Dingo Australian Jazz Journal by DingoJazz

M USI C REVI EWS EDUCATI ON G I GS

Dingo acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and their continuing connection to land, culture and community. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.

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EDITOR Adam Simmons | editor@dingojazz.com CO-EDITOR & MARKETING Cal Barry | marketing@dingojazz.com ART DIRECTOR Perri Winter | artdirector@dingojazz.com COVER PHOTOGRAPHY Corey Baudinette WRITERS Jake Amy, Jack Beeche, Raffaele Caputo, Des Cowley, Nilusha Dassenaike, Lachlan Davidson, Matt Fripp, Hugh Heller, Marty Holoubek, Sonja Horbelt, Artie Jones, Donald Mayne, Julia Messenger, Roger Mitchell, Dr. Tim Nikolsky, Mark Nunis, Barry O’Sullivan, Francesca Jurate Sasnaitis COPYEDITORS Des Cowley Elissa Goodrich ARTISTS Meg Kolac | www.megkolac.com Peter Waples-Crowe | @peterwaplescrowe SUBSCRIBE subscribe@dingojazz.com ADVERTISING marketing@dingojazz.com PUBLISHED BY Sounding Grace PTY LTD 339 Clarendon St, South Melbourne, VIC 3205, Australia DISTRIBUTED BY IPS ISSN 2652-9637 Dingo accepts freelance art, photo and writing submissions, however we cannot reply personally to unsuccessful pitches. For submission guidelines please visit www.dingojazz.com/contact Views expressed by the authors are not those of the publisher. Reproduction in whole or in part is prohibited. Copyright is reserved by the publisher. Sumo Laser is an environmentally responsible paper manufactured under the ISO14001 Environmental Management System, using elemental chlorine free pulp. Sumo Laser is FSC Certified Mix pulp.

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editor

Wominjeka | Welcome

A little over six months ago – as Melbourne was emerging from months of lockdown – a couple of people were imagining how they might contribute to the health of the Australian jazz community: the idea of Dingo was born. Now, here in your hands is the physical realisation of that dreaming: sharing thoughts and ideas on a diverse range of jazz-related topics, representing a myriad of voices from across Australia and beyond. Dingo’s stated mission is to celebrate and support Australia’s jazz sector/community. In a way, this reflects the role once played by the dingo in Australia’s First Peoples culture as a guardian or companion. Inspiration also comes from the 1991 movie of the same name that dared place Australian jazz into an international, mainstream context. Our starting place is we in Australia have made and continue to make unique offerings to the development and appreciation of jazz worldwide, and our artists are amongst the leading creative voices in jazz. In this first edition of Dingo, we have planted a whole bunch of seeds – some are questions and challenges posed by our writers to inspire further conversations, some are themes that will unfold in future editions. Underpinning all of this is an attitude to jazz that drummer Ronny Ferrella put succinctly: “It’s not what jazz is, but what jazz does.” The core Dingo team – Cal, Perri and myself – wish to extend our deepest gratitude to all of the contributors that have made Dingo possible. Thanks goes to all of our writers, artists, interviewees, advertisers, subscribers, donors, advisers, suppliers, and friends and family – your enthusiasm, support and passion have all played a part in making Dingo a reality. We are at the very beginning of imagining what Dingo can be. As its main role is giving a rare voice to the Australian jazz community, Dingo will necessarily evolve in response to its community’s needs and contributions. So, if you have an idea, see a gap, want to get involved or you just like what you see, please get in touch with us – Dingo will grow through your engagement and support. Enjoy Adam Simmons

contents 005 EDITORS LETTER 008 SPOTLIGHT 014

WHAT IS AUSTRALIAN JAZZ

024 NOTES IN YOUR EARS, INK ON THE PAGE

A PROFILE OF ROSS IRWIN

034 SWITCHING ORBITS

OBSERVATIONS ON GENDER IN JAZZ

042 INTRODUCING DINGO 052 JAZZ IN PERTH 058 REVIEWS 074 ARTIST

SCOTT VAN GEMERT

078 EDUCATION HISTORY LESSON

AUSTRALIAN JAZZ IN 2021: WHERE ARE WE AT? WHY IS IT GOOD TO LEARN JAZZ AT SCHOOL? YOUNG ARTISTS

096 GEAR REVIEWS 102 LIVE 104 GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE FROM BEASTIE BOYS SQUARE, WITH LOVE XX

JAPAN CONNECTING FANS & MUSIC MEET ALEXANDER BEETS

114 CONTRIBUTORS

104 78 58

spotlight VENUES The impact of COVID-19 upon venues has varied from state to state, depending in part on the degree of lockdown requirements, but also on the level of support from State Governments. States including VIC, QLD and SA have received targeted funding for live music venues, whereas it has been late in coming for NSW, despite repeated calls for support. The impact of this lack of support in NSW is demonstrated in the mid-March announcement of the closure of Venue 505, which has been a stalwart of the inner Sydney music and theatre scene since 2004, run by Kerri Glasscock and Cameron Undy. As Kerri stated in the Sydney Morning Herald (March 11, 2021): “Six months ago the live music industry put out an urgent SOS to the NSW government to provide support for the state’s independent live music venues. Eighty-five per cent of my colleagues indicated they would close permanently if no strategic support was provided. Six months on and no support has come. And now the state is calling for the end to the one program – JobKeeper – that has been bolstering our businesses.” For those who are interested, there is a recent report published by the Live Music Office, Inner West Live Music and Performance Census 2019, which offers great insight into the contribution that a diverse music and arts sector can make: livemusicoffice.com.au On a positive note, though, there are venues that are starting to establish themselves as things open up. In Sydney, there is Mary’s Underground, in the old Basement venue in Reiby St, reportedly with the same good vibes. In Melbourne a few spots have popped up for smaller groups, including two in Richmond, Jimmy Hornet and the fabulously named Palace of Magnificent Experiences, otherwise known as POME.

F E S T I VA L S LO O KIN G BACK In 2020, Melbourne International Jazz Festival, Manly Jazz, and Wangaratta Festival of Jazz & Blues all went digital with online offerings, the latter being able to present some live performances in satellite venues in other cities. Fortune favoured some events like Perth International Jazz Festival; WA’s early easing of restrictions helped drive strong attendance and programming benefited from expat artists returning home – refer to our feature in this edition for more on Perth’s jazz scene. Australia’s two longstanding festivals addressing gender equity, Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival and Melbourne Women’s International Jazz Festival, both enjoyed strong audience numbers and soldout shows – MWIJF were extremely lucky as the capacity lifted from 40 to 90 in the days just prior to opening, due to the relaxing of the state’s COVID-19 restrictions. Unfortunately, Castlemaine Jazz Festival, Australian Jazz Convention, Merimbula Jazz Festival, Stonnington Jazz and Generations in Jazz all cancelled in 2020.

LO O KI NG FO RWARD The day after Dingo launches, so will the inaugural Victorian All-State Jazz Championships, presented by Creative Director, Ross Irwin. With Generations in Jazz postponed until 2022 due to COVID-19, this is a welcome offering for school jazz students in 2021. The main weekend is May 1–2 with the gala on May 8: www.allstatejazz.com.au Inverloch Jazz Festival will now be held over the first weekend of August (pending an evaluation in April of risk due to COVID-19). The move was supported by many, including the local Bass Coast Council, to shift the festival away from the over-busy Labour Day long weekend. Stonnington Jazz have stated their intention for the 2021 event to present last year’s cancelled program by the festival’s new curatorial team of Nichaud Fitzgibbon and Stephen McAllan. Official dates are not available at the time of printing, but it is Dingo’s understanding that the festival will be shifting to later in the year in order to maintain the connection it has long enjoyed with Melbourne International Jazz Festival. Melbourne International Jazz Festival (MIJF) – have announced that the 2021 edition of the annual festival will take place during 15–24 October. This is a departure from the festival’s traditional dates in June but is a change welcomed by MIJF CEO Hadley Agrez who says “we’re looking forward to the opportunities October brings. With warmer weather come new avenues for programming and festival experiences ... It is shaping up to be another fantastic year for the festival.” For those who can’t wait until the next festival, you might enjoy the virtual offerings presented as part of the 2021 Port Fairy Jazz Festival. They got hit by Victoria’s snap five-day lockdown in mid-February but their virtual festival will be available to view until the end of May 2021: www.portfairyjazz.com.au

AWA R D S Take Note On International Women’s Day, the Melbourne International Jazz Festival announced Melbournebased trombonist, composer and arranger Ellie Lamb (top left) as its Take Note leader for 2021. Now in its third year, Take Note is an initiative committed to supporting jazz musicians who identify as female, early in their career, while also seeking to address and bring awareness to the under-representation of women in the jazz sector. National Jazz Awards Wangaratta Festival of Jazz & Blues (29–31 October) is preparing for staging the National Jazz Awards (NJA) again as part of this year’s festival. For 2021, the instrument of focus returns to piano, which was where the NJA started back in 1990. Previous NJA recipients for piano are: Barney McAll, Mark Fitzgibbon, Jann Rutherford, Matt McMahon, Jackson Harrison, Joseph O’Connor. Music Victoria Awards Submissions open 1–20 July Victorian jazz musicians and bands are encouraged to nominate their music for the Best Jazz Album category for the 2021 Music Victoria Awards. Albums must have been released between 1 July 2020 and 30 June 2021. Music Victoria Members can nominate themselves or their favourite Victorian artist. Join Music Victoria’s mailing list to stay up to date: www.musicvictoria.com.au

Jann Rutherford Memorial Award This award was founded in 2005 to assist in the professional development of an outstanding young female jazz musician. Their most recent recipient was Sydney guitarist, Hillary Geddes. The 2021 shortlist is currently being considered by the judges, with the recipient to be announced shortly. For the latest: www.jrma.com.au Freedman Awards The Freedman Jazz Fellowship is returning to face-to-face operations after a year in digital limbo. The concert by the three finalists will take place at The Studio of Sydney Opera House on 30 August. The Freedman Fellowship is possibly now the most important Australian jazz award, carrying a prize of $21,000. Brisbane (now Melbourne) bassist and composer, Helen Svoboda (opposite) was the 2020 winner. Monthly updates can be found in the Music Trust’s magazine, Loudmouth: www.musictrust.com.au/loudmouth The Australian Bell Awards Last year due to the uncertainty of COVID-19, the Board of the Australian Jazz Bell Awards decided to skip 2020, in favour of holding a double Award ceremony in 2021. Board member and coordinator of the 2019 awards, Martin Jackson stated: “The Awards have run since 2003, and this year were intended to be based on 2020/2021 album releases, but it is dependent on finding a few new sponsors for each $5000 Award, as well as APRA AMCOS funding, for it to continue.” Potential sponsors are encouraged to contact Martin via www.bellawards.org

SUPPORT ACT

C RI SI S REL I EF & WELLBEING For those who are not aware, Support Act is Australia’s only charity to deliver crisis relief services specifically to artists, crew and music workers as a result of ill health, injury, a mental health problem, or some other crisis that impacts on their ability to work in music. This support extends to all genres, including jazz in all its varied forms. With funding support from the Australian Government through the Office for the Arts, Support Act has expanded its services to offer Crisis Relief to music industry professionals impacted by COVID-19. These grants are available to everyone who meets the criteria. There is also the Support Act Wellbeing Helpline: a free, confidential phone counselling service, available 24/7 to anyone anywhere in Australia who works in music, the performing arts or other creative industries. The service is accessible 24 hours a day, 365 days per year by calling 1800 959 500 within Australia. They also offer a dedicated helpline for First Nations artists, crew and music workers, which can be accessed by calling 1800 959 500 (Option 3) between 8am – 6pm AEST Monday to Friday. www.supportact.org

VA L E Dingo wishes to acknowledge the passing of the following valued members of the Australian jazz community and extend our condolences to their beloved friends and family: John Clare – journalist, author, poet Ted “Red Sox” O’Connor – Co-Founder, Patron and Life Member of the Sunshine Coast Jazz Club Jon Delaney – guitarist, bassist, composer, educator Angus Gray – pianist, vocalist, composer Pierre Baroni – broadcaster, photographer, artist Jack Mitchell OAM - jazz historian, discographer, archivist

JAZZ T H E ARTI ST BO O K BY TH EO ST RASSER The artist book “JAZZ” was made in 2019 in an edition of 10. Making 10 copies similar to each other was like a series of improvised music performances – whilst the basic form remains the same, variations occur in each edition. Some of the imagery has been created with wood block stamps while other pages flow freely and spontaneously within a linear purpose, following a silent rhythm or tune. The books are extensions to Theo's paintings capturing fleeting, transient states of being. Theo also supplied the artwork for the limited edition Dingo T-shirt available for $55 dingojazz.com/subscribe View “JAZZ” at the Stephen McLaughlan Gallery May 19-June 5 2021 Tuesday to Friday - 1pm - 5 pm Saturday 11 am - 5 pm. Level 8 Room 16 Nicholas Building, 37 Swanston St. Melbourne

I N T E R N AT I O N A L CONNECTIONS With travel restrictions in place for Australians until at least the middle of 2021, there is not much joy for those with plans for touring and/or international collaboration. But there are positive examples that demonstrate what can be achieved with a virtual/hybrid model of presentation: Global Music Match – 96 artists from 14 countries in 2020, sharing and connecting to each other’s networks Isolaid Festival – an Australian based, Instagram live music festival Szczecin Jazz Festival – Europe’s first hybrid jazz festival for 2021 Amersfoort Jazz Festival – presented online in November 2020, in conjunction with the World Jazz Conference, coordinated by JazzNL (Netherlands) and IKS (South Africa) The main organisational support for Australian jazz internationally over the past few years has been from Sounds Australia, and then in 2019, Australian Music Centre in partnership with Sounds Australia, embarked on the “Australian Jazz in Europe Project” – focusing on Jazzahead, a major industry showcase (Bremen, Germany) and the European Jazz Conference. Unfortunately, this had to be modified/put on hold due to COVID-19, but hopefully between when writing these words and Dingo’s launch, there may have been an update regarding virtual engagement with Jazzahead (29 April – 2 May, 2021).

what is australian jazz

WO RDS JAKE AMY & HUG H H ELLER

TA M A RA M U R P HY

P H OTO BY T I M M C N I E L AG E

TAMARA M U RPHY

THERE IS NOWHERE ELS E ON T HE PLANET WH ICH C REATES T HE SOU NDS WE D O

As we heard repeatedly through our discussions, Australian jazz has influences that are outside the music. Legendary educator and pianist Tony Gould believes that the climate, space, lifestyle, geographic location, nature of the land and the anti-authoritarianism cultural trait of Australia has had a “profound effect” on people’s attitudes, with Australians generally having “an incredible sense of humour” not seen anywhere else in the world. This “collegiality, humour and fun” results in Australian music having an “easygoing” character and a sense of “larrikinism.” Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) alumnus and Monash University professor Robert Burke agrees that there is an “element of humour … [and] an element of freeness.” Jazz festival director Robin Blackman suggests the sense of fun in Australian jazz is connected to the early entertainment aspect of jazz “in the 60s,” and reminisces about jazz being the party music of the early days: “Jazz was everywhere - in cellars, clubs. You’d walk in late at night and the place would be absolutely packed … you couldn’t see the band through the smoke! Downbeat jazz concerts were legendary:

N ATA L I A M A N N

“Australian jazz is a fusion of global influences and a freedom to explore musically in infinite directions,” says New York-based Australian trumpeter Nadje Noordhuis. In a similar vein, saxophonist Holly Moore says, “there is a broad range of music that is put under the banner of ‘jazz’ here in Australia. I often feel more comfortable to identify it as improvised music.” These themes – freedom, diversity, and creating our own identity through music – echoed throughout our conversations.

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“There is nowhere else on the planet which creates the sounds we do – we have managed to make something unique and undeniably Australian,” says Melbourne bassist Tamara Murphy during Attaboi’s search to discover defining elements of Australian jazz. At Dingo’s invitation we sought out a range of Australia’s finest musicians, and our discussions took us on a riveting journey. We travelled through jazz history and the “melting pot” of Australian culture, yielding some fascinating answers.

you’d arrive to five sets of drums sitting along the stage and at the end they’d have something like 30 plus musos on the stage jamming. Everybody went absolutely wild for that. It was great fun.” For vocalist Hayley Stone, “Australian jazz strives to tell stories and create soundscapes influenced by our unique landscape.” Yalanji woman and chart-topping jazz vocalist Deline Briscoe says, “I feel there’s a couple of reasons why our mob has connected with genres like jazz. For me as an Indigenous musician, we’re connected strongly to the core of song traditions, and though jazz is widely recognised as an African American music form, there’s an incredible amount of influence that comes from the Native American song styles as well. If you listen closely, you can’t unhear it. For our mob, jazz is a big part of telling that oral history of this country. Australian jazz to me is my uncle singing and telling the story of the people.” Briscoe says “Yarra River Blues” by Georgia Lee “encompasses everything” about Australian jazz. “I learnt about jazz in a Blak Australian context. I grew up singing in the church choir and knew all these songs – old jazz ditties, but with changed gospel lyrics. I didn’t hear Nina Simone ever sing it. Our mob was singing it different. We’ve got our own stories here. It’s part of our oral history that documents the times.” Yolngu songman Daniel Wilfred loves the fact that “telling and sharing stories about my country and my family treelines through jazz music keeps stories alive and passes [them] on to the next generation.”

