the sweet spot.

The first Resurgence release was a studio recording by a non-working band tackling the repertoire for the first time. James Muller and I travelled to Los Angeles and recorded Resurgence after one rehearsal with some heavyweight American players that we'd never played with before in that configuration. I formed the all-Australian Mark Isaacs Resurgence Band to tour in the wake of that release and immediately wrote a new repertoire for it so the Australian players wouldn't feel they were substituting for the Americans on the same material. As this was a working band, the material evolved on the road in the light of the performances. I'd often make changes to the arrangements on the fly (sometimes literally, bringing these ideas up when our aeroplane seatbelts clicked in before takeoff). The second release Tell It Like It Is was diametrically different to Resurgence - a live concert recording by a working band tackling repertoire frequently performed previously. The third and most recent recording, Aurora, was yet another permutation. It was a studio recording by a working band playing frequently performed repertoire (and I also included a DVD of Tell It Like It Is with the release, enabling instant comparisons of the live/studio dynamic). To go the full circle I hope to take the Resurgence Band back into the recording studio to tackle never-performed repertoire (in other words, replicating the modus operandi of the original Australian-American recording but with a working band).

All of these permutations have their own characteristics and advantages both in what they offer and in indeed what they lack. Studio recordings go right out of clock time: on two tracks of Aurora, James Muller recorded both acoustic and electric guitar tracks, and on another track Matt Keegan overdubbed shaker against his saxophone. Touring the material can refine the arrangement and energise the performance but there's something special about bringing new material into the studio - the restraint and concentration involved brings its own rewards. (Similarly, at times I've thought the very best rendition I've given of a particular classical piece was when I sight-read it for the first time, with all my antennae out for its every twist and turn and no chance of any kind of glibly familiar moves). The energy of a live recording is hard to replicate in a sustained way in a recording studio - though there can be very many glimpses of it - and releasing a studio recording after a live one (or indeed, together with it as I have done) can mean some critics and fans familiar with the live release hold it against you, apparently not feeling, as I do, that the extra polish and restraint of the studio has its own balancing beauty.

I think I have eschewed the traditional swing feel of jazz in the Resurgence project because the weight of tradition it carries did not serve my purpose. Similarly, in terms of the compositional frameworks I use in Resurgence (which in turn mandate passages of improvisation within them), I have strenuously found ways to vary - and indeed sometimes avoid - the traditional head-solos-head formal design that tends to accompany swing. I've also worked on the macro level of programming - both in recordings and performances - so that the individual pieces fit together as suites (and I even pay attention to how the key centres of each piece progress).

Between the Shores, Night Song: Part 1 and Good Tidings are wholly through-composed pieces that contain no improvised solos. The music that the saxophone and guitar play is entirely notated from beginning to end. The figurations of the accompaniments, played by the piano, double bass and drumset, are mostly improvised from a lead sheet containing the melody lines and chord symbols. This is analogous to a baroque instrumentalist improvising accompanying figurations from a figured bass. It's an important distinction, not all improvisations are 'solos' and the absence of the latter in these pieces by Resurgence is very unusual in jazz.

I have got away from solos per se by having a collective improvisation, as takes place in the coda of Bagatelle where concurrent solo lines are tossed around between the performers. In Emergence I experimented with having James Muller and Matt Keegan trading improvised solos of only 16 bars (this is more customary in jazz when it involves trading with the drums).

I don't completely avoid solos however, far from it, but I sometimes find other ways to break the paradigm. In Tell It Like It Is and For the Road all five members of the band solo but not in turn. An interlude consisting of a restatement of the head is interspersed between each solo in almost all cases. Call it my jazz take on rondo form if you will.

Another idea was to have three statements of the melody in turn, each by a different lead instrument adding its own colouration and dynamic posture to the mix. I did this in You Never Forget Love and Aurora. For some reason there seems to be an unwritten rule in jazz that you generally only get to hear a melody twice in a row. In Aurora the three melody statements are in different keys, too, each a major third apart (and the solos are based on pedal tones also a major third apart). It is surprising how little modulation at the primary level of the material - as opposed to secondary modulations within and between phrases - is used in jazz, particularly instances of presenting the same material in a different key.

In the area of counterpoint I often use written counter-melodies, and in Night Song: Part 1 and Walk a Golden Mile I used canons between the guitar and saxophone. In the former case the canon is at the unison and the half-beat, a device I learned from the Goldberg Variations.

