MT3- NEARNESS LIVE It was a hot July in Brooklyn, 2010, when I got the call from saxman Hayden Chisholm that he was to be setting up a session in the legendary Systems Two studio in Brooklyn. And it was only hours later when a fax came in from the playful drum cub Rueckert, warning me that it wasn’t just swing jazz on the agenda and that I had “maybe wanna bring a magazine or some ear plugs for the funky stuff”. While I had known the playing of Chisholm well from my years of following the groove and swing merchants of the Teutonic-Kiwi icons “Root70” and I had come to expect the unexpected when Chisholm is on the play card. This is an alto player who, apart from the continuously playful use of sexual innuendo in his titles, is anything but predictable. A quick phone call to Chisholm and the whole thing was cleared up. A deep resonant chuckle echoed through the headpiece when I mentioned the fax of Rueckert- “Jochen doesn’t dig my groove pieces? Why I was just at the Nublu Club last night and he was grooving in 4/4 time at 120 bpm the whole night- what’s so wrong with that?” Chisholm went on to explain that he had already cut some swing sides with the hot rhythm duo and wanted to add in some more tracks with a more “New York” feel to them. He said he’d spent some time in Brighton Beach to acclimatize to the city tempo and was ready to deliver some solos with a “harder, more post 9/11 urban feel” to them. The groove stuff, he mentioned, was what his producer back home in Berlin wanted and as this guy was bankrolling the session this time round, “you gotta do what you gotta do, Ahmet”. I wanted all the same to take in the full session as it was intriguing for a jazz critic like myself to hear how Chisholm worked as a band leader. I’d known the alto wizard purely in his well oiled position as a counterpart and dexterous antithesis to the gloriously trombone of Wogram. As a leader of this stripped-down swing machine I was yet to taste his cooking. Right of the bat he didn’t have it easy. I arrived slightly late on a viscously hot July day in Brooklyn and Chisholm had elected to “get the funky stuff outa the way so we can hit the jazz hard”. I could tell that Rückert and Chisholm wouldn’t be writing their respective Christmas cards to each other today. The playful drummer was reading Harpers magazine and munching bananas whilst playing Chisholm’s 4/4 groove program and he didn’t seem impressed- his post-take comments, all engraved to tape, were a tribute in the richness of German profanities- I couldn’t understand them all but I could certainly feel them resonate in the beautiful wooden chamber of Systems Two. The engineers weren’t sure what to make of drummers tirades but Chisholm and bassist Penman, the eternally kool kiwis, seemed to take it in their stride as they cut track after track of the African-sounding bass and drum grooves to the spinning tape machine. When I later pressed Rückert for an explanation for his foul mood, he mentioned something about Chishom being “a huge Kant when it comes to the philosophy and epistemology of 4/4 and groove.” But the young cub on drums was soon to fire when Chisholm made the call to switch to swing and dot them leading quavers. It felt like someone had just switched the band on and I could feel this is their element- this is where the boys are at home and Mom’s cooking is steamin’ and ready on the hearth. The lads had set up close together, no headphones were in the mix, and the band was as tight as any outing I’d heard since I’d last witnessed their jazz engines purring during the “Listen to your Woman” recording. There was a different kind of freedom in the air today- without a chart in sight, Chisholm was obviously joining the illustrious tradition in jazz of simply making his own melodies over our rich song canon. It was the first time I had heard these seasoned touring machines hang out their chops on standard AABA forms and I was impressed with the amount of heart and spleen that came out on these tunes. I could quickly make out a high level of telepathy in which the tiniest rhythmic impulses of the drum cub are immediately woven into the melodic lines of Chisholm. The constant interplay which often transgresses the 4’s and 8’s of the song forms is pure joy to experience. So this is where these guys come from? They may sport hard- edged German and New Zealand accents but their souls are rooted here where jazz was born. Uptown. Downtown. Midtown. Groovetown. Kiwitown. Systems Two studios today bore the scent of virile racehorses and smoky jazz- I felt right at home. Whether the original changes were based on songs like “Yesterdays” or “Just Friends”, Chisholm’s unique voice on the alto managed to dig out new diamonds in the songs’ quarries. This man digs deep. With each and every breath his whole being is absorbed in wrestling the melodic treasure out of the form. Playful as ever, how could I be surprised when the saxist elected to reverse the standard “There will never be another You” and simply play the whole thing backwards, changes and all. At this point Rückert seemed to be eating less bananas and leaving the Harpers to rest in his cymbal bag. The trio was burning hot making the day outside seem like the Omsk fairground in December. Before I could scribble down the last track names the band was packed, paid, and already off to their next midtown engagements. It was now Chisholm’s job to remove the last tapes, pack them into his gig bags, and head back to the Brooklyn bridge to play his reversed standards until deep in the night. Ahmet Schabo, NYC 2012