Globe-trotting harpist and improvisor Natalia Mann sees site-specific work as a strong factor in Australian jazz. “Listen to the land and we will become it. When you know that the land knows you and accepts you, it feels good. We lose that layer of anxiety – the one about living on stolen blood country, an occupier, feeling guilty and foreign and wondering if we’d ever feel belonging. When we worked with the trees, we got to know them and they us. You feel calm and peaceful. You understand time in a different way. You understand yourself as connected to everything and everyone. The land taught us its language of harmony.” Mann also observed that “jazz provides a space where people of different cultures and backgrounds can meet and converse without words.” While Australian musicians still “pay respect and homage” to the African American origins of jazz music, in the words of vocalist Eva Reyne, our distance from that tradition gives us the freedom to mix influences from across the globe and to develop our own identities. The Australian music community seems to relish the musical results of musical collaboration across cultures. Recent examples include Sandy Evans with legendary Hindustani singer Shubha Mudgal and tabla master Aneesh Pradhan, Scott Tinkler and Simon Barker with P’ansori singer Bae Il Dong, and the Australian Art Orchestra (AAO) with Daniel Wilfred. Wilfred says the recent collaboration is “a new waking: [the orchestra] becomes part of my family and we share together.”

N A DJ E N O O R D H U I S P H OTO BY M I REYA AC I E RTO

Holly Moore says she felt most connected to Australian jazz when she was living in New York. “After a while I felt like there was something missing for me in a lot of the gigs I was seeing. I was homesick and missed music that made me feel still and quiet inside. The emotional vulnerability of musicians [in Australia] was something that I realised was unique and very special.” Doug Spencer, former presenter of ABC Radio National music program The Weekend Planet, believes that “if you really want to maximise your career opportunities or your chances for fame, then playing ‘jazz’ in Australia definitely isn’t the best way to do it,” however, the “level of intent” shown by Australian jazz artists is “one of the things that characterises it in a really good way.” Doug never gets the sense that “Andrea Keller or Julien Wilson feel it is beneath them to play a small room.” With regards to education, Robert Burke states that a lot of American musicians “came through [jazz] bands, with a jazz approach, because they had been established a lot earlier.” Music education at the VCA was much more open. “We did ear

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training, and then we didn’t play jazz. It wasn’t even free jazz, it was free music. So we have a certain freeness to the way we play, and in a way, we learnt on the gigs, learned from the records, learned from listening. I think that influenced the way we play music, and it has influenced more of the younger musicians that come through because they’ve learned from the people who had the same education.” This influence is often attributed to the musician and educator Brian Brown. According to Burke, Brown was about “being individual, who you are, being true to yourself and collating the information around you. He didn’t want to be seen as an American jazz musician, or a European musician, he wanted to be seen as himself, as an Australian musician. That was very strong, and that was very much the focus of our education.” Tony Gould commented, “[Brian] used to provoke students … for example, he’d mispronounce Pat Metheny’s name, just to annoy the students. He’d call him Pat Mahoney. But he had this wonderful philosophy of saying, ‘Make your own music. Stop. You don’t need to imitate anybody.’”

Another factor that has influenced the melting pot of Australian jazz is the lack of economic viability in a career performing jazz full-time. Doug Spencer claims “it is really genuinely difficult to earn a reasonable living in the [Australian] jazz field.” Full-time musicians generally have to be fluent in multiple styles, and more specialised jazz musicians may have to supplement their income with teaching or arts/government funding. Sydneybased drummer Chloe Kim says that “a lot of the time, (especially young) musicians have physicality, ideas and knowledge to do things, but no money. And of course, it’d be great for funding bodies to recognise that.” However, Kim believes the lack of arts funding teaches Australian jazz musicians to have “faith in their ideas” and results in more personal and honest music. “Having to spend my own money into my own project means that I can be truly genuine to myself and my decisions. It doesn’t have to satisfy anyone, necessarily. If I’m happy and my band is happy, then it’s good to go out.” Though some interviewees found it difficult to explain exactly what musical characteristics define “Australian jazz,” many believed that they could identify certain differences from the American style. Kim loves the sense of rhythmic freedom that we have here. “[In Australia], I don’t feel like I have to attempt to sound like anyone specific, only attempt to create a similar concentrated energy to what I hear in American jazz.” Robert Burke identified a “looseness” of swing feel in Australian musicians compared to American musicians. “A lot of musicians came from a classical approach through their education, playing AMEB [Australian Music Examinations Board] because that was all that was in place in the early days. A lot of the teaching is based on that, even if they teach a jazz approach. So you have got two schools that are influencing each other here.” Cross-generational collaboration is another unique aspect of Australian jazz. “There is a really special thing which happens in Melbourne, which is the collaboration between musicians of all ages,” says bassist Tamara Murphy. Doug Spencer has noticed that the Western world is separated into “tragic age cohorts,” and in popular music “it’s generally very rare for anyone in the group to be more than 10 years older or younger than anyone else in the same group.” However, Spencer observes in

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the Australian jazz scene that it is “completely unremarkable for someone to be 20 years younger than the other person.” Through tertiary institutions, the masters of one generation often pass their knowledge onto the next generation while still developing their own craft. Young musicians attend their gigs and buy records while studying together, forming relationships that last for decades. Because of this, the jazz community is tight-knit and members are rarely more than two degrees of separation from each other.

“Australian” musician, especially for non-Indigenous Australians. Natalia Mann has suggested that one “pathway to true Australian jazz” lies in the “tradition of Dadirri – deep listening to the land.” She cites Aboriginal elder and author Miriam Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann who says, “Australia needs to know that Dadirri [deep listening] can help you slow down, stop and help you realise who you are, what you’re about, where you’re going, where you belong.” By listening to the here and now, “we will find ourselves and each other.”

Though it is not necessarily characteristic of every musician, the community on the whole is openminded and supportive. Robert Burke says, “I see the ‘love in the room,' really, in the jazz community. I think everybody is very respectful of their projects and knowledgeable as well.” Burke also observes that musicians in the jazz community “acknowledge each other’s achievements,” and that they are a “great audience for each other’s music-making.”

Attaboi’s quest to answer the question of “What is Australian jazz?” led to many wide-ranging discussions of music, history, culture, spirituality and identity. It is clear that “Australian jazz” encompasses an incredible diversity of musical influences, unified by a common commitment to developing and sharing cultural identity through improvisation. The influence of the American tradition is undeniable, but what makes Australian jazz culture unique is its open-mindedness, humility and willingness to integrate new stylistic approaches as seen in the embrace of multicultural communities and traditions, and its connection with Indigenous stories and history.

One of the most encouraging developments in the recent history of the Australian jazz community is the powerful push for greater diversity in the scene. Holly Moore says that “people are now talking about how to make the scene more inclusive for women, which is a good start, but there needs to be a whole lot of work to be done to get there.” Speaking of the future of Australian jazz, Moore would love to see more awareness around the small number of women, people of colour and LGBTQIA+ musicians in the core group of the music scene and the treatment of the people who are.” Tamara Murphy says, “I am seeing lots more male allies, which is what we need if we hope to make the scene more inclusive and create more opportunities for everyone. This will only make the music better – which, arguably, is our job as musicians.” Deline Briscoe would love to see more Blak women in jazz and feels that there are “some young women coming up that have jazz influence, but they aren’t being formally recognised or supported. We need a good, equal ground where we can all share and collaborate equally.” Robin Blackman adds that local Australian talent is “just as good, if not better” than international talent. Daniel Wilfred would like to see “more didgeridoo and clapping sticks” in Australian jazz. More recently, musicians have called for a deeper consideration of what it means to be an

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notes in your ears, ink on the page A PROFILE OF ROSS IRWIN WO RDS RO G ER MITCHELL

IF ANYTHING, THE ENFORCED ABSENCE AND THEN LIMITS ON L I V E M U S I C H AV E HIGHLIGHTED THE H U N G E R F O R I T.

A PAN DEM IC C RE AT ES N OI SE I N T H E MI ND – C RI ES O F L AM EN T OVER LOSS, YES, BUT ALSO T H E BUSY CACO PH O NY OF C ON FL I CT. ARGUMENTS RAG E. DIVIS IO N S FORM. FE ARS FOME NT. IT CAN BE HARD TO ESCAPE T HE RACKET. Yet music can cut through the clamour, to calm or to excite. On many a Friday during 2020, Paul Grabowsky’s “happy hours” at the home piano provided much-needed sustenance and relief, albeit online. If anything, the enforced absence and then limits on live music have highlighted the hunger for it. On a Wednesday evening in February a well-spaced audience at Melbourne’s Sidney Myer Music Bowl were thrilled to hear the world premiere of Love Is A Temporary Madness, a suite by composer Vanessa Perica, performed by her orchestra of jazz musicians and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. On stage, unobtrusively wielding a trumpet in Perica’s orchestra, was Ross Irwin – best known for his tours with The Cat Empire and The Bamboos. Jazz fans will recall his reinterpretation 60 years on of Miles Davis’s album Kind of Blue before a packed house at 170 Russell for the 2019 Melbourne International Jazz Festival. Irwin should be a household name. He has worked in Australia with Paul Kelly, Passenger, Angus and Julia Stone, Josh Pyke, Thelma Plum, Seth Sentry, The

Paper Kites, Brooke Fraser, Gossling, You Am I and Megan Washington. International artists who have tapped his talents include Brian May and Roger Taylor (Queen), Suzi Quatro, Belle and Sebastian, Tony Hadley (Spandau Ballet), Stax legend Eddie Floyd, Ben Elton and Patrick Watson. Now at work more often off stage than on, this musician, whose “scale-busting horn lines” have brought squeals of delight and wild applause from audiences, is not one for showmanship. “I’ve never had much of a virtuosic streak, so I definitely wouldn’t say that it’s an essential part of performance,” Irwin says, responding to questions during a Melbourne lockdown. “I feel I’ve had a career where most of the praise I’ve received is for quite the opposite; simplicity, melodic concepts, etc … many musicians are famous for their virtuosity and are remarkable to watch and listen to, but many artists, particularly in the jazz world, have something very different to that and have stood the test of time as being some of the most influential in the genre.”

Irwin says he still has plenty of time on stage, pandemic permitting, but enjoys working on larger composition and production projects. “It’s a luxury to be able to sink into a grandscale project and pour all your creativity into that, as opposed to jumping around on projects and never having enough time to really immerse yourself. My offering to the music world these days is more on a composition/ arrangement level as opposed to as a player. That’s what is most satisfying to me right now.” Early experiences of family and school helped Ross Irwin to become an accomplished performer and composer, but he has always been one to listen and learn. “There are no better teachers than those notes in your ears and the ink on the page in front of you,” he says. “I can’t really remember a time where I couldn’t hear it in my head. Most of my writing still happens there, with a small amount at the piano. “If you’ve listened to a lot of that music and absorbed it, checked out the visual representation of that music (by studying scores, for example),

going through the hardships of teenager-hood without having the support of a confidencebuilding hobby or skill. Music certainly was that for me. I always felt I had my ‘thing’, despite whatever else was going on around me.” The perfect environment for building this confidence was Blackburn High School where, as Irwin later told an inquiry into music education in Victorian schools, team building and finding your voice in that team was as important as learning to read the notes and the dots.

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and you can hear your ideas clearly in your head, then I’m not sure what the barrier would be to executing those ideas for any size ensemble, big or small, jazz or classical. I’ve never had a classical orchestration lesson ever, but I’m not sure it’s necessarily needed. Anyone can gain access to recordings and scores of works by Debussy, Mahler, Nestico, Riddle, etc.” Irwin’s mother was a singer and his uncle played trumpet. When his mother remarried he acquired more family members who were musical. This grounding helped build a sense of confidence early that was more important than just the musical prowess. “I think having any sense of identity is important for young people before they hit their teenage years, whether it be music, sport, or specific academic worlds,” he says. “It helps them feel as though they have purpose and a social family, which is something that most teenagers feel they’re expected to have. It can be worrisome to see a young person

“Being in a challenging, yet open music environment like Blackburn gave me a sense that my opinions mattered and that my knowledge (such as it was) was valued. That then encouraged me to seek out more knowledge and develop my skills as a team player, and as a leader. Many students leave high school having never had the chance to feel like they have agency to have an opinion or be a creative thinker and leader. That’s a big hole in many parts of the secondary academic system, I believe.” Irwin also told that 2013 inquiry it was “a beautiful, nurturing experience at Blackburn High” despite the high expectations. It was OK for music students to make big mistakes because excellence and acceptance “go hand in hand.” “There are some parents and educators in certain programs who put unnecessary or unfair pressure on their students, and this can create stress and an overbearing sense of importance on each individual performance. “I think encouraging students and challenging them to play at their absolute best is completely healthy when combined with a grounding education that covers performance anxiety and the idea of long-term personal and musical growth. The blend of the two elements can be life changing confidence-wise for young people who otherwise might struggle in a number of ways.”

“The music industry is always changing, but those willing to shift and flow and create within that ever-changing landscape have a good chance of doing well.” Irwin’s belief in challenging and encouraging young musicians, coupled with his positive experience at high school, explain his readiness to spearhead an initiative designed to give impetus to jazz education in schools by becoming Creative Director of the inaugural Victorian All-State Jazz Championships in May this year. “Myself and some band director friends were chatting after we heard that Generations In Jazz unfortunately had to cancel again this year, and we all felt that something needed to fill that void, lest all the jazz students in high school programs across Victoria lose the positive upward trajectory they’ve been on. Once we agreed to fill that space for this year, I wanted to be the creative and musical voice for that festival given my passion for creating and maintaining energy within those high school programs.” A mix of government and non-government schools have signed up for the All-State Jazz Championships, which will have competitive and non-competitive sections. Irwin says “the idea of improving can create positive momentum. The idea of a band winning simply creates a role model for younger bands to strive to excel. “Separately, I think it’s great for bands just to have a place to play without the perceived pressure of competition, but still within the festival environment.”

Irwin has weathered the COVID-19 restrictions well, despite gigs being cancelled and tours called off. He believes 2021 will allow many musicians to bring to fruition projects that will bring them genuine satisfaction. “I think COVID-19 gave me a chance to make really honest decisions about which projects I wanted to explore. I rarely have time off, so it’s easy to fall into … saying to yourself ‘This is just what I do.’ The big chunks of time I had off last year let me ask, ‘What do I want to do?’ “I’ve always spent a lot of time working on my own so COVID-19 wasn’t too crushing for me on a personal, musical development level. I did miss the travel and activity associated with it – heading to the airport, checking into a hotel, driving to a small town for a show. It’s all part of the movement of life that made me feel like my world had energy. “I had to re-evaluate what was really important to me and accept that, though it’s important to acknowledge the things that give you purpose and joy, you need to be okay with your own still self.” Irwin has no doubt there is a future for the many exciting young players being nurtured by jazz educators in Melbourne. “I’ve always firmly believed there is enough work for anyone willing to be an active, positive and valuable part of the music community. I always say to students asking about making it in the music business, ‘you create your own scene.’ People creating any sort of negativity, or sitting waiting for the phone to ring, are of course going to struggle. “The music industry is always changing, but those willing to shift and flow and create within that ever-changing landscape have a good chance of doing well. Plus, the old simple rules still apply: Work hard, develop valuable skills, be a positive force and then work even harder.”

P H OTO BY LO R D M E D I A

CLARINET & SAXOPHONE PREMIUM REEDS GONZALEZREEDS.COM.AU

O B S E R V AT I O N S O N GENDER IN JAZZ WE ALL N EED TO O P E N LY LI STE N TO, AN D ACKN OWLED G E WOMEN ’S STO RI ES TO BEG I N T HE S E ARCH FO R RE AL CHAN G E .

switching

orbits WO RDS SO NJA H ORBELT ILLUSTRAT ION S MEG KOL AC

“ We need to move from an Elliptical orbit to a Parabolic orbit” – Taraji P. Henson, playing mathematician Katherine Goble in the movie, Hidden Figures. Astronaut John Glenn is stuck in an elliptical orbit that sees him endlessly circling the Earth. NASA mathematician Katherine Goble is tasked with finding the equation that will push him into a parabolic orbit and enable him to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere and land safely. It seems we are at a point in time where the jazz sector is in that constant elliptical orbit around the earth – we’ve come to a greater consensus about the gender imbalance in jazz – but we don’t know how to initiate or truly identify steps that will make significant changes towards equality. There is much talk, but not enough research nor ground-breaking action to force a change within the current structures of our industry. There are so many positives in our community – for all genders. Generosity, collaboration, creativity, sharing, empathy are all words that come quickly to mind to describe so many experiences for all of us in the jazz community. However time and time again the notion of the gender balance in our sector undeniably casts a shadow on these joyous aspects, especially in light of the awakening about the challenges of being female* that is happening globally in so many other disciplines and employment areas. We all freely acknowledge that the jazz sector has a glaring gender disparity figure amongst female instrumentalists. From the under 10% representation of professional females on stage at Generations In Jazz, to the similarly underrepresented percentage of female students on a leading tertiary institution’s recent recording release, to the single, solitary, female instrumentalist on stage at the much lauded UNESCO International Jazz Day concert at Hamer Hall with Herbie Hancock in 2019 (televised world-wide). Much was said about equality on stage that evening (by men), but so many female jazz artists in the

audience left the performance in sheer disbelief at how the concert they had witnessed could be construed as equal. It is important to note that this is particular to instrumentalists rather than vocalists. Corporate boards sit at roughly 35% female in Australia – deemed out of touch and unacceptable – yet the Australian jazz industry sits at a third of this figure. During the 2018 and 2019 Melbourne Women’s International Jazz Festivals (MWIJF), I did a quick survey of the gigs happening on the Friday and Saturday nights of the festival in six of the most well-known jazz clubs in Melbourne. The number of females in the bands sat at around 8%, with 70-80% of these vocalists; in other words, 2-3% instrumentalists. Emerging female musicians are often having to create their own projects to increase their opportunities to play, or initiate projects that specifically target providing a platform for more female musicians such as Xani Kolac’s Spire, Sirens Big Band or the Cheryl Durongpisitkul and Madison Smith led Jazzlab Orcheztra. Changing the numbers A growing percentage of females are breaking into the scene, but this is often despite their tertiary music education rather than because of it. The remainder are either being driven out of the sector all together (we are also seeing a proportionally high level of female graduates in some parts of the country pursuing a second degree unrelated to music), turning to a career in music education, or alternately drifting into pop and folk. The latter reflects the value of jazz skills in other sectors, but these side steps should be in addition to working in jazz, not because jazz is no longer an option. Female musicians want to be chosen on merit – no one wants to be the one chosen to make up numbers. In the MWIJF we program female band leaders and composers, but deliberately make no demands on female numbers within groups, rather leaving the decision about co-performers entirely up to the female band leader. We believe this should be the absolute artistic choice of the featured artist. So the real dilemma is how do we bridge the gap to ensure more female players enter the sector to be in the pool to be chosen from? If the percentage of females who work as instrumentalists really is under 10%, then treating everyone equally will simply maintain the 10/90% balance. In the corporate world many businesses are actively choosing the female candidate if a male and female are on par with one another, and the Labour party seems to have achieved close to equal representation. However, the Arts, and creative endeavours, are not as clear cut, and don’t fall into neat tick-the-box categories. Female musicians are sick of having to talk about it and wish for a time when there is no talk about female or male musicians, rather just musicians full stop. But it’s not changing as significantly as any of us would have hoped – and the two key questions for us all are why not, and how can we implement meaningful change?

