reviews

THE UMBRELLAS

Starfish Club, Clovelly Bowling Club, October 6

Sydney Morning Herald, Wednasday 8th October 2004

Reviewed by John Shand

No need for deflection when humour rains down on music
Humour, that ultimate good-time hybrid of the intellect and the emotions, has been a vital part of all the arts, bar music.

Precious few composers have succeeded in being amusing without the aid of lyrics. To the shortlist of those who have from Mozart to Nino Rota and Frank Zappa add Peter Dasent.

For 18 years Dasent has led a band called the Umbrellas, a name which always struck me as having more to do with the surrealism of Magritte than a reference to fallible contraptions for deflecting rain.

That waft of surrealism also invades Dasent's titles and the band's music, which here was drawn from the last album, Bravo Nino Rota, as well as new pieces by Dasent for a forthcoming recording.

Rota was the composer for the films of Federico Fellini from 1952 to 1979, and it is impossible to think of those remarkable cinematic works without the effervescent scores also bubbling up into the consciousness. All Fellini's affection and contempt for his subjects, his zaniness and his satire find an aural counterpoint in Rota's remarkable music.

The Umbrellas opened with the impossibly debonair theme from Amarcord, cunningly rearranged by Dasent for just six players, where Rota had a little orchestra at his disposal. The subsequent incidental music included a madcap march, some wickedly tantalising piano accordion (from the leader) and a searing alto saxophone solo from Andrew Robson.

By building such solo space into his arrangements, Dasent has added another level of interest, especially when using players of the calibre of Robson, the trombonist James Greening, vibraphone/marimba player Andrew Wilkie, bassist Steve Elphick and the drummer Toby Hall.

Dasent's own works slid easily into this world. Ernie's Green Bucket depicted the uninvited lower orders of life in the bucket in question, and The Marmite Lounge-Suite Tango was like a tango reflected in a distorting mirror. High comedy, indeed.

To conclude, the band returned to Rota and 1963's Otto e mezzo, Greening's scintillating trombone perfect for the purpose, hovering, as it often does, between lampooning and cutting to the heart.

The concert opened with a set from the young guitarist Ben Hauptman, whose vivacity and ringing sound were ably backed by the Starfish Club mainstays Jonathan Zwartz and Hamish Stuart, on a repertoire including Marc Johnson's Samurai Hee-Haw and Bill Frisell's ghostly Ballroom.