Tim Stevens Trio

A bit of a tricky one tonight. The trickiest so far. How on earth is a girl supposed to choose between Tim Stevens Trio, Mark Isaacs Resurgence Band, Allan Browne's Drunken Boat and Joe Chindamo and James Muller. Not fair, Stonnington! In the end I opted for Tim Stevens Trio followed by Joe and James. And I managed a bonus bar or six of Mark Isaacs as well! I wanted to hear Allan Browne's Quintet too but the cloning hasn't quite kicked in yet...

Tim's trio was at Chapel off Chapel. We're talking Dave Beck (drums), Ben Robertson (bass) [newly wedded, we were informed by Mr Stephens] and his nibs on the piano. Tunes were from Mickets - the recent CD by the trio.

After the gig, I walked up to the stage, tripped over a foldback and asked Tim about the second last and last songs. We got distracted by a conversation about the last one so I never heard the name of the second last one... and when I got home there was an email from Tim, following up. Here's the track list he sent me: No it’s not, ...the body desolate as a staircase, Rufus redux, Our little systems, Sly-pie, Encore: chaser What a good egg is Tim! Thank you!

I love Tim's music, and I've been hearing these tunes around the place a bit recently because of the new CD. The live experience tops it CDs and radio though. Every time. You get to see what's going on for the musicians as well as sharing a space with the music as it's happening. Says she, stating the obvious... The trio's music had (has) a transporting quality - not fiercely dragging you down the road with it - but taking you by the hand and leading you there.

Trouble was [due to things that had happened in my work day] tonight I needed a kick in the bum and I got something like it towards the end of the set, as Tim noted during one of his chats with us between songs. Just when you're starting to have fun, it's time to go. The last tune he described as a silly little encorey thing - but it was great!

Interesting seeing Dave Beck tonight. This band is a bit of a contrast to the Lost and Found group (Grabowsky, Oehlers, Beck) that I heard at Melbourne Jazz. I felt like Dave wanted to make more noise. It seemed to me that he was restrained, and only really let go in that last song. I could imagine him running home after the gig and belting the sh*t out of his drum kit for a while, to let it all out.