Above image: Mongolian jazz singer Enji… Photo credit Victor Frankowski
This concert at the ACO’s premises in Walsh Bay on January 16, was a real eye-opener on several counts. It was a surprise to find that, unlike previous concerts I’d attended at The Neilson, seating was not provided. Members of the sold-out audience were required to stand for an hour-and-a-half concert which went from 8pm to 9.30 pm. The wisdom of this strategy was, in my view, seriously open to question. I’ve been reviewing concerts here in Australia and at various times in the UK, Europe and the USA for some 50 years, and this is the first time I’ve been asked to review a concert while standing on my feet. I hope it’s the last time. More on this issue below.
When the concert began I found myself behind a great number people standing in front of me, so my view of the stage was effectively blocked. I could just glimpse two performers on the raised stage area over the heads of the audience members: the American double bassist River Adomeit and Enji herself at the front microphone. The German guitarist Paul Brändle was completely obscured, although of course I could hear his sound clearly.
Enji’s real name is Enkhjargal Erkhembayar, something of a mouthful. Her music is said to exemplify several elements of traditional Mongolian music: certainly the local folk music, which she grew up with from an early age; so-called throat singing, which apparently produces multiple pitches during a single phrase; and “long song”, which might involve circular breathing, and is described by a critic in The Guardian as “a vibrato-laden style of singing where syllables are drawn out to create melismatic lines that can spend minutes expressing single words”.
I wasn’t able to hear any of Enji’s four albums so have to confess that I came to her concert in a state of relative ignorance, having the impression that her vocal style sits somewhere between jazz improvisation and those Mongolian traditions. Moreover, having now heard her, I feel that only an informed musicologist would be in a position to speak with authority on the validity of her vocal style. I was hoping to be able to analyse whatever I heard from the perspective of what we know of normal jazz singing. I found this task much more difficult than I expected.
As for voice quality, Enji has a very delicate sound, which I’d describe as ethereal; it has a sort of tender, yearning quality which draws you into her orbit. It’s very hard not to like such a ruminative, gentle approach to singing. As I had no idea what language she was using at any one time – it could have been Mongolian, German or indeed English for all I knew – I tended to hear her voice simply as an instrumental line, somewhat like scat singing, where one hears wordless notes; I found that I liked it very much.
Moreover, the audience was very much into the music; at one point this became palpably obvious when they sang along with a particular song, which was sung so strongly that it suggested that the audience included real live Mongolians. After the concert a Mongolian woman I spoke to said that this was a very well-known folk tune that all children in Mongolia learnt. Moreover she said there’s a substantial Mongolian community in Sydney, apparently centred in the suburb of Rhodes, some 12 kilometres west of the Sydney CBD, and also in surrounding north-western suburbs. Interesting; who would have thought that there was a Mongolian diaspora in Sydney?
At times I felt that the instrumental music presented by Adomeit and Brändle was quite unsophisticated, particularly in the simple rhythmic riffs employed in the cadenzas that were played from time to time, which to my ears sounded clichéd. Also the solos played by the two musicians I felt were not very hip, compared to what we’re used to hearing from local jazz musicians the best of whom are now playing at an unprecedented level of brilliance. Hearing the playing of these foreign jazz musicians who are apparently household names in Europe made me wish that some local musicians had been invited to be on the Sydney Festival program. The fact that they’ve been ignored in our major local arts festival is in my view scandalous, but that’s an issue to be dealt with elsewhere, not here.
Returning to the issue of seating, or standing, in the venue, I overheard, just before the concert commenced, several patrons threatening to leave if they were not found seats; I subsequently saw that a handful were able to sit upstairs on the next level where a limited number of seats were available, enabling them to look down on the performance.
When my review tickets arrived on the day of the performance I saw they were tagged STALLS STANDING. A quick enquiry determined that, in fact, I would be expected to stand for the concert. This would have made taking notes extremely difficult, apart from the fact that at my age there was no way I could stay on my feet for 90 minutes. If that were the case I said I’d give the concert a miss. To cut a long story short, this was sorted out to my satisfaction by festival officials after I arrived, and I was provided with a tall stool situated next to a table where I could rest my notebook.
There’s no doubt that the concert was a massive success. After the final number the audience gave the three performers rapturous applause – a genuine standing ovation, one might say, from an audience which was already standing. If they’d been seated of course, they certainly would have been on their feet. Of course, there’s a long tradition of local audiences at such special events giving visiting jazz musicians from overseas an exceedingly warm reception, so I wasn’t surprised.
The concert’s success was despite what was, to my way of thinking, a serious error in expecting an audience, composed of many people over say 60, and probably a good proportion of them in their 70s, to stand uncomfortably for the duration of the concert. I spoke to a man close by who said that he preferred to stand, as he suffered from back pain if he was required to sit for any length of time. Of course, it’s clear that these days, many people who might be considered elderly, are much fitter than they might have been in earlier eras. So, perhaps I’m exaggerating the problem.
Still, asking a jazz audience to stand for such a concert is misguided in my view, for no other reason than, according to my observation, the local jazz audience is now comprised primarily of well-heeled baby boomers, who were born between say 1946 and 1964. Now in their 60s or 70s, with their children grown up, and time on their hands to get into the arts, this demographic comprises the bulk of the paying jazz audience; one only has to observe the audience at any major James Morrison concert.
After the concert I observed about 50 or 60 fans waiting in line to purchase CDs, vinyl albums and other products, and no doubt wishing to get Enji’s autograph, or reflect on her splendid performance. I therefore conclude that the festival programmers would be congratulating themselves on the success of this event. There’s nothing like a sold-out concert and a standing ovation to warm the hearts of the administrators behind such prestigious festival events.
This concert took place at The Neilson, located at ACO On The Pier, 13A Hickson Rd, Walsh Bay Arts Precinct, Dawes Point, on January 16, 2026. It featured a trio including Enji (vocals), River Adomeit (double bass) and Paul Brändle (guitar).