Transition of students to tertiary levels and beyond Female instrumentalists do not make the transition from secondary school to tertiary education in numbers that can impact the current landscape at the speed that we would like. At a tertiary level, female artists often come out the other side despite their institution, not because of it, a journey punctuated by a lack of equal audition panels, established female mentor programs, and other support mechanisms. They are often in survival mode, just making it through the lack of opportunities and dysfunctional learning environments, rather than flourishing in a space that should be empowering them and inspiring learning and risk taking. A glaring problem is the absence of females on staff in jazz departments. This leads to the aforementioned issues and emphasises the imbalance that is also reflected in the industry. Some might argue that they are not receiving the same access to opportunities and support, despite paying the same amount of money for their degree as their male counterparts. We need to set examples and visible role models that make girls view music as a normal career path. We need to ensure that the institutional structures in place when they get to university are set up to support them and give them the necessary skillsets they need to flourish in our sector. The value of visible role models is undeniable, and this is an issue in jazz sectors world-wide (as articulated by Tina Edwards in her recent UK Guardian article, “Female UK jazz musicians face sexual harassment and discrimination, says report”). The number of girls playing football in schools has exploded since the AFLW has become so visible. The value of the financial investment that has underpinned this growth cannot be underestimated. Equally the investment from groups such as APRA AMCOS into women in the pop sector has seen an explosion of female talent. However, it is ironic that of the nine female mentorships offered by APRA AMCOS in 2020, from punk to screen writing, none was offered in the jazz genre. The truth behind, and weight of “you can’t be what you can’t see” is undeniable, and girls need to see that a career path is possible, normal and common. At a secondary level, some of the most crucial aspects that girl-specific projects provide are the support network of fellow female musicians with whom they can share experiences, and the safe environment to extend their skillset. Girls Do Jazz, Take Note, Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival, the Jazzlab Orcheztra and YoWo Music all have varying degrees of financial support, and have impacted the gradual increase in numbers, but these programs don’t have the ability to implement change in the educational institutions where most young musicians, male and female, engage in the bulk of their music making. Instead, they tend to impact females already seeking out extra opportunities, or already in the scene.

This idea of listening to women’s stories and acting to change social norms has never been more current than now.

Females breaking into the industry Male bandleaders and males in positions of power in institutions are often at the heart of decisionmaking. They can never really understand the impact of the current imbalance; the years of not being called, of being locked out of the boys club, of being denied opportunities to learn and become a better player in order to break into the scene. All women have stories of these experiences that most men will never have. Yet the greatest ability to implement change lies with them. Everywhere young female musicians look, the message is visually driven home. From websites of key organisations (one female to ten males in the cover image), to audition panels (often all male because that is who is on staff), to research projects that have no female jazz representation. Men often don’t know where to look to fix things, because they have never experienced being judged on gender, being out of the club, being excluded, intimidated, or worse sexually harassed. We all need to openly listen to, and acknowledge women’s stories to begin the search for real change. This idea of listening to women’s stories and acting to change social norms has never been more current than now. The jazz industry is a reflection of our social structures, just as any other industry is – sports, politics, business. Federal politics is currently a shining example of this. Around one in three women in Australia aged 1864 have experienced sexual harassment in their lifetime according to the Australian Human Rights Commission (likely more with the many cases unreported). The majority of sexual harassment continues to be experienced in the workplace, and for jazz women this is in rehearsals, on stage,

THE TRUTH BEHIND, AND WEIGHT OF “ YO U C A N ’ T B E W H AT Y O U CAN’T SEE” IS UNDENIABLE, AND GIRLS N E E D TO S E E T H AT A C A R E E R PAT H IS POSSIBLE, NORMAL AND COMMON.

in our education environments and at gigs. Our industry is fluid and often not well defined in terms of best workplace practices. Rather it is far removed from the good governance structures that exist in the public and private sectors. There are always exceptional players – male and female – that stand out in their generation. The difference in our sector is that there is not the depth of females in the body of working musicians. The females that “make it” are in the upper percentile – and that’s where the representation stops. With its lower economic impact and broadly encompassing improvising nature, jazz is often seen as the genre least worthy of economic investment and potential career development, despite the fact that jazz musicians are the most versatile and employable musicians that contribute to sustaining all the other genres – pop, comedy, cabaret, musical theatre, song writing/ composition and contemporary classical. Add to this the gender disparity and lack of female visibility and no wonder girls don’t choose a jazz tertiary degree. With the right skillset, a career as a jazz musician can be one of the most attractive across the industry. In some respects, the most important female students in a tertiary course are not the star player or two, but the three or four beneath the top two. If these players can make it, other females can see the steps they can take to develop a career. It should not be all or nothing. We can start to create that true depth that is the key to change. Changing the Paradigm The context of this piece comes from discussions I have had over the past six months with both male and female musicians across Australia – we all struggle with identifying what the solution is. Women inevitably have different experiences, of varying degrees, but collectively remain a minority. We all know that the imbalance exists, but there are no present initiatives in place to address this. Author Thomas S. Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions observes that: “since new paradigms are born from old ones, they ordinarily incorporate much of the vocabulary and apparatus … that the traditional paradigm has employed. But they seldom employ these borrowed elements in quite the traditional way.” The questions for us in 2021 are how can we empower those in the key positions in our institutions and professional sector to implement a new orbit for female artists and indeed all creatives in our industry? How can we change the learning constructs, tools, mindset and environments in our institutions at all levels, and also hold these institutions to account? One starting point is to research organisations that have successfully implemented change, such as tech group Code Like A Girl and the AFLW, along with researching primary, secondary and tertiary musicians. Another one would be to create a round table discussion with key stakeholders and industry leaders where we truly listen and not just measure. This isn’t a quick solution but it’s a definite launching pad for change. * female – used throughout to denote both cis and female identifying persons.

WO RDS ADAM SI MMONS D I NGO ART P ET ER WAP LES- C ROWE

dingo

INTRODUCING

WELL, I F YOU’ RE READ I NG T H I S, WE MAD E IT – T H E FI RST ED ITI O N O F D I NGO, A FULLYFLED G ED P HYSI CAL MAGAZI NE , D ED I CAT ED TO CELEBRATI NG AND SUP PO RTI NG AUST RAL IA’S JAZZ SECTO R/C O MMUNITY.

DINGO ’S AIM I S TO BE A MEETING PL ACE FO R ANY AN D ALL OF OU R JAZZ C O M M U NITY TO BE H EARD

For this first edition, it feels appropriate to mark the occasion by setting out some of our inspirations and aspirations. Giving a voice to Australian jazz Dingo is possible because of the efforts of many others before us who have had much the same aim as we have: to promote a musical genre that brings inspiration and pleasure to many. Indeed, this quote from the introduction to the first edition of Jazz Down Under (Sep/Oct 1974) by the editor, Peter Hume, has a familiar cry that could well have been the starting point for Dingo also: “Jazz is not a dead music, although there are those who would have it embalmed. It is very much alive and kicking, whether in clubs, hotels, concert hall, or on record, and in Australia deserves its own specialist magazine without having to lean on other entertainment and art forms for support. So here we are and we mean to stay.” There is a long history of jazz publishing in Australia. For magazines dating back to the 70’s, Eric Myers (current reviewer for The Australian and National Jazz Coordinator, 1983-2002) has digitised and made available a substantial collection including: Jazz Down Under, Jazz Magazine, JazzChord, and Australian Jazz & Blues. You may also find these as well as older magazines and journals, like Jazz Notes, Australian Jazz Quarterly, Beat (not the modern street press), on a visit to the Australian Jazz Museum. Two relatively recent

notable publications were Jazz scene, published by Don Brow, and Extempore, a more academic style journal with Miriam Zolin as Editor. There is also a range of digital magazines/blogs currently available including: Jazz and Beyond, Jazz Australia, Australian Jazz, Ausjazz, AJazz (Australian Jazz Museum) and Loud Mouth with regular jazz-related reviews and features.

Our major festivals like Australian Jazz Convention, Wangaratta Festival of Jazz & Blues, Melbourne International Jazz Festival, Perth International Jazz Festival, Stonnington Jazz as well as the more community style events including Port Fairy Jazz Festival, Merimbula Jazz festival, Phillip Island Jazz Festival, Inverloch Jazz Festival are all important fixtures in the festival calendar that contribute significantly to local councils and communities.

With the digital offerings notwithstanding, it is more than 10 years since the last major print publication and almost 25 since we had a nationally distributed magazine dedicated to jazz.

There has been controversy over the shifting of ABC Jazz from the FM band, first to AM and then to digital, but Australia now has a highrating 24/7, jazz-dedicated radio channel.

In that time though, Australian jazz has continued to grow in maturity and presence. As an indication only:

Jazz musicians are often performing with popular contemporary Australian artists including Archie Roach, Paul Kelly, Gotye, Missy Higgins, The Cat Empire, Ian Moss, Kate MillerHeidke, as well as appearing in the ensembles for musical theatre and television shows.

There is international recognition of artists such as The Necks, Barney McAll, Australian Art Orchestra, Sandy Evans, Nadje Noordhuis, Shannon Barnett, Linda May Han Oh, Michelle Nicole, Andrea Keller, Julien Wilson, Stu Hunter, The Hoodangers, The Syncopators, James Macaulay and many, many more.

Dingo’s aspiration is to support and promote all of this amazing activity in a way that reflects the breadth of jazz played in this country, from highlighting the achievements of our best and brightest through to those who are just starting out on their jazz journeys.

Let’s consider the role of the dingo in Australia’s First Peoples culture, which was one of companion or even guardian. Dingoes aided the protection of women, who would wear them almost as clothing. Dingo pups could be a source of food, but also served as companions for women and children, as hunters, living blankets and served as protection from intruders. They are also known as expert water diviners in both First Peoples and European stories. What we were looking for in a name for the magazine was something that would place it firmly as an Australian magazine and this sense of an animal, with an imperfect reputation and a bit on the wild side, but capable of making important contributions, seemed appropriate. Then of course, there is Dingo, the 1991 Australian film featuring Colin Friels and Miles Davis. SNAP! There’s our jazz connection right there! But would it also be a good fit? What is the film about? Would it match with our aims for the magazine? The short answer is yes, it fits.

DINGOES ARE ALSO KNOWN AS EXPERT WATER DIVINERS IN BOTH FIRST PEOPLES AND EUROPEAN STORIES

The longer, multi-layered explanation goes like this: Dingo is a “follow your dream” kind of story, with a young boy inspired by a dreamlike sequence – featuring Billy Cross (Miles Davis) doing an impromptu performance on an airstrip in Poona Flat (actually Meekatharra, WA, about eight hours north of Perth). This young boy becomes a trumpet player, John “Dingo” Anderson, learning his craft playing to the outback dingoes, one day, finally going to Paris to meet his idol and inspiration. It is an apocryphal story, yet at the time, it was pointed out that Bernie McGann – an Australian composer and alto saxophonist described by Paul Grabowsky as “one of the greatest of all jazz musicians, either here or anywhere,” – his own story could have been the inspiration, given the tales of his development, playing in the bush surrounding Bundeena (NSW). And there is a dingo in the film that continues to elude capture throughout, cunningly managing to dismantle the traps carefully set by John.

In a letter to Billy, his idol, John explains how dingoes intelligently learn from their mistakes: “Three legged dogs are the worst kind, because they’re too smart to get trapped again and too slow to go after anything but sheep.” The film’s director, Rolf de Heer, in an interview for Dingo, talked about it not being a jazz film as such, but rather the music was used as a sound to appeal to people beyond those who love jazz, in order for the film to reach a wide audience: “I was heavily into all sorts of music but not particularly into jazz. In fact, jazz was an area I had some difficulties with, but I felt that was somehow a positive. Jazz is a speciality area in a sense, it’s not mainstream music, but the film was meant to be mainstream, and so I felt qualified to make a film that was mainstream rather than specialist.” A personal reflection in watching the film after all these years as an internationally touring Australian jazz artist of 50 years of age, is that I have had some of these very same experiences as “Dingo” Anderson – going overseas, naive and overawed, even playing with some of my childhood icons, sharing stages and being feted, yet feeling a sense of coming home to a community that I belong to. There is something about travelling abroad that helps place one’s home in perspective. The notion of a mainstream Australian movie telling an Australian story that could have been based on reality, featuring one of jazz’s absolute icons in his one and only film appearance, definitely is a mix that Dingo is inspired by – seeking to highlight the stories of our local artists, who do draw upon the long and great tradition of American jazz, but also have something to contribute in exchange at an international level. This Dingo is very much in that spirit.

And may we all learn from the example of that three-legged dingo also; being resilient and resourceful enough to ensure continuing survival. Dingo, the magazine mirrors the aspirations of the movie in that it is about sharing Australian stories, it is about what is possible, it is about honouring traditions, it is about exciting new audiences, it is looking to expand our horizons, it is daring to dream. “So here we are and we mean to stay.” Echoing Peter Hume’s words from 1974, we do intend for Dingo to be around for some time to come. Your feedback, input and support will be invaluable in making that possible. What you see here is a starting point for Dingo that will develop and grow with each edition. This is just the beginning. Please take time to enjoy all of the aspects covered in Dingo. Whether it is learning a bit more about our elite artists, coming to grips with the challenges we face, meeting some of the new faces of jazz, or learning of new sounds to delight the senses; we hope you discover a few things as you explore Dingo. Dingo’s aim is to be a meeting place for any and all of our jazz community to be heard. One of the encouraging aspects of last year’s online Australian Jazz Forum was the attendance by a broad range of passionate people representing quite disparate styles of jazz, yet sharing very similar ideas of what Australian jazz has to offer. With your support, Dingo will be a vehicle to give voice to all facets of our community with a whole-of-ecosystem perspective. Come on the Dingo journey with us – share in some of our stories, and please share some of yours.

ROLF DE HEER: DINGO, MILES AND JAZZ 30 YEARS L AT E R WO RDS RAFFAELE CAPUTO

In the development stage of this magazine, it was discovered serendipitously that Dingo, the 1991 movie had just been remastered for Blu-Ray and re -released by Sunburnt Screens, Umbrella Entertainment’s new sub -label. On behalf of Dingo magazine, Raffaele Caputo spoke with acclaimed Australian director Rolf de Heer about the role of Miles Davis in the film, and that of jazz more broadly: Dingo is an Australian film set in the outback with jazz as a prominent attribute, which is a music genre not readily associated with the Australian outback. How did the script evolve? The script wasn’t written for Miles. It was an evolving script that originally had the character of John “Dingo” Anderson as a drummer who went to America, not to France. But there was a cinematographer who said to us that it’s very difficult to sync with a drummer, and that we should think of an instrument that is much easier to sync. Because that made sense Marc changed the script to have the main character play trumpet … and when he discovered that France was a place of refuge for many jazz artists from America, decided to shift the setting to France. Originally there were a number of American actors looked at for the role, including Sammy Davis Jr. because he was a good trumpeter in his youth. But … Sammy Davis Jr. was gravely ill and, as it turned out, not long for this earth. Then an American chap, the person who actually led us to Sammy Davis Jr. in the first place, said, “Why not Miles Davis?” Yet I knew that once his name was associated with Dingo, it wasn’t going to come out no matter how much we didn’t get along, and if I said “I don’t want him” then the film would have fallen apart. At that stage in my head, I was stuck with the idea of having Miles as Billy Cross. An obvious question, but what was it like working with Miles Davis? Completely unexpected! It was completely different to the way one would ever have expected, so much so that Miles’s manager for the previous eight years said to me that he had never seen Miles this cooperative.

