The Necks
Drive By

In the history of Jazz, it is often said that, at turning points, passionate listeners would say "there's someone playing in a new way" and would rush to listen to them, wherever they were. This happened with Louis Armstrong, who innovated with West End Blues (1929) in New Orleans Jazz. And also with Duke Ellington's orchestras. Then with Charlie Parker's Bebop. With The Birth of Cool by Miles Davis. And again with Coltrane's Olé. And again with the Nordic Jazz of Garbarek. But there are many turning points. There are various ways, not incompatible, to play Jazz: with the Standards (and one can do it admirably like the Trio of Keith Jarrett), with tradition (as Winton Marsalis continues to do with admirable coherence), with reworking Pop (in Italy I remember Danilo Rea and the Doctor 3). And still others. But today the new frontier is being crossed by the Necks, an Australian group that has been working for 15 years and is pursuing a unique musical project with determined coherence. The Necks have some forerunners, but few imitators. Theirs is Minimal Jazz, it's Post-Jazz, it's Post-Everything, as Geoff Dyer says about them in his article.

Drive By is a unique piece of about 60 minutes. A musical sculpture supported by the sonic carpet of Tony Buck's drums. I don't recall any other drumming of such great skill for precision and rhythm. The music seems to belong to the genre of minimalism. But it is not only that: it is constantly traversed by other sonic inserts. Like children's voices, night flashes, acoustic tolls, double bass harmonies. The recursiveness and sometimes monotony of minimalism here is enlivened by improvisation.

The music progresses through subtraction and extension. Sometimes Tony Buck is left alone to keep the work (because it is a great work of art!), but then the interplay resumes. Impossible not to be hypnotized by this music. Perhaps, without particular therapeutic intentions, the Necks intercept brain waves. This sound experience concludes finally with a starry night where crickets sing. Endings are as important as entries. But here we are at the maximum. These are 10 seconds of real magic. Anyone who loves not only to listen to music but to enter an experiential musical space should not miss the Necks and can start with Drive By. But then seek all their other records. Listen to them: it is an extraordinary musical experience. It feels like being in a space made of notes. Or better, as Dyer says, "it is music that contains the space it crosses".

You can read the my Album about the Necks, and also a beautiful review by Alfredo Rastelli.