Jazz pedigree meets passion

He's back and as enthusiastic as ever. GRAHAM REID talks to drummer Frank Gibson jun about his new band of young, talented jazz musicians.

Even from the far end of the long corridor you can feel the energy. The skittering notes from an alto sax, the drums pushing hard on the beat, a bassist hitting a deep groove ...

It sounds good, and this is only a rehearsal down here in a room in the university's music school.

Behind the drums - and the project - is Frank Gibson jun, who, at 55, is a senior statesman of New Zealand jazz. He has been at the helm of, or been part of, some of the most innovative groups in the country since he was a teenager. In the 90s he was headhunted by the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts in Perth where he was a full-time lecturer in jazz for four years.

Gibson has pedigree - his late father was an equally well-respected drummer - but he also still has the passion. So for the past year he's been rehearsing a new band to follow in the path of one of his most well-known outfits, Frank Gibson's Jazzmobile, which for two years in the early 90s blasted complacency out of the local jazz scene.

Now he's ready to do it again with Frank Gibson's New Jazzmobile, a septet which will prominently feature material by New Zealand composers, such as Phil Broadhurst, Mike Nock and Alan Broadbent.

What is notable about the New Jazzmobile - which unveils itself on Saturday night at Auckland's Civic Tavern - is the age of the musicians.

Gibson and 41-year-old saxophonist Paul Nairn aside, the remaining members range in age from 18 to 24. Young they may be, but they have already made names for themselves with awards for musicianship and - especially in the case of 19-year-old bassist Ben Turua, who has won a place at Berklee College of Music in Boston next year - have promising careers ahead of them.

Trombonist Hayley Barker and pianist Philippa Ewen are students in the university jazz course, Barker and Turua have just toured with the musical Chicago, altoist Lewis McCallum (as with Turua) has won awards at Tauranga Jazz Festivals, and of trumpeter Iain McLachlan Gibson can only shake his head and say, "Listen to him - great sensitivity and creativity".

So where does longtime Auckland saxophonist Nairn fit in with people not so long ago in school?

"When I was in the third form at Mt Albert Grammar Frank and [pianist] Murray McNabb and my brother John on bass used to play together at school," he laughs.

From behind his kit Gibson sets the beat for a run-through of Black Saint Blues and says they will all take turns at solos, "just make the eye contact".

They swing in together, intuitively picking up where the previous player leaves off. It's impressive and although at the end Gibson is cajoling them to "just blow your brains out", he's smiling widely.

Gibson has got back into this punchy music through teaching at the university and feels now is the right time for a new Jazzmobile because there are so many talented young players around.

"And one of the things that keeps me in the country is to give back some of what I've got out of music through the years, and also to try and fast-track people. You put them in a band like this and they have to stand and deliver otherwise they don't stay. Everybody here knows that.

"The longer-term plan is to channel young people with extraordinary potential in and out. Some will leave and travel the world, and some will come back we hope, so it's going to be an ongoing project. The last Jazzmobile kept the same line-up but in the end I felt the whole thing became stale so I let it go."

Five years ago, after he returned from Perth, he played in various bands, including Head On, which featured teenage pianist Aron Ottignon, now playing in Australia.

"Head On was a take-no-prisoners band but we also played ballads and things the audience would expect in a concert or club situation. This band is much the same - the charts we have are diverse and there's nothing to preclude us playing standards even though they've been done to death and played very badly by most people.

"But there's no reason this band can't play them very well, reshape and personalise them. We intend to cover the gamut."

Initially the New Jazzmobile will be using the same charts as the old, for financial reasons more than artistic ones.

"I've got no money for new ones, unfortunately. I'll have to go off and look for sponsors and I feel Creative NZ is not the right avenue to go down.

"Unless it's something which is [musically] convoluted or with some kind of other bent they seem reticent to give money to a group of musicians who are just intent on playing jazz which encompasses the early period right through to contemporary stuff.

"So the only way to get new charts or money for gigs is to go for a sponsor. Now that we've got the music in place and are confident about it, that's what I'm going to have to do."

But before then there's their much-anticipated debut, which will see the New Jazzmobile fuelled up, finely tuned and ready to run.

* Frank Gibson's New Jazzmobile plays the Civic Tavern's London Bar on Saturday from 8 pm.