Miles Davis was a living legend and would have come with a particular sort of “baggage.” Was it a plus or a minus? During the making of Dingo, that did not occur to me one way or the other insofar as the path I had to travel to work with Miles, to do well by him and for the film to work was the focus of my attention … to what extent the living legend had overtaken the role of Billy Cross or not was rather muddied by the fact that Miles Davis died shortly before the film was released. No audience had seen the film while Miles was still alive, and so that took the film into a different area. On Miles’s wardrobe: Well, we can always speculate on how much things are or are not accidents because much of what we see in that sequence was in the script long before Miles was even considered for the role. What I can say for certain is that Miles insisted on what to wear … and his contract actually stipulated that he decide on his wardrobe. On how Michel Legrand and Miles worked together: I can talk about that now because they are both dead! We needed a lot of the music before the shoot because, of course, we needed it for the playback. Michel went to America to work with Miles, but Miles was crook when Michel called on him, saying [affecting Miles’s raspy voice], “I’m sorry, Michel, I’m sorry, I’m very sick, very sick,” and so Michel tells him that he’ll come back later. A couple of days go by and Miles is still in bed, “I’m sorry Michel, I’m sorry.” Michel says [now affecting a French accent], “But Miles, we are running out of time,” and Miles says, “I know, I’m sorry, but I simply can’t do anything.” Michel goes back two days later, and now it’s critical and he had been thinking about what to do. Michel got there and Miles was again in bed and is like, “I’m sorry, I can’t, I can’t right now,” and so Michel says, “Miles, we are friends from long time, I will do this for you, I will compose this stuff and you will need to just come somehow and play a little bit,” to which Miles says, “Michel, I’m feeling better already!” Anyway, Michel went off and composed and Miles went into a studio and performed, and put his stamp on it. But in the end, it’s really Michel’s score.

And about the dingo, the threelegged one in the film. Is that dingo a mirror of John Anderson? I see the lame dingo as an animal that must improvise to survive. I think that’s a very good reading. Whether it’s exactly what Marc intended I don’t know. I would not say mirror, but I know in a practical sense that what the threelegged dingo represents is something of a beacon, which John Anderson must deal with. Do you know what I mean? The dingo is his enemy but at the same time is not. There is sort of a mystical relationship between them, which I like very much. The full interview can be accessed by subscribers on the Dingo website – www.dingojazz.com

Introducing for Alto and Tenor Saxophone

Expressive and colourful. Made for jazz. Loaded with personality.

Available from all good music retailers. Contact sales@grevillea.com.au for your local retailer. Distributed in Australia & New Zealand by Grevillea Distribution.

Building community through performance, sharing experience and empowering artists. Arts Consultancy / Grant Writing & Advice / Mentoring / Advocacy

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KO H ES I A E N S E M B L E P H OTO BY J O S H W E L LS

jazz in perth WO RDS FRANCESCA J URAT E SASNAITIS

L AST YEAR , T H ERE WAS MUCH TO BE G RAT EFUL FO R LIVI NG I N T H E MOST I SO L AT ED CAPITAL I N AUST RAL IA.

I started coming to Perth regularly in 2012 and moved here from Melbourne in 2016. It has definitely been an adjustment! I hadn’t realised that Perth was actually a big town masquerading as a city, and I shouldn’t have kept expecting the range of entertainment I was used to in Melbourne. Which is not to say that we don’t do well here, given the size of the population and the even smaller jazz audience. Last year, there was much to be grateful for living in the most isolated capital in Australia. For a start, we remained relatively safe from COVID-19, and we reaped the benefits of keeping recent returnees from the USA here: Tal Cohen, Linda May Han Oh, Fabian Almazan, who we saw several times during the year and then at the 2020 Perth International Jazz Festival (PIJF), where Oh and Almazan proved their spectacular partnership with heart-bending sonic sculptures and virtuosity, and Cohen’s quartet could be summed up in one word: ENERGY!! We were lucky to squeeze in an evening with Pat Metheny at the Astor Theatre (4 March 2020) just before lockdown. Sitting four rows from the front; could see every grimace, every pluck of the fingers. Metheny kicked off with a solo on the four-neck and played non-stop for two hours, not even a break to introduce the band: his long-term drummer Antonio Sanchez, Linda May Han Oh, and British pianist Gwilym Simcock. The show’s finale was a series of stunning duets with Metheny and each member of the band. That finale was one of many "best gig of my life" moments.

Back on the local scene, in June 2020, Jamie Oehlers was appointed Associate Dean of Music at Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts at Edith Cowan University, whose notable alumni have included Mat Jodrell, Carl Mackey, Grant Windsor, Sam Anning, Daniel Susnjar, and Linda May Han Oh. Oehlers’s powerhouse saxophone is, of course, always exhilarating, whether playing in trio with regular colleague Ben Vanderwal, squeezed into a corner of the tiny Swallow Bar (Maylands), or reprising Soul Trane, the music of John Coltrane at The Ellington Jazz Club with a shifting array of Perth’s musical talent: Harry Mitchell (winner of the 2020 WAM jazz award for his album Sketches), Zac Grafton, and Daniel Susnjar. One of the highlights of last year was another reprisal, the Jamie Oehlers Double Drummer Band, with Vanderwal and Susnjar in ecstatic duelling-mode and wildman Tal Cohen adding his particular brand of mayhem on keys. I think I summed it up in my diary after their PIJF gig: bloody brilliant! I should mention that The Ellington has been a stalwart on Perth’s jazz scene since its inception in 2009 by the late, great pianist Graham Wood. We were privileged to see Wood play in the magnificent surrounds of St George’s Cathedral scarcely two months before his death in 2017. Wood looked frail but, accompanied by Alex da Costa’s soaring violin, played with such elegance and subtlety, the memory still sends shivers up my spine. More recent additions to Perth’s venues where jazz is occasionally on the bill, are the Goodwill Club in the basement of The Rechabite (Perth) and The Duke of George (East Fremantle). Unfortunately, as several musicians have told me, some venues like The George prefer jazz standards to a more challenging program of new compositions and improvisational experiments. The Goodwill Club, however, seems to have come to the party with the Perth Jazz Society (PJS), our somewhat staid sounding equivalent to the Melbourne Jazz Cooperative. Certainly, since bassist Kate Pass took over as president, the PJS has had an injection of energy, recently producing Open Your Ears Vol. 1: Perth Women in Jazz, a double disc celebrating Perth’s female composers and musicians, including Linda May Han Oh, Vanessa Perica, Allira Wilson, Alana Macpherson, Alice Humphries, Gemma Farrell, and Libby Hammer, to name a few. A RT E M I S O RC H EST RA P H OTO S BY ST U D I O S H O OT

IMPROVISATIONAL MUSIC C OMES ALIVE WITH THE AUDIENCE, WITH THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE ROOM, THE EXCITEMENT OF HEARING SOMETHING UNIQUE EVERY TIME. Kate Pass is also leader of the Kohesia Ensemble. Her compositional explorations of Persian tones and microtonal melodies combined with Western jazz harmonics are exhilarating. I was blown away the first time I saw Kohesia in 2017, and particularly mesmerised by Esfandiar Shahmir’s consummate performance on ney (Persian flute) and daf (percussion), by Mike Zolker on oud, and Reza Mirzaei on saz (Turkish lute) and guitar. 2021 kicked off on 3 January at the Goodwill Club with the Gemma Farrell Quintet. An appreciative audience packed the small room, braving its far from comfortable bench seats for what turned out to be a Cheshire-cat-grin inducing two sets. Farrell blew up a storm on her range of saxophones from soprano to baritone, joined by Kate Pass going electric on a couple of numbers, Sam Hadlow (trombone), Dan Garner (guitar), and Ryan Daunt (drums). At the end, Farrell thanked everyone profusely, reminding us that gigs aren’t always like this – their previous time at the Goodwill, they had played to an audience of five – and that a musician’s livelihood is dependent on “bums on seats.” Farrell, like Kate Pass, also plays in the Artemis Orchestra, a big band formed to promote female jazz musicians, soloists, and composers, in the hope of encouraging future generations of young women to make a career in jazz. Both Pass and Farrell are to be applauded for their energy and dedication.

There are too many local talents I haven’t mentioned in this overview – Ben Falle, Mace Francis (Director of WAYJO, West Australian Youth Jazz Orchestra), Sam Hadlow, Ricki Malet, Austin Salisbury, amongst others – world-class musicians we are fortunate to have in Perth, so I really can’t complain. If I hanker for Melbourne, it’s only because I don’t have “history” here. I still miss Andrea Keller’s residencies at The JazzLab and Uptown Jazz Cafe, and hearing musicians, like Julien Wilson and Scott Tinkler, who I’ve followed since they were whippersnappers. In the past I could get my east-coast fix by planning trips around Melbourne International Jazz Festival and the Wangaratta Festival of Jazz & Blues. However, my sense of connection to Perth’s scene is growing stronger, helped in part by our isolation. Improvisational music comes alive with the audience, with the atmosphere of the room, the excitement of hearing something unique every time, like the first live jazz gig we went to last year after months of streaming and Zooming. It was Jamie Oehlers Double Drummer Band at the Ellington. Enough said!

A RT E M I S O RC H EST RA P H OTO BY ST U D I O S H O OT

reviews

Haven Berardi, Foran, Karlen Earshif t

FOTOS Akihiro Nishiguchi Group Apollo Sounds

Haven is a collaborative effort between four strongly creative musicians, each of whom has been highly awarded nationally and internationally as performers and composers, and whose combined experience is somewhat formidable. With modern jazz references and influences from European folk and classical music, the quartet blends the vibraphone with voice, piano, and tenor saxophone, revealing layers of beauty and textures that are, at times, genre-defying and at all times, spellbinding. Perhaps expectantly from the line-up, the album could be broadly categorised as chamber jazz. All four musicians are primarily known for jazz but have had exposure to classical music as well. Opening with the stellar Berardi composition, ”No Shepherds Live Here,” haunting lyrics are infused with gentle melancholia, blending the vibraphone with the subtle nuances of the trio, revealing new layers of beauty like a lotus flower emerging. This is the album’s hallmark. Each new composition reveals elements particular to that tune, and the musical stories they tell are as different as night and day. Every instrument plays an equally important part in this music. Vibraphonist Pascal Schumacher is one of the best in contemporary jazz, Sean Foran is a gifted pianist with abundant ideas and the technique to go with them, Rafael Karlen’s tenor saxophone playing is at times as beautiful as it gets, and Montreux Jazz Voice Competition winner Berardi’s vocal lines are sublime with a halcyon quality. Coming together, in these times of turbulence, all four artists offer to the listener a truly sonic haven.

From the start, the album produced and recorded by Japanese saxophonist/flautist Akihiro Nishiguchi in his hometown of Tokyo, invites you in with the catchy jazz tune “Benches”, featuring the dexterous phrasing of Australian Merinda Dias-Jayasinha. The melody twists and turns with playfulness and invites you to immerse yourself and continue listening to an album that promises to deliver a captivating journey of skill and finesse.

Barry O’Sullivan

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The following tracks are all instrumental, and provide evidence of the authority of Nishiguchi’s instrumental mastery. Whereas “Pele of The Sacred Land” starts with an assertive bass line and lands on an enticing horn driven hook whose hypnotic musings are increased by the warmth and melodic assuredness of Nishiguchi and Australian trombonist James Macaulay, the swinging escapism found in “Mangrove” breezes in with a fluidity of language and the modal finesse of both Nishiguchi and the accomplished Hakuei Kim on keys/piano. On this one, we have post-bop bewitchment, to create a strong crossover appeal. All tunes benefit from Sota Kira’s subtle driving textures, attractive colours and technical skill. It also helps that there is a seasoned rendezvous between Kira and Australian bassist Marty Holoubek. The title track “Fotos” artfully dances through a commanding melodic hook whilst pushing time, giving the tune a subtle sense of urgency and swing. You can feel influences from Nishiguchi’s wider travels, as well as study in the USA and NYC. As well as being able to effortlessly free form, the hooks and tunes Nishiguchi writes are downright mesmerising and catchy. You can feel the playfulness with which he entices his listeners, and you can’t help but want to hear more. This is great contemporary playing by all, great writing and excellent production. Julia Messenger

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the beautiful things Stu Hunter Independent As the COVID-19 pandemic paralysed the world and obliterated his work, requiring him to home-school his children in a lockdown, Stu Hunter established a daily regimen of early rising and spending three uninterrupted hours in his studio before the demands of his day began. The regime resulted in an aptly named album consisting of twelve memorable original compositions shimmering against a soulful and tense backdrop in their beauty. Hunter, who has penned three acclaimed suites for jazz ensembles, initially didn’t know that he was working towards a suite for solo piano, even though the composing process was practically the same as for his jazz ensemble work. With “Ivy (Parts1-3)” he further develops and perfects the independence between his hands that he progressively worked upon during those early morning sessions. Favourite track, “Ruby,” is a clearly defined example of its uncomplicated simplicity. Elsewhere, there are repetitive phrases, left-hand ostinatos, chord progressions note by note, and layered textured music that is achingly gorgeous. Solo records and concerts demand an element of bravery on behalf of the artist. They leave nowhere for the musician to dissimulate. Stu Hunter’s stellar live performance of this album’s debut at this year’s Sydney Festival demonstrated his growing maturity as a musician laying bare his creations for observation and evaluation. The recording is perhaps a little too edgy for some purists, but it’s sonic proof that beauty is indeed as subjective as it is undeniable. Barry O’Sullivan

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to just lounging around in the sun, chilling to the old school sounds of yesteryear. Almost all of the songs on the album sit at that seemingly swoonful length of 2-3 minutes, creating the perfect balance of relaxation and toe tapping goodness. If you want to have a quality relaxing Sunday afternoon listening to original Australian jazz, Take Me Back to Dreamland will be an ideal choice. Grab a cold one and enjoy the journey to Dreamland. Don Mayne

Take Me Back to Dreamland Greg Englert Ozz Jazz Full of original songs with fun and narrative type lyrics, the 12th album on the Ozz Jazz label, Take Me Back to Dreamland, will take you on a journey through a number of styles as it weaves creative lyrics between catchy melodies and old school, early jazz riffs with stylings of the 20s and 30s. The nod to “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” and the contrasts between tracks like “Nobody But You,” the quasi-shanty stylings of “Salty Sam the Seadog” and the lovely vocal harmonies in the title track show the vast influences that Greg brings to his writing. Sydney based Englert, originally a trumpeter and vocalist, brings his 40 years of professional experience to this album, tackling multiple instruments and distinctive vocals, taking the listener back

Assorted Drone Music volumes 1-3 Niran Dasika Independent I am always heartened to see a jazz artist pushing into new territory. Trumpeter Niran Dasika wowed Wangaratta Festival of Jazz & Blues audiences in 2018 with a series of performances featuring Japanese pianist Sumire Kuribayashi. The music was lyrical and emotive, highlighting his wideopen tone, elegiac and mournful. This new series of digital releases, however, sees him moving into darker territory, exploring a series of ambient textures, or brief tone poems. The elegiac quality is still present, but the project represents a fundamental shift in perspective, favouring the experimental, the fragmentary, over the finished product. Assorted Drone Music – like much else in 2020 – began life as a response to isolation, a determined drive to find human connectedness and beauty in what for many was a year of enforced seclusion. Dasika strove to record brief daily improvisations, some of which were then sent to friends – here and abroad – to elicit a musical response. While predominantly a solo venture, some of these thirty-seven miniatures feature added contributions by bassist Helen Svoboda; saxophonists Flora Carbo, Camila Nebbia and Andrew Saragossi; and guitarist Tokutaro Hosoi. The resulting music is wide-ranging and ruminative, at times coming across as barely more than a murmur, filled with contemplation and quietude. Dasika multi-tracks and loops his trumpet, adding synths to further layer the music. There is a predominant sense of stillness

present throughout, of time barely advancing. If there is an exception, it comes with the third volume, which represents part of Dasika’s masters thesis, a considered engagement with Hungarian composer Béla Bartók’s compositional technique. While Assorted Drone Music is constructed from an intentionally limited palette, there is much beauty to be found within, drawing as it does upon minimalism, ambient, repetitive patterns, pulses, drones. These pieces can be best thought of as sound designs. Or perhaps the equivalent of an artist’s sketchbook, a laboratory of ideas from which future art will be produced. Des Cowley

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Everything and Other Infinities Microfiche Creative Sources Sydney based improvising collective, Microfiche, have workshopped and developed a unique sound that embraces freedom and experimentation, utilising a non-standard use of musical instruments in the representation of sonic landscapes. The atmospheric band sound comes from a collective approach developed during their 2019 European tour, crafting both short and quite long pieces characterised by a variety of timbres from several wind instruments as well as those of viola, double bass, cello and piano. Together they navigate the dialogue with fervour and stoicism, Novak Manojlovic’s reflective piano sometimes acting as an anchor in the swirls of screeching sounds where nothing seems earthly in the exploration of the experimental soundscapes. On the brief opener, “What Is Soft Is Also Strong,” woodwinds and piano swirl around like tendrils of smoke under the haunting strings while on the extended piece, “May As Well Be Infinity,” piano, trumpet and percussion mischievously play cat and mouse with cello in melodic ideas and group improvisations, culminating with a crescendo climax that’s awe inspiring and mesmeric. On “The Telling of Time,” Nick Calligeros on trumpet,

Sam Gill on alto and Holly Conner on drums generously accommodate the frenetic drive and improvisational impetus commonly seen in the free jazz genre, with a coherent thread throughout. The recording may well become a reference point for the future up and coming generations of this country’s free jazz players to utilise. It is an ensemble to be admired and eagerly consumed. Barry O’Sullivan

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Reparations Stephen Byth Independent Composer and saxophonist Stephen Byth is a relative newcomer on the Melbourne scene. A former alumnus of Monash University, he has spent the last few years studying in Boston, mentored by the likes of George Garzone and Danilo Pérez. Byth unveiled Reparations in concert at Melbourne’s Jazzlab in January this year, performing the suite in its entirety with an all-star octet that featured Julien Wilson, Josh Kelly, James Macaulay, Niran Dasika, and Sam Anning. Barnstorming its way through Byth’s complex charts, the band played with heightened fury, much to the delight of a large and rapturous audience. The album Reparations, however, is a different proposition, having been recorded with an ensemble of mostly young American musicians. In contrast to its live counterpart, it proves to be a quieter, lusher, and all-round subtler affair, largely eschewing solos, and instead emphasizing ensemble precision and compositional complexity. The half-hour-long suite is framed as a call-to-arms, reflecting its composer’s response to issues at the forefront of contemporary Australia, from the need for truth-telling to the encroaching degradation of the natural world. The music’s seamless quality is even more remarkable for its having been recorded during lockdown, with musicians remotely adding their parts, whether on the brief two-part, nearsymphonic “Australiana”, which bookends the album, or “Adani”, ushered along with gentle and loping piano and bass. Throughout, Byth’s music is permeated with a haunting, almost filmic quality, achieving its effect via a gentle and incremental layering of sound. He has, in the main, opted for an instrumental palette that favours warm tones – bass clarinet, flute, violin – along with a crystalline purity of trumpet and saxophone. On “Meaningful Action”, pianist Yessai Karapetian’s metronomic pulse recalls Andrea Keller’s trademark signature, an acknowledged influence on Byth’s compositional style, which draws comfortably from both jazz and classical sources. With his debut album, Byth has established himself as a compelling new voice in Australian jazz. Des Cowley

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on tracks

Roger Mitchell selects two disparate tracks from a favourite album for a closer listen.

