Steve Barry - In the Waves (2023)

Sydney based pianist Steve Barry’s latest release, In the Waves, features celebrated drummer Eric Harland, saxophonist Will Vinson and bassist Tom Botting, in a compelling collection of original virtuosic modern jazz. Born out of a pandemic-inspired reconnection with ocean swimming, the album’s eight tracks keep the physical and philosophical qualities of water as a common thread. Equal parts reflective, bubbling and free-flowing, In the Waves is an emphatic statement from "one of Australia’s most inventive composer/improvisers" (Loudmouth).

Barry’s output has a chameleonic quality in its traversal between genre; recent projects include the Hammond organ trio Green Thumbs, the avant-garde Blueprints & Vignettes, an album of free improvisations with koto player Michiyo Yagi, and a chamber work for pioneering new music group Ensemble Offspring.

With In the Waves Barry marks a further cycle back to the modern jazz roots heard most recently with his Japanese trio Polyglot - described by luminary pianist Mike Nock as “stunning…the cutting edge of jazz today”. Composed largely during Sydney’s four-month Covid lockdown, the album’s 8 tracks keep the physical and philosophical qualities of water as a common thread; the title track evokes the feeling being powerlessly tossed around by the ocean, and others reflect on the nature of water to work it’s way past obstacles, or of solids that become more liquid and thus more agile under pressure - apt metaphors for the trials and triumphs of the last few years of the pandemic. The music showcases Barry’s trademark “harmonic adventurousness and non-bombastic sense of drama” (SMH) throughout, from the spiralling triplets of First 11 and Tug lightly to the glistening opening chords of Half Moon Lights.

Bringing the music to life are a stellar cast of local and international players. Drummer Eric Harland is one of the most acclaimed and prolific artists of his generation, best known for his work with contemporary pioneers such as Charles Lloyd, Terence Blanchard and Kurt Rosenwinkel, and as a go-to sideman for countless contemporary groups.

Long based in New York, the city’s 2020 Covid lockdown saw saxophonist Will Vinson and partner Jo Lawry return with their daughter and son-on-the-way to Lawry’s native Adelaide. Now living in Sydney, Vinson has been described as “a marvel of textural beauty and musicality” (All About Jazz) who “challenges the notion of how jazz is defined in this era" (Downbeat). Barry’s fellow kiwi expatriate, award-winning composer, bassist and renowned beer brewer Thomas Botting completes the ensemble in continuation of a now decade-long musical partnership.

Barry discusses his choice of personnel: “Will and Eric have been constant threads across many of my favourite records, so I’m thrilled to have had the chance to get them together in the studio to play this music. Will demonstrates his trademark lyricism throughout, navigating my occasionally indecipherable chord symbols with the same poetic ease I hear in his own prolific output. The title of this record is also a fitting description for how it feels playing with Eric – a bubbling momentum like riding the crest of a wave: being held up, driven forwards, and sitting on the precipice all at the same time. As one of my oldest musical comrades Tom is the vital glue that brings it all together, with the hook up between him and Eric on clear display throughout the record, especially on On Dirt and Alchemy.”

Recorded in mostly first takes over a day at Free Energy Device Studios - a common birthplace of much Sydney jazz - In the Waves offers a daring, multi-faceted take on the genre. Barry’s adventurous compositional ear and background in 20th century classicism is on clear display, deftly balancing an obvious fluency in the jazz vernacular - a folk-like melodicism rings clearly through - with a restless inclination towards chromatic spices and flirtations with the chaotic.

It’s a compelling collection from a pianist described as “one of Australia’s most inventive and accomplished composer/improvisers” (LoudMouth), and one that sets a further landmark in Barry’s evident pursuit of new interpretations of the label “modern jazz”.