Paul Zetter – Drifting on a Reed

I’m not a big fan of small group jazz in opera houses, the details of bass and drums inevitably get lost in the mix of a hall designed for orchestra. This happened on the uptempo numbers like Market Day, Rice Drum which intensified into slightly uncomfortable maelstroms that did no justice to the fine musicianship of Aman and Dernevik. It felt a bit like when inexperienced teams all chase the ball in a football match instead of holding their positions to ensure organization. I wanted more variety and diversity of tone and this they brought to great effect on the slower soulful numbers like A Oi and To Request The Queen, two re-harmonized Vietnamese songs that oozed feeling and emotional depth. Nilsson’s bluesy lines stretched the furthest outreaches of the song’s harmony  and peaked and troughed beautifully, his reverb infected tone cutting through the Opera House’s orchestral acoustics. He’s a complex musician too and is not afraid to apply all the vocabulary of the guitar to his brand of jazz. Whether it’s chunky chords, picked arpeggios or rangy single line runs, you can hear he’s a fellow jazz explorer like Dac.

A beautiful surprise came on the almost stiff and unswinging straight four crotchet beat of Southern Moments by Dac that gradually wins you over with its catchy momentum. The day before, taking pictures for this article at their rehearsal at Minh’s Jazz club I overheard Dac say to the rest of the band that he currently had a great reed on his soprano and in Moments you could hear it. His solo soared and swayed against the ungainly beat as if he was an alchemist at work. As intensity grew, the sound of his soprano took on an ethereal tone and for five minutes he was beautifully lost in his own world, gliding and drifting through the clouds in the upper register of the instrument which in lesser hands can sound squeaky but in his found full-bodied flight. There’s nothing quite so special as hearing and seeing a musican lost in flight.

Ending with a beautifully elegant bass led Beo Dat May Troi and then a drum feature, we were reminded how Dernevik and Aman are the quiet heroes of this band – always attentive and ready to make musical conversation, I wanted to hear more bass solos and more guitar and sax interaction with the drums to explore the light and shade.  Dac has the tendency to go into technique overdrive at the peak of his solos, running so fast he can leave others behind if unrestrained. Interestingly Nilsson, on this night at least, was the opposite and I felt that he was holding back and maybe even a bit distracted.  But if that’s how he plays when he’s not on tiptop form, look out!

I felt this was an important night for jazz in Vietnam. Helped by some of the country’s old friends, the Swedes, whose jazz heritage is bluechip, I’m excited to see this partnership deepen and bear more fruit. Quyen Thien Dac is just the right person to weave the complex threads of his vision together and his three Swedish cohorts, just the right people to be his companions.  I highly recommend their accompanying CD, A Oi.