Midnight Tide Chris Cody Coalition Cristal Records, 2003 Midnight Tide 10:09

From the start it’s visceral – low piano chords, joined soon by deeply resonant bass notes, invoke an immediate bodily response, drawing me into a contemplative state. I love the simplicity of two instruments slightly offset, not fighting for attention, just coexisting. I could be on the beach at night, but soon I’m drifting on currents that suggest air rather than water. I’m happy with that, yet in repeated listenings never fail to welcome the piano’s melody, rising in cascading notes from the depths to embroider so appealingly. I love all the space, the slow pace. As Ferris’s trombone eerily vocalises, it brings to mind the ghostly, almost human cries of Stephen Magnusson’s guitar during a Tim Berne concert in 2009. Or James Greening’s ’bone splattering gobs of sound. I love it when instruments go feral (or, for that matter, when vocals turn instrumental), but this is a drift into sublimely surreal ethereality, a languid musing. As the piano floats over the slow rhythm of bass and brushes, tenderly droppin its melody in rivulets, I could linger forever. The ’bone wails plaintively and beseechingly. I drift, knowing that I will return to this joyful place, where warm air may be caressing my body. Sprightly piano is a signal that time’s up. But I’ll be back. That Was It 3:53 Freely improvised pieces are intriguing; totally unscripted concerts can be gripping because the creative process at its most inventive is on display in real time. One band member was unaware this track was being recorded, until it was over. It’s brief, spontaneous and filled with the gentle chatter and bustle of musicians in conversation. Listening to this repeatedly is like letting an abstract painting tell its story – perhaps different each time. To me it seems to perfectly evoke the unsettled times in our lives, to be a reminder that all could be over before we know it.

As Serious as Your Life Val Wilmer Serpent’s Tail, re -issue It is a question worth asking. How many books on music deserve to remain in print decades after their first appearance? I can think of a few: Greil Marcus’s Mystery Train, Peter Guralnick’s It Came from Memphis, Ian MacDonald’s Revolution in the Head. To my mind, Val Wilmer’s As Serious as Your Life, first published in 1977 and more recently re-issued, deserves a place. Aside from anything else, it stands as one of the few pioneering accounts of the birth of free jazz in America from the late fifties onwards. Wilmer, it is fair to say, was an unlikely candidate, a white British photographer and writer who grew up in post-war London. She published her first piece in Jazz Journal in 1959, while still a teenager, at a time when female music journalists were a scarce resource. As Serious as Your Life, her third published work, was originally issued by Allison & Busby in the UK, prominent for being co-founded by Margaret Busby, UK’s first female Black publisher, still going strong today. Wilmer’s title is lifted from a comment made to her by pianist McCoy Tyner: “Music’s not a plaything; it’s as serious as your life.” It is a prescient observation, for the free jazz scene that Wilmer explores – at a time when many of its greatest exponents were living hand to mouth – was nothing if not serious. The first half of Wilmer’s book zeroes in on the key innovators of what has invariably been labelled free jazz, the new wave, the avant-garde, the new thing: John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler and Chicago’s AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians). While some of these musicians were only mid-career at the time she was writing – most notably Taylor and Coleman – her commentary nevertheless remains invaluable. In particular, her recorded conversations with musicians working alongside these pioneers – Frank Lowe, Leroy Jenkins, Wadada Leo Smith, Jimmy Lyons and others – form a unique testimony on the emergence of this music. Wilmer, after all, is not writing history, she is reporting from the frontlines.

It was Wilmer who coined the phrase “eighty-eight tuned drums” to describe Cecil Taylor’s approach, surely the best descriptor we have of his percussive piano style. Writing on Coltrane, she pays tribute to his support for up-and-coming musicians – Archie Shepp, Marion Brown, Pharoah Sanders, Albert Ayler – imploring producer Bob Thiele to record them for Impulse! Thankfully, for posterity, the label acquiesced, and the Impulse! back catalogue – much of it beautifully recorded – remains today one of the jewels in the free jazz canon. Wilmer makes a strong case for the genius of Sun Ra, stating: “At times it seems like Sun Ra’s influence is so strong that the musicians express him rather than themselves.” Writing on Albert Ayler, she sums up his brief career as “a catalogue of misunderstandings.” On his playing style: “He used a tough plastic reed, a Fibrecane No 4 – the hardest – and had a sound that scared the shit out of everyone who heard him.” A photo of drummer Rashied Ali adorns the book’s cover, signalling Wilmer’s belief that drumming was critical to the development of free jazz. In her extended section “Give the Drummer Some!” she hones in on the work of Elvin Jones, Milford Graves, Ed Blackwell, Billy Higgins, Andrew Cyrille, Sunny Murray, Denis Charles and others. Originally considered a time-keeping instrument, it was the freedom these drummers brought to their role that laid the groundwork for the advances made by Coltrane, Coleman, Taylor, and Ayler. Wilmer vividly sketches Sunny Murray’s style: “He played with his mouth open, emitting an incessant wailing which blended into the overall percussion backdrop of shifting pulses rather than specific rhythms,” laying down “a shimmering tapestry behind the soloist, enabling him to move wherever he wanted.” Rare for a book of this period, Wilmer tackles the issue of gender in jazz, still a thorny issue. It makes for dispiriting reading. Women, it seems, had two primary roles: to provide emotional and financial support. Make no mistake, free jazz was a near exclusively male domain, and the fierce

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reality was that most saw little financial return on their playing. The seventies delivered some respite, with musicians such as Anthony Braxton, Milford Graves, Clifford Thornton being appointed to academic teaching positions. On a more positive note, Wilmer considers the handful of female musicians active in the scene, especially those who musically joined forces with their partners: Alice Coltrane, Lynda Sharrock, Barbara Donald, and Monette Sudler. The late bassist Donald Rafael Garrett comes in for honourable mention, a musician who advocated for the increased presence of women in jazz, and who regularly toured and recorded with wife and collaborator Zusaan Kali Fasteau. The recorded legacy of this music was always a precarious issue. Few major labels were interested, and the load fell mainly to smaller, independent labels. The widespread recording carried out by French label BYG in Paris in 1969, off the back of the Pan-African music festival in Algiers, can be considered foundational to this music. As was Bernard Stollman’s ESP label, responsible for recording Albert Ayler’s masterpiece Spiritual Unity, and albums by Giuseppi Logan, Frank Wright, Noah Howard and others. This, despite Stollman’s rarely paying royalties. As an antidote, Wilmer touches upon the rise of musician run labels, such as Milford Graves SRP (Self-Reliance Project) and Charles Tolliver and Stanley Cowell’s StrataEast, along with independent cooperative initiatives like Bill Dixon’s Jazz Composer’s Guild. While some of these projects proved short-lived, they were important steps in the ongoing recognition of musician’s rights. Times would become tougher for free jazz musicians in the decade after Wilmer published her book. Jazz entered an even more mainstream phase, exemplified by those dubbed the “young lions,” whose music harked back to older models. Free jazz was kept on life support by a handful of European labels, like Italy’s Black Saint and Soul Note, and by the tenacity of artists such as Charles Gayle, David S. Ware, William Parker and others. A number of musicians namechecked in Wilmer’s book gave up the struggle, or literally vanished. The stories of Henry Grimes and Guiseppi Logan are a case in point: both disappeared for decades, only to be rediscovered in the 21st century. Sadly, both men died from COVID-19, a week apart, in April 2020, a searing indictment, in the time of BLM, on how America has treated its Black artists. But, like an underground stream, the music Wilmer champions so passionately in As Serious as Your Life continued to flow, re-inventing itself for a new millennium in the work of artists such as Shabaka Hutchings and Kamasi Washington, whose music is spiritually descended from the free jazz revolution at the heart of Wilmer’s book. Des Cowley

Christine Sullivan and Monika Roleff Independent The Singers’ Companion – Personal Wisdom from the Global Music Industry, is set up almost as a collection of short stories – although the stories are reallife excerpts and interviews with performers who have devoted their lives to music. In no small feat, Australian vocalist Christine Sullivan and writer Monika Roleff have compiled the percipience of over one hundred artists – both singers, and musicians who have worked with singers – to offer insights from their own respective journeys, and essentially what it means to be a singer. As Christine herself eloquently states: “This book is meant to inspire the singer or … anyone lured by the romance of the singer’s life. This is a book to be cherished, from people who chose a ‘road less traveled … ’” a road with many challenges the book hopes to answer, such as, what can singers do to inspire themselves when work is scarce? Other questions the book addresses are: how should one maintain vocal health? Mental health? How important is music education for the singer?

What does the human voice mean for community? Society? And most importantly – what words of wisdom would you impart to the new generations of singers coming up?

52ND STREET

Having been invited to contribute to the book myself, it’s been fascinating to read those of fellow colleagues, too many in this first edition to mention. Judy Jacques imparts: “The first lesson… has been learning how to listen.” Vince Jones encourages the singer to “speak up” and be “accountable,” and use the voice to speak truth to “social condition, the ecology, inequity and greed.” Tina May states: “To my mind, singing is the most wonderful way of speaking.” Jacqueline Gawler poignantly adds: “With words a singer can heal wounds, move a room to tears and set in motion great changes of consciousness.” This is personal, intimate wisdom and it almost feels like a private invitation to experience the art from inside another singer’s very breath.

UNLACQUERED & UNREAL

Although the title forwardly states that it’s inclusive of the “Global Music Industry,” the majority of contributors are Australians or Australians living overseas, with the exception of Jay Clayton and Linda Marks (USA), and Tina May (UK) among others. What the majority of the artists have to offer though, is a global view, connecting us all, with what it means to be a singer and musician. The majority of the Australian contributors have lived and worked overseas, importing knowledge from the global music industry and adding that to a unique palette that is the Australian music scene. This comes across in the stories and pages, with many talking of their experience as a singer as it pertains to the world, and the incredible musicians they have met through international travel along the way. If it weren’t for COVID-19, many would possibly still be living overseas.

Julie Messenger

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Whilst I would recommend this delightful book to anyone who knows a singer, is interested in singing, or is a singer themselves, this book is not necessarily only for singers. There are also some wonderful insights from musicians who work with singers, and as pianist Joe Chindamo aptly states: “We performers are in essence all singers.”

Dingo 1991 (2020 Remastered) FILM REVIEW Dingo tells the story of John “Dingo” Anderson (Colin Friels), a man with a life-long dream – actually an obsession – to travel to Paris and play trumpet alongside the legendary jazz trumpeter Billy Cross (Miles Davis). Anderson’s obsession is sparked when, as a pre-teen in January of 1969, a massive TNT jet aircraft is accidently diverted to his hometown of Poona Flat, a town located deep in the West Australian outback. On board the aircraft is Billy Cross who, on seeing a crowd of excited locals, decides to have his band set up on the desert runway to perform a number as both a form of greeting and an expression of gratitude. It is an interlude that whiles away the hours for the locals of Poona Flat, except for the young Anderson, who is caught by the music and has a brief vision of Cross performing in another space, on his own against a dark background.

This brief moment is a vision within a vision, for the scene on the runway is actually a memory of a much older Anderson, and hence not factual. In his mind’s eye, before Cross reboards the plane, the young Anderson tells him that he has never heard anything so beautiful in his life, and to which Cross tells the boy to look him up if he ever finds himself in Paris. In one sense Dingo is an utterly conventional drama – after all, the young Anderson could aspire to become an acrobat or a Shakespearean actor had a circus or theatrical troupe came to Poona Flat instead of a jazz band. But the audience’s first glimpse of Billy Cross, the legendary jazz trumpeter is in name only. Who the audience sees is Miles Davis, who was – and still is – an actual jazz legend, and whose performances did indeed have an arresting quality. It is for this reason that there is a delicate kind of yin-yang relationship in Dingo between the telling of Anderson’s story and the playing of jazz. In the film’s final sequence Anderson does indeed fulfil his dream and play alongside Billy Cross in a jazz club in Paris. But in almost all other scenes in which Anderson picks up his trumpet – and it’s always to play the music of Cross-Davis – the music tends to arrest or suspend, even subvert, the narrative and enter a specular zone, so to speak, one that is without an objective time or place. There is only one constant in these specular moments, which, must be said, are the most meritorious moments of Dingo – Miles Davis is playing his music. Raffaele Caputo

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SC OT T VAN G E MERT Scott composed and recorded “Beyond,” the bonus track available with this copy of Dingo. He is a trombonist, composer, arranger, cricket lover, band leader and educator. What’s your musical background? I started learning piano as a kid, then picked up trombone when I went to Eltham High School, where I was heavily involved in the band program. I then went on to study for four years at the James Morrison Academy in Mount Gambier, South Australia, specialising in jazz improvisation and composition. What is jazz? Jazz is an art form born from the oppression of African-American slaves. It is a freedom music that accepts and promotes everyone’s personal stories with humility and focuses on improvisation, expression, and interaction between band members. What excites you about composing? The most exciting thing about composing is the privilege to put music out in the world that has never existed before. Despite all the study, influences and inspirations we all have, once it’s filtered through your own personal experiences it’s truly unique, so composition is a beautiful way to hear someone’s inner voice and the way they view the world. Tell us a little bit about how “Beyond” came about. In April 2020, early on in the COVID-19 lockdown, The Music Place decided to commission a new work as a response to the unfolding medical crisis around the world. It looked like a wonderful opportunity especially considering all live music and recording had shut down, so I applied and was lucky enough to be chosen to write the piece.

What are you aiming to communicate through “Beyond”? “Beyond” is written for a jazz octet of five horns and a three-piece rhythm section, plus a string quartet. The aim of the piece was to provide energy and momentum through to the other side of this pandemic and into the future. It explores the dichotomy that containing ourselves in solitary isolation was the only way to “come together” as a global community and help each other through this medical emergency. It begins with a number of fragmented and unfinished melodies that gently morph into one another, and then finds its strength in the final theme. This mirrors the experience had by most of us during isolation, developing our own new routines and methods of maintaining motivation during that time. What are you working on now? I’m currently planning some shows to promote my debut album SPARK which was released in April last year, with my band Unbroken Trio. It features Maddison Carter on drums and Theo Carbo on guitars, and is a nine-movement continuous suite of music that I wrote. Unfortunately we’ve had a number of great album launch opportunities cancelled in the past year but we’re looking forward to finally performing the music live. I’ve also been working on some material for a new quartet project and just generally getting back into the gig scene after a tough year without live performances.

FREE D OW N LOA D www.dingojazz.com/beyondsvg Passcode: BEYOND2020

When live music disappeared overnight, The Music Place (specialty brass and woodwind shop located in South Melbourne) put out a call for expressions of interest for a new original work composition, as a way of doing something to support the community. Scott van Gemert was commissioned to write a tune addressing themes arising from the global pandemic and their local impact on the music industry. Once complete, fantastic Melbourne musicians brought it to life.

