Graham Reid | | 2 min read
River
It seems a shame that Kevin Clark is not better known outside of Wellington jazz circles.
The pianist, trumpeter and composer won two jazz album of the year awards in 2003 and 2005 for Once Upon a Song I Flew and The Sandbar Sessions respectively.
Elsewhere picked up on his 2006 album Zahara where he explored Middle Eastern and Latin sounds with singer Fran Barton.
That too won the jazz album of the year award.
That's a remarkable trilogy of awards, unbeaten to this day I'd think.
Singer Fran Barton has been a longtime friend Clark – for 54 years apparently – and this album is a collection of swinging and sometimes autobiographical songs (the opener I Remember That Night has Barton recalling the first time they played together).
But before we look at the album let's also note that Clark, now 85, was a member of the band 40 Watt Banana in the early Seventies who doubtless took their name from a line in Donovan's hippie-trippy Mellow Yellow: “Electrical banana bound to be the very next craze . . .”
At the time word went round that if you dried the skin inside a banana peel you could smoke it and get high.
(You couldn't. I tried.)
The 40 Watt Banana song Nirvana (sitar by the late David Parsons) was written by Clark and Parsons and appeared recently on the Frenzy collection A Day in My Mind's Mind: The Kiwi Psychedelic Scene (and was our posted sample track).
But here it is again for you.
Nirvana, by 40 Watt Banana (1971)
So there's a lot to Clark whose work ranges from that psychedelic-era band through jazz-rock in the Seventies to television appearances, teaching and mentoring . . .
And he has published two books: From the Bandstand, a collection of reminiscences, and Baghdad or Bust in 2020 about a motorcycle journey in 1964 from London to Baghdad and back.
Not bad for a man who also held down a day job as an architect until music took over his life completely in 1997.
He's also been a songwriter – over 100 registered with Apra – which brings us to Dancing on a Wavetop with 78-year old Barton (who doesn't sound it) which range from songs with serious messages (There's No Planet B, the delightful ballad River) to celebrations of local locations and birdlife (Palliser Bay, the South African township swing of The Kea Kwela with Duncan Davidson on flute).
And also wry and amusing pieces (Guacamole).
Produced and mixed by Dick Le Fort, these are musically sophisticated pieces -- with Rowan Clark (bass) and Lance Philip (drums) -- which draw on Clark's broad range of influences (the African and Latin styles on I Can See What You See, the tropical Caribbean sound of Moonglow on Mana Island) and mature lyrics.
By which we mean words which aren't as self-absorbed as those by writers half century younger, that mean something, tell stories (The Karehana Bay Kid about a local boogie-border and the ocean he skirts), evoke places and moods, hold the attention.
In the broad category of Kiwiana music, this album is an unexpectedly classy entry.
But, given that breadth of experience brought by Barton and Clark, perhaps not so surprising at all.
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You can hear and buy this album at bandcamp here
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