Adrian Mears - a great trombone player
Adrian Mears: een prima trombonist (Nederlands) Adrian Mears - a great trombone player (English )An extensive (but selected) Adrian Mears discography.
ADRIAN MEARS - a great trombone player.
Hans Koert
Last year the second album of the Adrian Mears New Orleans Hardbop Quintet has been released. This album is titled Birdseye View. On the album Adrian Mears, trombone player, with Domenik Landolf tenor saxophone and bass clarinet, Peter Madsen piano, Stephan Kurmann bass and Mario Gonzi drums. I learned about Adrian Mears a few years ago, thanks to his first New Orleans Hardbop album, titled Jump On In which surprised me. I reviewed it one and a half year ago in a contribution titled: Adrian Mears.
Adrian Mears ( photo courtesy: Rolf Frei) The album, which has the same, easily recognizable funny cover design, is the second one of this band, which is in fact his regular concert band, to play in venues all around Switserland, Austria and Germany. He loves to created the live atmosphere, so typically for the performances with this "working band", the quintet which grows and changes throughout the years. 
Adrian Mears was born in Newcastle, Australia in 1969 and learned to play trombone at the Sydney Conservatory. He performed in the late 1980s with visiting US jazz man like Don Pullen and got an opportunity to study in the US with some great trombone players like Steve Turre, Slide Hampton and Conrad Herwig. Back in Australia he won several awards and in the 1990s he settled in Europe to give trombone lessons on conservatories in Cologne and Basel. Seven years ago he toured with the Vienna Art Orchestra and became a member of it. Now he is a celebrated trombone player, appreciated for his playing on this hard to handle instrument. (Adrian Mears (16 June 2007))
f.l.t.r: Peter Madsen, Mario Gonzi and Adrian Mears
All tracks on the album are composed by Adrian Mears, some in rather unconventional time-signatures, like Children At Play and Today Is The Day, both 7/4 compositions. The first track, Riding East, starts in a rather uncommon 9/4 time signature, a groove, that remembers me to the 1960s Blue Note recordings, to change halfway into a 3/4 piano solo. For most experienced jazz lovers, I think, this kind of unusual time-signatures make the music surprising and exciting. It remembers me to the concert I heard with the Dutch Pierre Courbous Vijfkwarts Sextet (what's in a name) at the Porgy en Bess Jazzclub in Terneuzen ( in the southwest part of The Netherlands) november 2008. In Joe's Fantasy Adrian tributes Joe Henderson's composition Inner Urge, which was recorded by Joe with his quartet in November 1964 as the title song for a Blue Note album.
Adrian Mears ( photo courtesy Rolf Frei)
In The Poor Man Adrian Mears proves that he is a great composer. This piece was composed in 2006 as a project to be performed by a large choir, a chamber orchestra, a church organ and a jazz ensemble. It was released on the Mears Music label as Between Two Worlds. This Poor Man starts with a great bass clarinet intro played by Dominik Landolf.
Domenik (or Domenic) Landolf and Stephan KurmannAdrian Mears has been developed as one of my favourite trombone players. After I listened to his first New Orleans Hardbop record I found one of his previous issues All For One, released by Enja in 1999, with his quartet (four tracks) and his 10 piece Australian Composers Ensemble, a group of European musicians that play Australian compositions: Australia of course, because it's his motherland! Adrian plays the Didgeridoo too on that album. These 10 years old recordings are great too and I love to recommend Adrian Mears great trombone. Love to finish with a small fragment I found by the Adrian Mears New Orleans Hardbop. Although the sound is rather moderate, I hope you like it.
It's a pity, that Adrian Mears website isn't up to date, so I can't inform you now where or when his New Orleans Hardbop Quintet will be performing in the near future.
Adrian Mears New Orleans Hardbop - Birdseye View ( TCB 28103)
Hans Koert - keepswinging@live.nl
AN EXTENSIVE (BUT SELECTIVE) ADRIAN MEARS DISCOGRAPHY:
Hans Koert
=BABAMADU - "Bitama" ENJA Records (May 1995)
=Lungau Big Band - Live at Montreux. Austro Mechana (Jul 1999)
=Vienna Art Orchestra - European suite ( TCB) Nov. 2000
=Carlo Mombelli
& the prisoners of strange - Bats in the Belfry (Baobab Art Records, South Africa). =Johannes Faber Consortium - No Coincidence ( Mons) May 2001
=TROMBONEFIRE "Sliding Affairs" Laika records (3510146.2)
=Vienna Art Orchestra "Sound of Loisium" (Loisium) ( June 2003)
=Vienna Art Orchestra "Big Band Poesie" EmArcy ( Aug 2004)
=Straight six - Live At Birdland - Neuburg (Alessa) May 2005
Hans Koert - keepswinging@live.nl
Some more interesting (trombone) links, you should have visit:
Trombone Panorama Giants of Jazz - Heavenly Music Aurex Jazz All-Stars Frank Rosolino - Trombone Player Sounds from the Heart - Danilo Brito Oscar Aleman Choro Music Flexible Records Hit of the Week-Durium Keep Swinging News letter Keep Swinging Contributions
Labels: adrian mears, new orleans hardbop
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