FO RESTO N E .C O M . AU

ZATOCZKA – TRIBUTE TO KOMEDA ADAM SIMMONS | JEAN POOLE

The musicians do it in a perfect way … with extraordinary respect and gentleness Marta Ratajczak, Babskim Uchem

THE USEFULNESS OF ART: 2017-2018 (5 CD BOX SET), ADAM SIMMONS



The breadth of music matches the scale of ambition. John Shand, Sydney Morning Herald

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It’s been a tough year for the jazz community

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education

H I STO RY L ES S O N Australia has a rich history of jazz but for many undertaking study in jazz our attention is often focused internationally. In this section we’ll be looking at Australian jazz history and where better to start than at the Australian Jazz Museum. Founded in 1996 as the Victorian Jazz Archive (VJA), later changing its name to become the Australian Jazz Museum (AJM), it has an expansive collection of recordings and memorabilia housed in the eastern suburbs of metropolitan Melbourne. We spoke with Terry Norman, the current president, to learn a little more about what it does.

Membership and further information www.ajm.org.au

What is the purpose and mission of AJM? The AJM came about from the strongly voiced desire to preserve all of Australia’s jazz heritage and for it to be readily accessible to musicians, collectors, donors and other jazz enthusiasts. We are dedicated to the collection of anything related to Australian jazz, Australians playing jazz elsewhere in the world and non-Australians playing jazz in Australia. Our collection includes Australian jazz materials from the 1920’s through to the present, covering all jazz eras and all types of jazz. What was the first exhibit? It was a small display at the VJA Annual General Meeting on Nov 29, 1998. It consisted of three musical instruments, one being Ade Monsbourgh’s valve trombone, and several photographs. How did you get involved and what is your role? I attended a jazz improvisation workshop, saw the potential and enthusiasm in the people and organisation and joined as a volunteer. My current role is to ensure the people, strategies, systems and equipment are available to enable us to build and maintain a world class collection and Australian Jazz Museum. What is jazz to you? Jazz for me is the music that you cannot completely anticipate. It invites you in with the rhythm, takes you on a journey of improvisation and leaves you wanting more. It’s important to not spend too much time debating “what is jazz” as we need the time to listen with open minds to what musicians are creating. Most unusual or unique item in the collection? Graeme Bell’s piano signed on the frame by Graeme is certainly a unique item from a musician who had a significant and lasting impact on Australian jazz history.

Favourite piece in the collection? My favourite is Ade Monsbourgh’s Grafton white plastic alto saxophone. This saxophone was one of a small batch made in the early days of plastic use and given to leading players to promote. One used by Charlie Parker was recently sold for around $90,000!

Favourite recording or rare gem? A very large collection I believe to be the real gem is the complete history of the Australian Jazz Convention from 1946 to today. We are working very hard to digitise and prepare to make this amazing collection available. It is a unique record of all the great musicians and jazz enthusiasts who have initiated and kept this event alive. How do people access your incredible collection of recordings? Later this year all will be able to access digitised music from our new EMu database. A unique piece of Australian jazz trivia? Don Burrows was Principal Clarinettist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 1940 before he moved to jazz. Judith Durham sang jazz with Frank Traynor in 1963 before becoming famous with The Seekers in 1964. Many students rely on the AJM for research, are there any projects coming up? Due to our COVID-19 shutdown we have none in progress but we are always wanting to support projects and we will be creating our own projects to make our collection more complete. If you have an idea or need for a project please contact us to discuss possibilities. The AJM has a large catalogue of Australian jazz for sale, what is the best way to purchase? The AJM website shop has all CDs available to view and purchase online. Best value is if you join us and become a member, you get a free member-only CD on joining and another every year on renewal. With COVID-19 closing the museum temporarily, where to next? At this point Terry produced the adjacent image; an artist rendition of a new complex encompassing performance space, gallery and a world class archival space.

AUSTRALIAN JAZZ IN 2 0 2 1 : W H E R E A R E W E AT ? D R . TIM N I KOLSKY I sometimes get asked to try and articulate the sound of Australian jazz. What is it? What does it sound like? Does a unique and identifiable Australian jazz even exist? Have we got our own thing going on or do we just copy what happens overseas? Does Melbourne swing differently than Sydney? What are the elements that could contribute towards an Australian jazz sound? Given that people’s definition of jazz is often defined by the circumstances and year in which it was originally encountered, everyone seems to have a different idea of what jazz should be, can be, and ought to be. jazz as a term can be problematic, conjuring outdated images that no longer serve the music, nor the place in which it is created.

JAZZ ME ANS D I FFERENT TH I N GS TO DIFFERENT PEOPLE.

For me, jazz is a broad church. It is inclusive, not exclusionary. It accepts all inspirations as worthy. For many, jazz is a process, a mindset, a way of being, listening, and a way of collaborating. For me, it is way more those things than a style of music that has specific limitations, boundaries, narrow definitions and particular expectations. The summation of my beliefs is that there are several elements to the notion of Australian jazz: There are highly individual players/composers with a unique compositional voice, as well as instantly identifiable playing styles. Often you can listen to a few notes and know who is playing it. Does it sound like other things? Sure, everything comes from somewhere; nothing is created in a vacuum. How people incorporate their influences and diversity of experience is the thing that matters. Australian creative musicians have a diversity of experience and are not limited to style/genre parameters or limitations. There is a general freedom to do as you see fit and draw upon a variety of influences and approaches. I feel that there are less real or perceived limitations that we place around music, it is less strict. Australian creative musicians have always had a unique thing going on: The Necks have developed a worldwide cult following and have a unique approach to collective improvisation – not entirely avant-garde, nor minimalist, nor ambient, nor jazz; Sandy Evans is “entranced and excited by the possibilities of exploring links between jazz and Indian musical traditions"; Bernie McGann’s “dry and abrasive tone” (John Shand) has been likened to “dry gum leaves crackling under each step beneath a blasting blue sky"; Peter Knight’s Way Out West combines Asian, African and jazz influences, and is a “tangible evidence of multiculturalism in action - a sound that could have been created nowhere else but in Australia, nowhere else but in Melbourne, nowhere else but in the neighbourhoods around Footscray.” The list goes on and on.

D RY GU M LEAVES C RACKLI NG UNDER EACH STEP BENEAT H A BL ASTING BLUE S KY

But, where are we at in 2021? What is the Australian Jazz Sound of right now? Let’s take a look at a few offerings pushing the parameters.

Lauren Henderson, winner of the 2020 National Jazz Awards, has a fresh neo-soul sound on a new album with Boomskully. One of the album’s tracks, “Q&A,” is interesting in that many of the production elements really reference jazz elements familiar to many listeners: quarter note brushes on the ride, hammond organ swells, the wurli playing dirty chords, trumpet/ tenor (Jason McMahon) in harmony playing some tasty lines reminiscent of 90s acid jazz; a reverb and tremolo drenched archtop guitar highlighting some choice notes around the vocals. But other elements could be slightly unfamiliar: the rap at 2:14 is not a common feature for many jazz listeners, but very comfortable in the rare groove, chilled dance and hip-hop worlds. The subwooferactivating Phat Moog Bass commanding those low frequencies, and some 808 fills leading to the ever so slightly late handclaps on the backbeat, with a nice reverb tail completes the foundation of the groove. The groove is slightly wonky and possibly half swung – a desired, intended effect of going “off grid” and humanising the machines. The push/pull of Lauren’s lopey vocals over the groove really nails the neo-soul genre. Production elements represented here are critical to the track’s success. The 808 is as integral as the horn lines. “Q&A” also looks towards the comfort and nostalgia of combining familiar sounds from different generations – actual people playing the horn lines could be nostalgic and comforting to an older generation; whilst the 808 and Moog sounds are nostalgic for a different generation. I hear a sophisticated and subtle combination of diverse elements here - the restraint and space contained in the production appears effortless. For me this is moving the needle of Australian creative, jazzinfluenced music in a really creative and musical way. Could this be performed live? Absolutely. The energy would of course be different, and possibly difficult to recreate that “effortlessly chilled” vibe that studio production facilitates. This track demonstrates that expert command over Ableton & production elements are as much of a musical pursuit as learning to play your horn.

This is where jazz can go – jazz informed lush harmonies over tricked up samples and phat beats, Ableton chops and sophisticated production; combined with beautiful singing and informed delivery of spoken word. Jake Mason – co-author of the international hit (surpassing 1 billion streams) “This Girl” by Cookin’ On 3 Burners vs Kungs – has a fantastic organ trio album with Danny Fischer and James Sherlock, The Stranger in the Mirror.

On the title track, the distinctive slippery melody (co-written with Eric McCusker) wouldn’t sound out of place in an Ennio Morricone film. For me, the shape of the melody alludes to elements of “The Shadow Of Your Smile” by Henry Mancini. The slippery chromatic goes from the flat 9th of the F# half-diminished (II) chord, steps down to the sharp 11th of the B7b9#11 (V) chord, whilst resolving to the 9th over the E minor 9th chord (Fig 1). Tasty, slippery chromatic goodness indeed! Interesting to note the collaboration with Eric: a hugely successful songwriter of note in Australia’s rock music scene collaborating across genre and generations.

FIG. 1

What’s interesting in this tune is that it sounds like it has always existed. Clearly referencing elements and structure common to many jazz standards, it sounds familiar to many jazz ears. It’s great to hear melodic jazz played in the Hammond trio format. The challenge of this piece is to exercise restraint: make the melodic statement relatively straight; don’t overcook it, be respectful of the sonic space. This is not an endless solo workout session: 2 forms, in and out. The decision not to play is also important: Sherlock’s tasty shimmering tremolo drenched guitar only comes in at the B section. When it does, it is very welcome with the cymbal’s sizzle. The guitar lines embellish colour and harmonised lines around Mason’s melodic statement, but never stand on the toes of the hero of the piece, the melody. Fischer’s melodic playing of rumba with mallets in hand, snare off is particularly musical: playing exactly what is needed to serve the track. Nothing more, nothing less. This track is refined and sophisticated in its arrangement and execution. There is nuance in this trio’s approach: active decisions are made to make meaningful musical contributions; a balance of “playing the role” combined with supporting others musically to help them sound as good as they possibly can.

Stu Hunter’s The Migration is an incredibly diverse suite of awesomeness, featuring some of Australia’s best creative musicians. Stu won several Australian Bell Awards for The Migration, and was also nominated for the ARIAs. The first track on the album “Dawn Chorus” starts with a backdrop of pokey wah-inflected bass soloing underpinned by the faded-in tape-delay-like feedback providing a dirty, grainy analog pulse. The spacey unison Dorian reed lines then float in majestically, with each phrase gradually developing complexity, before returning to the original statement:

THE D EFI N ITIVE C O LLECTI O N O F AUST RAL IAN JAZZ I N D I GITAL AN D PRI N T

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At 4:16 heavy, distorted bass in conversation with 6/4 and 7/4 time signatures with thunderous rolls of delay feedback sweeping in and out. 6:03’s whole ensemble unison is a unifying point before breaking off into more sonic adventures. There are numerous challenges that are presented to the musician approaching this music: navigating the floating unison amongst the other horn players; breathing and phrasing at the same time, but also shaping the line’s intensity to give it appropriate meaning. The density of the low D major chord at the end of some phrases requires special intention. For the rhythm section, maintaining control of the sonic texture in the delay feedback is crucial to the track’s identity: it is here where the track’s intensity is defined; it is the first thing that we hear and is present throughout (apart from the coda). It also serves as a prompt for response in the solo section when the direct guitar sound is more present in against the chaotic delay feedback - noise, density and energy collide in a swirling maelstrom. There’s so much going on in this music, with so many intense layers. Throughout the album there are heavy, dark elements and diverse integrations of theme and motifs.

The boundaries of larger-ensemble jazz are being pushed here by Stu. It is the logical extension of Mingus’s approach in some respects; however it doesn’t sound like the hardness of the New York sound. This hardness comes from a distinctively Australian landscape.

AT ITS BEST, OU R M USI C I S CRE ATIVE , D IVERSE AN D I N CLUSIVE Listening to all these diverse offerings, does a single musical element tie all of this music together in a unique package that can be easily pigeonholed and categorised? No, it does not. Maybe it’s the diversity of influence, wide range of inspiration and willingness to collaborate that characterises the sound of Australian jazz. There’s something for everyone. There is one common thread though: at its best, our music is creative, diverse and inclusive. It also listens deeply, and is respectful to what has come before. Sounds like a good model for all of us to go on with. doesn’t it? Dr. Tim Nikolsky is the editor of the Australian Jazz Real Book, and is a musician based in Melbourne. He can be contacted at ausjazzrb@gmail.com All of the discussed albums can be found on Bandcamp.com. You can read more from Tim at australianjazzrealbook.com

P H OTO BY W I L K

W HY I S I T G O O D TO P L AY J A Z Z AT S C H O O L? L ACHL AN DAVI DSON There is of ten an apparent mystique around being able to improvise (or being able to teach it), with a chosen few having magically succeeded in spontaneously creating music. Though, is improvisation really such an impervious and arcane art? In reality, improvisation is a skill that can be learned like any other and there are a large number of resources available to help students and teachers. Having taught saxophone, run big bands and taught improvisation specifically at secondary schools for over 35 years, I have seen how those students who have embraced the challenge of learning the style and learning to improvise have blossomed not just as musicians but as people. I am in the process of preparing an improvisation book specifically catering for the most fearful musician, guiding them step-by-step through the (apparent) labyrinth of knowledge to becoming a competent and creative improvisor. Let’s consider the benefits for those brave and willing souls who take up this challenge.

T H E BE N EFITS OF LE ARN I N G JAZZ AND I MP ROVI SATI O N:

1. Spontaneous creativity

3. Builds self-esteem

An essential part of playing jazz, improvisation involves: creative thinking/problem solving/ combining learned skill, intuition, emotion and human interaction/acute listening.

Playing jazz requires and encourages self-esteem, self-confidence and self-awareness. The seemingly magical skill of improvisation plus the seemingly carefree attitude of the jazz musician puts them in the rare category of being cool. The admiration, particularly of non-jazz students, builds self-esteem and makes the jazz student feel special and more confident. Self-awareness grows through trusting the intuitive musical choices and intellectual processes involved and building a personal set of licks and approaches to improvisation, unique to the individual. Jazz players, even at a secondary school level, have a uniquely identifiable voice.

All this to produce spontaneous musical narratives over complex structures while interacting with other humans, sharing in the process. This combination of processes is the very best exercise for any mind or group of minds to solve problems and create solutions for challenges that will be faced by humanity in the future. It could be the most important and useful thing a student could ever do. 2. Expression of self Story-telling, making choices based on personal taste, committing to every note and revealing your true self are all inevitable outcomes in jazz performance. Students who are introverted, outcasts, immature, or a little lost can often find themselves in the study and performance of jazz because of the nature of the processes. Their guard is often let down because performance is immediate and less easy to control and hide behind than composition for example, where time can be taken to prepare the expression you want the world to see. Musical expression can be esoteric and more enigmatic than acting or speaking and can feel like a safer place for self-expression.

4. Freedom from structure Schools are overwhelmingly structured environments, something that certainly doesn’t suit every student, some even less than others. All students have the need to break out of that often stifling environment. Jazz is an ideal and safe vehicle for setting yourself free. The musical equivalent to running and yelling, kicking a box, even swearing and rebelling, can be channelled through improvisation and jazz interpretation. Hanging with like-minded friends playing music you like and jamming on it can reduce the need for going to parties and getting into illicit substances. (Despite the myth that all jazz musicians do this, it simply isn’t true.)

JAZZ I S AN ID EAL AND SAFE VEHI CLE FOR SET TI N G YOU RS ELF FREE . TH E MUSI CAL EQUIVALENT TO RUN N I NG AN D YELLING , KICKING A BOX, EVEN SWEARI N G AN D REBELL ING , CAN BE CHANN ELLED THROUGH IM P ROVI SATION AND JAZZ I NTERPRETATI ON .

5. Highly developed skill set Jazz requires a deeper understanding of harmony, melodic invention, aural recognition, groove, syncopation and interaction than any notated music. The number of scales, arpeggios and patterns, plus the ability to improvise on them, required for the average jazz musician far outweighs those of any classical musician. Adaptability across genres and cultural styles is inherent in the jazz repertoire and gives the jazz musician the versatility to branch off and specialise in almost any specific genre. 6. Adds to a classical musician’s skills Many, if not most, great jazz musicians are also great classical musicians. The commonality between the styles is far greater than the difference. The classical musician often (incorrectly), feels bound by the strict rules to be adhered to and finds it hard to interpret notated music with natural expression and any freedom. Even a small study of jazz will bring them the freedom of expression they need to become a more complete musician and person. Music is considered one of the creative arts but is in fact taught in schools more often simply as an art and craft. Creativity and innovation are hardly involved in playing notated music, which is the vast bulk of the music making in secondary schools. There is more in primary schools where composition, improvisation and experimentation are used in the general music classroom on percussion instruments and xylophones. This all stops at secondary schools. At a point in their lives when students clearly change and become more self-conscious and uncertain, secondary school is the place where they need to be encouraged to grow and build confidence through self-expression, creativity and innovation. Jazz is the logical and easily accessible vehicle for this to happen.

artists

YO U N G

William Pethick (22) Champion Lakes/Whadjuk Land Trombone Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, 4th Year (Honours)

I started the trombone at the age of ten in my school’s band program. The first ever teacher I had was a guy called Glyn Macdonald, he was the one who got me playing jazz from a young age. In 2019 I graduated from the James Morrison Academy of Music, during this time I worked with some of Australia’s leading jazz musicians including James Morrison and Mat Jodrell. Currently I’m studying an Honours Degree at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts back home in Perth. During this year I intend to write for and play with a chordless ensemble.

