David Jones Trio Press Reviews

Intuition was CD of the Week in The Melbourne Age Green Guide
27 July, 2000. CD OF THE WEEK
David Jones Trio: INTUITION (independent release)
Has a title ever been more apt? On this double-disc release, you have three extraordinary musicians in the awesomely talented drummer David Jones, pianist Bob Sedergreen and bassist Evripides Evripidou feeling their way through free improvisations. This music might cross genres, but if the best jazz draws its power from the process of tearing down and rebuilding without knowing what the finished result will look like, this is right up there. As a listener you don't know what's going to happen next, and nor do they. Most of this was recorded live for a studio audience in Melbourne last April. All except for the jaw-dropping track on the second disc, Destiny, recorded at Bennett's Lane last year. That little number has 18 minutes built around a shimmering bass solo where Evripidou seems to transform the instrument into something approaching a flamenco guitar.

But one of the qualities that makes this such extraordinary listening is the audience participation. The hand claps and vocals is risky stuff, but when the audience catches on to the idea, and the music surfs across the beat they create, the mood turns electric. As for Jones, it's not just the complicated shifts in feel and constant cross-rhythms but the sheer musicality. The interaction between him and the audience on Combustion and the way he sets up the haunting feel with the bells on Soft are among the standouts. Any performance with Sedergreen comes loaded with wit and fire. But the synths here create the extra colors. (Available at Discurio, Basement Discs and Relevation Musique or can be ordered at www.davidjonesdrums.com.au)

Leon Gettler The Melbourne Age Green Guide of December 2000
Green Guide's music reviewers select their top CDs of 2000.
Intuition - David Jones (Independent Release)
An extraordinary double-disc release featuring the freakish local drummer, pianist Bob Sedergreen and bassist Evripides Evripidou. But some of the biggest stars are the members of the audience on this release, recorded live last April. Jones works on the audience participation which makes it risky stuff. But if the best jazz is about never knowing what the finished result is going to look like, this is right up there.

The Australian Financial Review
20 January 2001
Shane Nichols
As a top drummer, David Jones's phone never stops. But when this brilliant musician is out for himself, like he is here with his trio, the performance is a group thing, and that includes the audience. You may never see a jazz musician engage an audience so quickly and naturally as Jones does; he's disarming in demeanour but daunting and dazzling in his drum mastery. So it's natural that the band should be recorded live in the studio in front of an audience. Its method is to improvise afresh each time, but it does work off agreed structures and marker points.

This is a supergroup: as well as Jones's spectacular drumming there is Evripides Evripidou, whose effects-laden electric bass is often used for an orchestral effect; and there's Bob Sedergreen, the keyboard veteran. Virtuosity is interesting only so far; it must be made to work. Despite its double-album length there is no dead space here, the music ranging from serene orchestral washes to fiery, exciting improvisational interplay. (From specialists or www.davidjonesdrums.com.au)

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