Another device I have used is to create effectively a three-movement work proceeding attacca (without a break). I did this with Night Song: Part 1/Night Song: Part 2/Angel and Good Tidings/Emergence/Threnody. Within these triptychs I like to introduce bridging passages of freely extemporised solo piano (in the second set when it's a live performance). I see these piano improvisations as running the spectrum from the through-composed pieces, or from passages like the opening theme statement of Will-o'-the-wisp which is fully written out for both hands of the piano and has a separate life as a classical piano solo.

My approach to writing the band's material and rehearsing it has been a hybrid of my classical and jazz experiences. In terms of notation, sometimes dynamics are on the page or otherwise the band's use of dynamics arises spontaneously or might be subtly directed by me from the piano (as are the rubato passages). There are two areas in the relationship between a composer and an improvising jazz musician that have proved sensitive in the past. One is the ways in which one as composer provides a preset framework for improvised solos and the other is the question of verbal versus written direction of solos. Neither of these is contentious in classical music: you can write what you like and conductors, ensemble leaders and others give or share verbal directions as needed.

In the past I've found it odd that a jazz soloist will accept from me a highly complex harmonic structure to solo on without complaint and spend many hours practising how to negotiate the changes. That same musician may, however, think it an impingement on soloistic freedom to be asked to follow a dynamic curve in the solo. It seems incongruous as the case of a harmonic minefield is in reality much more restrictive, however there is in jazz a firm tradition of soloists following the harmonic templates of others but really none for dictates regarding dynamics (other than in written passages). In the Resurgence Band we worked that kind of thing out just fine. In Aurora Tim Firth's drum solo ends with a pianissimo entry by guitar and sax and it was necessary for me to ask that his solo end softly to accommodate this (despite the drummer tradition of ending a solo by going out with a bang!).

Similarly, nobody in the Resurgence Band seems to take issue with verbal direction in place of written direction in rehearsal. In a previous band I had charted the bass player as doing an introductory solo based over C for a piece in C minor. He played in the Dorian mode and upon hearing it I realised that something based around the blues scale would set up the melody better. So I asked him to use the blues scale and he replied 'I thought it was my solo!'. I know for a fact that had I written in the first place 'Solo - C blues scale' on his part there would have been no issue at all. The problem was with the same instruction regarding a solo being issued verbally rather than in writing. These apparent anomalies arise from different performance practice traditions.

There's certainly an intersection of performance practice traditions in the Resurgence project along with all the other intersections arising from the compositions, modes of recording, ways of deploying material and band formation. I think it's been one of the central achievements of my musical output and certainly my most substantial and concentrated opus in jazz to date.

Imaginary time: an entirely through-composed piece from the Resurgence Band (Between the Shores)

Clock time: a piece full of improvisation and solos (Homecoming)

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Resurgence discography 2007-2010

Mark Isaacs Resurgence (2007, ABC/Universal 476 6160). Mark Isaacs, piano; James Muller, electric & acoustic guitar; Bob Sheppard or Steve Tavaglione, soprano, alto & tenor saxophones; Jay Anderson, bass; Vinnie Colaiuta, drums. Walk a Golden Mile - Waltz for Melanie - Three Days of Rain - Affectionately Yours - Chaconne - Resurgence - Pentimento - Heal Thyself. Audio samples and more details.

Mark Isaacs Resurgence Band Tell It Like It Is (2009, ABC/Universal 270 3869). Mark Isaacs, piano; James Muller, guitar; Matt Keegan, soprano & tenor saxophones; Brett Hirst, bass; Tim Firth, drums. Minsk - You Never Forget Love - Homecoming - Night Song: Part 1 - Night Song: Part 2 - Angel - Tell It Like It Is - Between the Shores. Audio samples and more details.

Mark Isaacs Resurgence Band Aurora (2010, Gracemusic/MGM GR003, includes Bonus DVD of Tell It Like It Is). Mark Isaacs, piano; James Muller, electric & acoustic guitars; Matt Keegan, soprano & tenor saxophones, shaker; Brett Hirst, bass; Tim Firth, drums. Will-o'-the-wisp - Good Tidings - Emergence - Threnody - For the Road - Bagatelle - Aurora. More details.

AMC resources

Mark Isaacs - AMC profile
'Musicians do different things - end of story' - article by Mark Isaacs on Resonate (12 September 2008)

Further links

Mark Isaacs - www.markisaacs.com