Thien Pham

Teachers: Glyn Macdonald, Bruce Thompson, James Morrison Inspiration: My peers What I like about jazz? The way it makes me feel. What will I be doing in 10 years? Touring Europe with my own group. Favourite ice cream flavour: Pistachio Favourite jazz club/festival: Wangaratta Festival of Jazz & Blues I also like: Mid/long distance running, surfing, coffee Best practice tip? Don’t be afraid to sound bad.

William Pethick

Bernice Tesara

Thien Pham (17) Brunswick West/Wurundjeri land Trumpet Wesley College Year 12

Thien Pham is currently in Year 12 at Wesley College, under the tutorship of Eugene Ball and Sarah Henderson. He engages in both classical and jazz fields, being involved in the flagship Melbourne Youth Orchestra and numerous jazz ensembles. Thien has played alongside the likes of Scott Tinkler, Andrea Keller, Mat Jodrell, Dick Oats, and Michelle Nicolle. As an improviser, Thien has been a part of a variety of commercial and contemporary settings, including featured artist with the DMJO, Jazz Melbourne’s scholarship ensemble, and performances for Lebowskis. Looking forward, Thien aspires to develop his composition skills and start his own small group. Teachers: Eugene Ball, Sarah Henderson Inspiration: Peter Evans, Kenny Dorham What I like about jazz?The ability to interact with other musicians in a spontaneous manner. What will I be doing in 10 years? I hope to continue improving and practicing as well as have some of my own groups. Favourite ice cream flavour: Lemon Favourite jazz club/festival: Brunswick Green, Wangaratta Festival of Jazz & Blues I also like: Cycling Best practice tip? Listen to music.

Bernice Tesara (20) Denistone/Wallumedegal land Trumpet, piano, voice Sydney Conservatorium of Music, 3rd Year

From a nine-year-old kid, whose arms weren’t long enough to play the trombone, to the musician I am now, was a very long journey. I owe a lot to my parents, Chatswood High School, SIMA and the tuition of Warwick Alder. In the past five years I’ve played at Carnegie Hall, been part of a Conservatorium Jazz Orchestra album with Will Vinson and played on Triple J’s Like a Version with G Flip. Nowadays, I write original music for my quintet, The Return of the Bern, and teach others about music that I am still learning about. Teachers: Nadje Noordhuis, Phil Slater Inspiration: My favourite trumpeter has been Clifford Brown for a while. I find the way he plays beautiful, and the life he led is a real example of being humble. What I like about jazz? I like how there are always new ways to challenge yourself, and even if you play something that isn’t technically “correct,” it’s you playing it and no-one else. What will I be doing in 10 years? Probably forgetting to invoice someone for teaching. But fingers crossed I would have gone to New Orleans and New York to check out the music there. Favourite ice cream flavour: Choc-mint Favourite jazz club/festival: Botany View Hotel!! I also like: Reading, swimming Best practice tip? Wellbeing and practice are always connected. Also, bringing awareness without criticism to your practice is always a good thing.

Minnie Hill (19) Nunawading/Wurundjeri land Saxophone, flute and clarinet, although mostly writing! Monash University (Bachelor of Business), 2nd Year

I started playing saxophone at eight and loved the sound and expression of the instrument. It wasn’t until Year 9 in high school that I first started composing after a teacher suggested it to me and from that point on I have focussed more on arranging and composing for big band. While lockdown was frustrating, I spent it writing the music for my debut big band album, The Remarkable Dave Brubeck which was recorded in December last year. The album features the incredible Jack Earle and Carlo Barbaro, as well as renowned trombonist Marshall Gilkes on the title track. Teachers: Toshi Clinch, Phil Reichman, Paul Carter Who are you inspired by? Marshall Gilkes, I love how melodic and beautiful his playing is. I also love listening to Jacob Collier as he blends a wide range of styles in such a creative way that always inspires me. What do I like about jazz? I love those feel-good moments that put a smile on people’s faces, regardless of the style of jazz. This is something that I really missed during lockdown last year and it’s been a pleasure going to and playing gigs again! What will I be doing in 10 years? Ideally working as a composer and arranger for a variety of different groups here at home and overseas, as well as continuing my various projects around town. Favourite jazz club/festival: Paris Cat Jazz Club

Learning from our elders is vital, but it is important also to listen to our young people. Dingo introduces aspiring young musicians from around Australia to tell something of where they come from and about their start in jazz. Tessie Overmyer (20) Sydney/Cadigal Land Alto Saxophone Sydney Conservatorium of Music, 3rd Year

I started playing jazz in my high school stage band in Newcastle, directed by Kim Pink, who taught me about jazz and improvisation and inspired me to pursue jazz. I play lead alto in the Sydney Conservatorium Jazz Orchestra, and the Australian National Youth Jazz Orchestra. I’ve performed at the Newport Jazz Festival, Manly Jazz Festival, Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival, and Sydney Conservatorium Jazz Festival. I’m currently working on an original project with my quintet, focusing on writing tunes with strong melodies and good grooves, inspired by the compositional styles of Philip Dizack, Ambrose Akinmusire, and Christian Scott.

Favourite ice cream flavour: Mint choc-chip

Teachers: Mike Rivett, Sean Coffin, Cameron Undy

I also like: Hanging out with friends, my dog, watching Netflix and any outdoor activity that has a good view!

Inspiration: As far as saxophone players go, at the moment I’m inspired by Dick Oatts, Michael Brecker, and Baptiste Herbin. Although my biggest source of inspiration comes from the musicians around me in Sydney, particularly all the teachers at the Conservatorium, and all the incredible female jazz musicians from Australia and the rest

Best practice advice/tip? Put yourself in musical situations that you don’t feel ready for yet, it’s the best way to grow and get better as a musician.

Tessie Overmyer

Minnie Hill

of the world. Seeing and hearing them play inspires me to believe that I can become part of this global jazz scene. What I like about jazz?I like the freedom that playing jazz gives me and that I can express myself however I want, in any moment, when I’m improvising. What will I be doing in 10 years? Hopefully playing my own original compositions with good friends around the world! Favourite ice cream flavour: Choc chip or strawberry Favourite jazz club/festival: The Underground in Newcastle, NSW I also like: The Simpsons, cooking food Best practice tip? Always practice playing something to the best of your ability.

gear reviews

Artist Development • Resources Recordings • Sheet music

www.australianmusiccentre.com.au

RCF HD 1 0 A M K4 SPEAKERS With so many compact, self-powered PA speakers out there, it can sometimes be tricky working out which ones are good – and which ones are great. The HD10A Mk4 is well-suited to projecting vocals by simply plugging a microphone straight into the back, or when used as a pair with a mixing console it will handle a variety of instruments in a band mix. Lightweight at just 11.8kg, it’s easy to take with you to a performance. There’s a pole mount hole in the bottom to suit a standard sized speaker stand (35mm), or you can lay it on the side to point up at you, if you’re thinking of using it as a “foldback monitor” on stage. The 10” woofer and 1” high frequency driver are powered internally by a 400W amplifier, with 300W for the bottom and 100W for the top. Part of the revamping of the HD Series included the addition of FiRPHASE by RCF. It’s a proprietary and advanced FIR (Finite Impulse Response) filtering technology, conceived for delivering transparent sound, absolute clarity and perfect stereo images. Translating that: the sound is clear and precise. The bottom end is full, without being “wobbly”and the higher frequencies are not harsh. The FiRPHASE helps the speaker produce a natural sound to the ear, and there’s enough horsepower on board to produce lots of that sound. Use a pair of HD10A Mk4 speakers to comfortably handle vocals and instruments for a small-to-medium sized room with a crowd of around 100 people. The full-face steel grille makes for an attractive finish, while protecting the important moving parts of the speaker when it’s in action. All things considered, HD10A Mk4 is great value, providing high performance from a professional product that will last for many years thanks to its rugged construction. Artie Jones Factory Sound www.factorysound.com

HAMMON D XK-5 Having owned a vintage C3 Hammond for a few years now, I found the XK-5 to be very familiar in look, feel and sound but with the new technology embedded into it. This instrument is a must for the avid Hammond fan, I would give a kidney to own one of these! First of all, it’s an easy plug and play! Sitting at the organ, the waterfall keys are very comfortable under the fingers and very responsive to various techniques of playing from percussive rhythms, glissandos and palm slides. Hammond have done an amazing job in replicating the original vintage B3/C3 sound with the new development of their digital tone wheel system MTW 1 (Modelled Tone Wheel). The retro look and light weight cabinet are really appealing. I can imagine how much better this would be to throw in the car for a gig. The unit includes four complete sets of drawbars and also includes programmable preset keys for individual set ups, which is handy for gigging. The Leslie simulation is excellent and even more realistic than its SK counterpart and once plugged into an actual Leslie, this instrument becomes another wonder of the world! Just like all of Hammond’s other new Heritage Series, the XK-5 is modular, allowing you to configure it as you please. When I play my C-3, I use the left hand as the bass line and use the pedals for “kickin the B”. Sitting at the XK-5, I was surprised to find how easy it was to navigate the pedals for my feet to find the right note. The layout has been tweaked in just the right way. This makes the Hammond more accessible for musos with different backgrounds. I would recommend the XK-5 for anyone who is looking for that nostalgic Hammond B3 look, feel and sound for studio use and/or for the gigging musician taking it on the road. Mark Nunis

H ERITAGE EAG LE C LAS S IC ARC HTOP GUITAR

When Gibson left behind their iconic Kalamazoo factory in 1985, their storied home since 1917, a group of original employees stayed behind and founded the Heritage Guitar Company. Dedicated to building high-quality, boutique USAmade guitars that hark back to the classic designs and timeless sounds of some of the most famous guitars of all time. The Eagle Classic is Heritage’s homage to the celebrated bigbox archtop used by Pat Metheny, Joe Pass and Scotty Moore among countless others, and it feels familiar and elegant right away. The 17” carved Maple and Spruce body is offset with simple off-white binding, along with the subtly grained timber pickguard and F-holes, and the gold hardware is accentuated by a gorgeous finger-style tailpiece. Aside from giving the guitar a splash of art deco style, this tailpiece also includes micro-adjustment screws for ultra-precise intonation.

New

The V16 series has quickly become the new standard for Jazz. The V16 ebonite is now available for soprano, alto, tenor and baritone saxophones. The V16 metal mouthpieces for tenor saxophone have been redesigned to evoke the rich sounds that span the history of Jazz. Available in five openings and three different chambers, the new V16 metal provides a wide spectrum of sound to suit any style.

Distributed in Australia by Grevillea Distribution. Contact sales@grevillea.com.au for your local stockist.

: The new jazz standard

www.vandoren.com

The neck feels pleasingly thick in the hands with no sign of the ultra-skinny 60’s profile here. The headstock features another art deco flourish in the Grover Super Rotomatic tuners, with the same subtle binding used on the body applied to the neck and headstock. The vintage vibe also carries across to the tone. Seymour Duncan Seth Lover pickups are used here, tipping a hat to the full, fat and warm tone of the 50s, and there’s a surprising amount of versatility in the sound. There’s instantly exciting blues tones, dark jazz warmth, crunchy rock sounds and everything in between. The Heritage Eagle easily takes its place among the great archtops, thanks to its high build quality, premium features and breathtaking looks. Ryan Lamb The Acoustic Centre www.acousticcentre.com.au

JODYJAZZ H R* CUSTO M DARK ALTO The HR* Custom Dark Alto is the latest hard rubber saxophone mouthpiece from JodyJazz (also available for soprano and tenor). I have played JodyJazz pieces across all horns for years and am happily settled on the DVNY. Tonally, the HR* Custom Dark is a jazz piece that sits between the HR* and DVNY and I like it, just not as much as my DVNY.

RUE SAINTGEORGES

Its construction is beautiful, perfect tip and rails, large chamber (dark and free blowing), scooped sidewalls (dark with some resistance), a small rollover baffle (attack and edge) and most importantly a deep drop after the baffle. This is what I love about the DVNY because it adds a rich, dark core to the sound. It also has a brass band on the shank, which is supposed to add harmonics. Hard to tell if this does anything, but it looks cool.

PRECISION WITH DS MECHANISM

My first impression was very positive, responsive with a beautiful, dark, warm core and breadth. Excellent projection with your classic alto edge, easy altissimo and subtone. Compared to the HR*, this mouthpiece is a huge improvement. It supercharges the HR* by adding in low and mid frequencies that build the core of your tone without sacrificing projection. It is actually quite similar to the DNVY in feel and design but with more edge and resistance. I will be sticking with my DVNY which is free blowing, has more resonance and sheer quantity of tone to shape. But, if I was playing the HR* or another standard jazz piece (Meyer, Otto link, Vandoren) I would switch to the HR* Custom Dark in a heartbeat. Jack Beeche

eastmanwinds.com

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F E S T I VA L S

2021

2022

May 1-2 Victorian All-State Jazz Championships St Leonards, VIC

October (dates TBC) Manly Jazz Festival Manly, NSW

January MONA FOMA Hobart/Launceston, TAS

www.northernbeaches.nsw.gov.au/

www.mofo.net.au

www.allstatejazz.com.au

things-to-do/whats-on/manly-jazz

May 28-30 Big Band Blast Port Macquarie, NSW

October 15-17 South Coast Jazz Festival Goolwa, SA

www.bigbandblast.org

www.sajazzfestivalsinc.com

SoundOutFestivalandEvents/

May 30 Sydney Con Jazz Festival Sydney, NSW

October 15-24 Melbourne International Jazz Festival Melbourne, VIC

February 11-13 Port Fairy Jazz Festival Port Fairy, VIC

www.sydneyconjazzfestival.com

February Sound Out Festival Canberra, ACT www.facebook.com/

www.portfairyjazz.com.au

www.melbournejazz.com

June 11-14 Castlemaine Jazz Festival Castlemaine, VIC www.castlemainejazzfestival.com.au

July 22-25 Devonport Jazz Festival Devonport, TAS www.devonportjazz.com.au

August 6-8 Inverloch Jazz Festival Inverloch, VIC www.inverlochjazzfestival.com

August 27-29 Newcastle Jazz Festival Newcastle, NSW www.newcastlejazz.com.au

September (dates TBC) Noosa Jazz Party Noosa, QLD www.noosajazzclub.com

September/October (dates TBC) Stonnington Jazz City of Stonnington, VIC www.stonningtonjazz.com.au

October 29-31 Wangaratta Festival of Jazz & Blues Wangaratta, VIC

February Clarence Jazz Festival Clarence, TAS www.clarenceartsandevents.net/

www.wangarattajazz.com

clarence-jazz-festival/

October/November (dates TBC) Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival Sydney, NSW

March 11-13 Kiama Jazz and Blues Festival Kiama, NSW www.kiamajazzandbluesfestival.com.au

www.siwjf.org.au

November (dates TBC) Perth International Jazz Festival Perth, WA

Apr 29-May 1 Generations in Jazz Festival Mt Gambier, SA www.generationsinjazz.com.au

www.perthjazzfest.com

November 19-21 Phillip Island Jazz Festival Cowes, VIC www.phillipislandjazzfest.org.au

December (dates TBC) Melbourne Women’s International Jazz Festival Melbourne, VIC www.mwijf.org

December 26-31 Australian Jazz Convention (75th Anniversary) Albury, NSW www.australianjazzconvention.org.au

June 10-13 Merimbula Jazz Festival Merimbula, NSW www.merimbulajazz.org.au

live

GIGS

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Australian Art Orchestra (AAO) At the time of publication, AAO will be at the Canberra International Music Festival premiering a work by Brenda Gifford as well as with their flagship project Hand to Earth. The next Meeting Points Series begins on June 27 at the Arts Centre Melbourne with the debut album launch of Closed Beginnings with Tariro Mavondo, Reuben Lewis and Peter Knight on AAO Recordings. MJC presents at The Salon Melbourne Jazz Co-operative continues to support contemporary original music, despite having received only 50% of their 2019 funding. In addition to their Jazzlab series, they will be presenting two concerts at the Melbourne Recital Centre’s The Salon with Flora Carbo’s Ecosystem (30 July), and Sydney’s Phil Slater and Matt McMahon’s Background Music (10 September). Sydney Con Jazz Festival The Sydney Con Jazz Festival is a boutique international jazz festival held on the last Sunday of May. The festival is uniquely acoustic, featuring the five beautiful concert halls of the Sydney Conservatorium and is designed to be accessible and affordable. 25 concerts, 8 masterclasses, over 130 performers including Linda May Han Oh, Vince Jones, Jo Lawry, Fabian Alamazan, Nadje Noordhuis and Luke Howard. Sunday May 30, 12pm – 9pm New Music Classics Classic Southside, an intimate live music bar already familiar with jazz audiences, located upstairs at Classic Cinema, Elsternwick, is hosting a new fortnightly live music concert series. Curated by composer and musician Cat Hope, New Music Classics showcases the more exploratory side of music in all its glorious forms: acoustic, electronic and in-between. Upcoming artists in May are ELISION, Brigid Burke, Gail Priest and ThunderGrass. Uptown Jazz Cafe - Old & New In contrast, on the north side you’ll find Old’sKool Thursdays – a weekly celebration of trad school/New Orleans early jazz played by some of Melbourne’s finest, curated by Eugene Ball. Also, at Uptown on Tuesdays is Emergence, a new collective presenting projects by younger musicians. And somewhere in the middle on Wednesdays is Bopstretch, described as Australia’s preeminent band in the bebop style, and about to celebrate their 10th Anniversary.

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F R O M B E A S T I E B OYS S Q UA R E , W I T H LOV E XX WO RDS N I LUS HA DASS E NAIKE I moved to New York City in December of 2017. That year the winter was particularly brutal. Three months in and I’d already had two consecutive bouts of the flu, watched as empty promises unfolded, and door after door closed in my face. No signs of work and no place to be. My daily routine went something like this: eat, walk Che-Chi, hydrate, meditate, sing, write, wonder “what the hell am I doing here?” – REPEAT. I had no idea how difficult it was to get an apartment in New York until I tried to. My profile looked something like this: new migrant, currently unemployed, may not actually ever be employed, no credit history let alone a good one, cannot supply payslips showing 40 times the monthly rent, does not have a bank account but does have a visa that confirms her “EXTRAORDINARY ABILITY.” But the New York minute is no myth. In a flash, a friend organised a meeting with his landlord, Rose. She wasn’t concerned about my unemployment and even reneged on her no dog policy. This act of kindness was the first of many I would experience from her. Needless to say, she has since become my NYC mum. I signed the lease and moved into the Lower East Side – Beastie Boys Square. The winter went on and on in a gloomy and unglamorous way but there was a tiny one-bedroom apartment in the sliver of a downtown Manhattan walk-up that I could call home. I had a short deviation from my daily routine when a new friend invited me to come and hang at a midtown hotel he was curating bands for. This is where I met Lee Taylor, a magnificent singer from Memphis, Tennessee. She told me about some choir she was in and said they were looking for new members. A choir, voices, joy! Finally, a door slightly ajar: “This is what New York is about, it’s why I moved here. We gotta help each other out.” Before I left for the evening, she took my details and said she’d be in touch.

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global PERSPECTIVE

My first rehearsal with The Resistance Revival Chorus took place at Songspace, corner of W60th & Broadway. Abena Koomson-Davis the musical director, led this rehearsal and it was like no other choir rehearsal I’d been to. We warmed up our voices and participated in community building activities where connections were fostered. We spoke about Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman to be elected to the United State Congress, and created songs based on speeches she had made. This was the first time I had been to a rehearsal where we celebrated the legacy of a black woman and this particular rehearsal was not an isolated incident. We’d gather monthly, a room full of artists and activists, to learn about the music we were singing which was mostly from the civil rights and labor movement, the people who made it and the reasons why. We then took to the streets and world-renowned concert halls armed with these songs of resistance and joy. Here’s a snapshot of our last few years. Black Lives Matter rallies, Women’s March on Washington, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Carnegie Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Centre, New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault, Pride Rally, The Roots Picnic, Summerstage with Angélique Kidjo, performances with Sweet Honey in the Rock, Deva Mahal and Meshell Ndegeocello, Patti Smith, Natalie Merchant, Harry Belafonte’s 93rd Birthday at the Apollo Theatre, Women in the World Summit at Lincoln Centre, Oprah’s Book Tour at Barclay Centre, a virtual performance for Ruth Bader Ginsburg – Honor Her wish and most recently the Biden/Harris Inauguration. During my first year in New York, I remember reflecting on those lyrics that Frank Sinatra sang: “if I can make it here, I’ll make it anywhere.” Old interpretation: Work hard and you’ll be the toast of this town. New Interpretation: If I can just get to a point where I can afford my rent here, I’ll be able to pay it anywhere else in the world too. From having no place to be, to being the music coordinator/arranger for the Resistance Revival Chorus feels like it happened in a minute, a New York minute, and I’m grateful to the women in

P H OTO BY M I M I AT H O U S E O F J E N E SA I S Q U O I

the chorus who gave an opportunity to this Sri Lankan Australian woman who was finding her way in the big city. I had no idea of what adventures lay ahead for me in New York City, one of the biggest surprises was the gift of my voice. Not my singing voice, my activist’s voice.

LISTEN Yolande Bavan, Jazzmeia Horn, Valerie June, Camille Thurman, Charenée Wade, Tiffany Gouché, Resistance Revival Chorus

J A PA N

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WORDS MARTY HOLOUBEK I often get asked about why I moved to Japan. It’s a long tale starting back in 2015, when, after having finished a profitable three-month long hotel gig in Malaysia, I returned to Melbourne with a bit of cash. Within a week or so of getting back, I got together with our band The Lagerphones (a band I affectionately refer to as a Hoodangers tribute band) suggesting that we should go to Tokyo on a bit of a holiday and maybe see if we can book a gig. We got in contact with a friend of the great trombonist James Macaulay’s, named Vaughan Joseph Allison, saying something along the lines of, “Hey, we’re coming to Japan for 10 days, any chance you could book us a gig? If not, absolutely no stress! It’d be great to catch up!” A few weeks pass and then the next thing I know, I get an email from this guy with the schedule. I look at this thing and it’s unbelievable! There’s 11 gigs, 4 photoshoots, interviews, the works! It was unbelievable! As well as getting in touch with Vaughan, I’d gotten in contact with Tokyo-based pianist Aaron Choulai and he told me to stay on for an extra week or so, and booked some gigs for Macaulay and I with his quintet that featured Akihiro “Yoshi” Yoshimoto and Shun Ishiwaka.

LISTEN Shun Ishiwaka CLNUP4 Takashi Sugawa Banksia Trio Tatsuhisa Yamamoto’s Ashioto

Upon arriving in Tokyo, I immediately fell in love with the place. The shows we played with the Lagerphones were wild! It seemed as if the audiences had never experienced something like the dero-ness which is the Lagerphones and then to top this whole thing off, the gigs we played with Choulai were incredibly deep. There was something truly special about that combination of musicians playing that music together. This introduction to the music and arts community here in Japan kept me coming back every year until I finally took the plunge and moved here in August of 2018.

Sumire Kuribayashi Nameless Piano Akihiro Yoshimoto Nostalgic Farm May Inoue Our Platform Akihiro Nishiguchi Fotos Shota Watanabe Folky Talkie Kei Matsumaru Nothing Unspoken Under the Sun Eiko Ishibashi Hyakki Yagyō Toku Original Songbook P H OTO BY K A N A TA RU M I

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Having built on these connections and with the help of Choulai, Vaughan, Yoshi and Shun, I found the assimilation into the music scene here rather smooth. There were plenty of language and cultural barriers along the way but I found a pretty reliable way to break down these walls was to go get a drink and absolutely make a fool of myself trying to attempt to speak the language. I soon found myself on my way to having a career as a “working musician” here. Sure, there was (and still are!) a fair share of average gigs for next to no money but I slowly found myself picking up bigger and better gigs and I even landed a gig on the biggest TV network here as an actor on a kid’s TV show. I think there’s something incredibly deep about the Japanese jazz community and the musicians that I get to see and work with here. Like the Australian jazz scene, Japan has adopted an originally black American music and fused it

with their own influences and concepts. There’s a willingness to experiment and breakaway from the tradition of jazz-normalities but also whilst having a lot of respect for where this music started. There’s this sense of identity here that’s continually developing and I’m continually excited to see what happens next. Also, another great thing here is that by having the sheer amount of people living in Tokyo, it inevitably means that no matter what you’re into, there’s a whole scene of people like you that are into the same thing. In a place where I struggle to even read the mail, I feel very honoured to be a part of the music community here in Tokyo and I’m looking forward to seeing what the future holds in this crazy part of the world.

P H OTO BY M ASAS H I S U G IYA M A

C O N N E C T I N G FA N S & M U S I C WO RDS MAT T FRIP P JAZZFUE L.C O M

If 2020 taught us nothing else, it was that even when gigs, festivals and travel are not happening , artists and fans will find a way to connect. Many jazz musicians used the enforced time off to create more. Solo recordings, livestreams, archived tracks, remixes … The result? There’s more music out there than ever before! But with touring still largely on hold – and postage costs through the roof – there’s also a need for the people making it to find loyal supporters and fans digitally. You’re a jazz fan? In some ways, it’s never been a better time to be a fan of independent musicians. The desire to make up for lost gig income by connecting with more and more listeners digitally means the bar is seriously high in terms of content. Whatever your particular favourite niche is, from avant-garde free jazz to retro funk, you’ll find world-class musicians putting their heart and soul into it – and delivering a lot of value for free. If you dive into these platforms and find the music and bands that grab your attention, you can make a real difference by actively engaging with them, sharing their music and, whenever possible, paying for what they create. Not only do you get to be a real part of that person’s career, but you make it possible for them to keep doing it over and over again! You’re a jazz musician? Thanks to the internet, there are literally billions of people out there who you have the potential to connect with!

You only need to reach a TINY fraction of those and motivate them to be real (paying) fans to have creative freedom and a solid career. You know, the fans that don’t just listen for free on Spotify, but pre-order the next album, look out for the limited edition vinyl or – in the not too distant future, hopefully – come to a gig. But the ease at which every artist can make content from behind a laptop means you need to cut through the noise. When you’ve got new music, that means reaching out to press and creating as much attention around it as possible. But it also means trying to create valuable content and conversations online all year round, even when you don’t have something to sell. Great music, of course, but surrounding it with quality video content, interesting social media, engaging newsletters and anything else which builds community and shows people what you’re about.

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Connecting online There are a whole host of platforms out there, each with their own subtle differences, which foster direct-to-fan connections. You might not be able to travel, but you can “meet” each other virtually: Bandcamp is all about the community. Think Fan X has good taste in music? See what they’ve been buying this month and check it out for yourself. Love the XYZ band? Hit “follow” and see their latest updates, videos and releases. Kickstarter is so much more than just a way to help musicians fund their next project. It lets the artist show fans the inner workings of an album release: the concept, the story, the production, the goal. Join them on the journey (via regular updates and videos) plus get the finished article delivered to your door at the end! Patreon brings a centuries-old concept of supporting creatives (think back to Bach and Mozart!) into the 21st Century, with a focus on community and conversation. As a fan of a band, you’re committing a small amount of money every month in return for all sorts of goodies. Common rewards include behind-the-scenes footage, live hangouts and unreleased music – on a very regular basis. The result? If the artist is all-in on this model, you get unprecedented access to your favourite musicians for the price of a couple of cups of coffee a month. Pozible – sometimes described as the Australian Kickstarter - actually offers a hybrid of these models, giving fans the chance to support one-time projects (Kickstarter style), monthly subscriptions (Patreon-style) or even donations (for charitable organisations). So, whether you’re an artist or fan, there’s perhaps never been a more important time to dive into the community, build new relationships and support not just individual artists but the scene as a whole.

MEET ALEXANDER BEETS BUILDING A WORLD JAZZ ECOSYSTEM WO RDS ADAM SIMMON S For some, jazz is considered a niche genre, with a diminishing presence in mainstream media, as evidenced in the 2020 Nielson Music MRC US Music Report which shows jazz has only 1.1% share of the total volume of US music consumption. But for Alexander Beets, that 1.1% is literally a world of potential. In the small, picturesque Dutch town of Amersfoort, Alexander directs an annual festival that attracts over 80,000 people to see jazz music, featuring artists from all over the world. During the COVID-19 pandemic, instead of cancelling the World Jazz Conference, it actually expanded to a global platform for the first time, with the opening address given by Wynton Marsalis. A full-bodied saxophonist steeped in the great Texas Tenor tradition of “Stanley Turrentine, Gene Ammons, Ike Quebec, Houston Pearson, the big sounds and the blues kind of improvisational approach,” Alexander has actually based his success on three pillars – artist, entrepreneur and educator: Alexander tours the world, performing with a range of high-quality international artists. Via JazzNL Foundation, he is engaging in projects that connect artists from across the globe. As an educator, he is at Fontys Rock Academy, teaching the next generation of artists and managers.

I first encountered Alexander Beets on my first foray to Jazzahead, Europe’s key jazz industry event. This was April 2017, when I was only a few weeks into my tenure at Wangaratta Festival of Jazz & Blues. As a festival director, I was inundated by everyone trying to sell me something, but Alexander, a typically tall, ebullient Dutchman, was different. He had something to offer – an invitation for us to present our National Jazz Award winning artists at Amersfoort Jazz Festival in paid performances to a select group of international jazz festival directors. A month later I was back in Europe, visiting the festival as a guest and discovered there was something of a kindred spirit in Alexander as well as a wealth of knowledge and insight. Subsequent visits to accompany NJA winners, James Macaulay and Alex Hirlian (with ARCING WIRES), have cemented a firm connection. The following interview is based on a Zoom conversation we had in February this year.

P H OTO BY FOTO C E ES WO U DA

Alexander Beets, you are an entrepreneur, a festival director and a deep thinker, but It seems to me that being a musician is at the core of what drives you. What is it that inspired you to play music and jazz in particular, and how do you feel that has informed your more entrepreneurial activities?

I was raised with [my brothers] Peter on piano, and Marius from guitar going to double bass. We got in a band and my mother did all the calling for the concerts, my father did the bookkeeping, and I did the payments and all the promotion … Let’s just say I have this capacity where, for me, it’s quite easy to organise and get things done.

Actually, I think I was infected with the jazz virus at a very early age before I could even say no. The second part, I think, which is important is that my parents thought that music education was an important part of the development of children. We all had to choose two instruments per person and each instrument has to play six days a week for half an hour.

All of your activities that I know of are jazz related, yet you are teaching music business at the Rock Academy – how do the two genres compare?

When other people were doing football or I don’t know what, we were just practicing. Because I was asthmatic, I chose the clarinet and we all had to start with piano. First, we got lessons from my mother. The question is, “did I like that?” Well, that’s not the question you ask when you’re six.

It [rock music] is totally a different ballgame because it’s a high-volume market. Pop music is much more nationally oriented, whereas if you go to niche markets, automatically the world is your playing field. It’s interesting. I understood both worlds. I understood how you can build careers in pop music and at the same time also be able to be successful in one of the less-appreciated (sic) music streams worldwide. You know, 1.1% – but 1.1% of the world population still is an awful lot of people.

I think that there is a much wider audience to be found if you would, let’s say, show the variety of possibilities in jazz. For me, it’s almost like we have a tribal conflict between the high improv, the hard bopper, the bebopper, the Latin jazz. Jesus Christ – we are one family. The core of this music is improvisation. If we say jazz is an improvisational music and if you think it’s jazz, then it’s okay. By doing that very consequently, we get everyone there. There is a beautiful generosity about Amersfoort Jazz Festival (AJF), not only because all of the performances are free but also with its support and hospitality for young talent via the SENA Performers International Jazz Laureate Festival and for the World Jazz Conference participants. Well, I asked myself: “Okay. What if I would make the Burning Man experience for any talent worldwide?” So, you come to a place and there’s a nice audience. There’s nice payments. There’s good hospitality. There are jam sessions. Actually, you can sit next to a festival director, not having a speed date for 10 minutes, but just ask him to come to your concert and he can come, too, and say, “Whoa. I saw you last evening,” and just take it from there. I think that will be incredible. I would really like to play at that place, and I think that’s one of the biggest motivations to create it. I always have a big fight with my boards. They say, “Alex, you never talk about the audience.” I said, “Quite frankly, they’re irrelevant. As long as they’re there. This is a musician’s paradise. This is the place where we also honor [the jazz tradition].” At AJF, you and fellow artistic director, Matti Austen, present a program termed as “World Jazz” – what does this mean and where did it originate? We invented the theme ourselves. He [Matti] presented world music at my jazz festival. I said, “Matti, can you explain to me why you are working with the same musicians as I’m working?” He couldn’t, so I said, “Matti, can I ask you, would you consider accepting my definition where jazz music is an improvisational music. It’s made all

over the world, so it sounds and smells a little bit different, and we just call it world jazz?” Finally, we are done with any discussion about jazz and world music or anything. It’s just world jazz. And now accompanying AJF is the conference gathering of the World Jazz Network (WJN). What was its purpose when it first began? How does one get involved? Good question. We noticed at JazzNL that all over the world competitions are organised, and we noticed that all over the world, actually, the winner of the competition doesn’t really get an international stage to present themselves. That’s still the basic [issue]. We found, I think, a very practical solution to give someone an international stage by doing two things. One, getting into AJF and at the same time, creating a network for themselves of festival directors, or at least the clubs, people who can supply and demand this kind of thing, who at that same time can notice the artist and their performance. If you enter into the WJN, you accept the idea that if we collaborate on trust and reciprocity, we all benefit. The second part is that you also have an obligation as a partner of the WJN to see if you can present [one of the Jazz Laureates] because they are exceptional talents anywhere. At the same time, also have an obligation to help in order to see if we can get international mobility. The network is just a form of connecting and getting access so whenever I need access now, or an artist does, et cetera, I’ll connect you with Adam and he can take care of the questions you’re having now. Alexander is someone who is constantly asking: “What next?” Indeed, as he shared, his brother Marius suggests, “Put Alexander in a room for two hours with 100 people he doesn’t know and after two hours, he's found a project where everyone wants to contribute and has this common feeling.” Since spending ten minutes together at Sounds Australia’s Jazzahead stand, I’ve been in that room more than a few times since then and I can tell you, it may be crowded, but Alexander always makes sure there’s room for more!

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Photographic Contributors

Amersfoort Jazz Festival APRA AMCOS Australian Art Orchestra Australian Music Centre Melbourne International Jazz Festival Melbourne Jazz Co-operative The Music Trust Music Victoria Port Fairy Jazz Festival Support Act Sydney Improvised Music Association Wangaratta Festival of Jazz & Blues

Lucas Allmann Alexander Ant Samir Belhamra Paul Blenkhorn Rachel Claire David Clode Cottonbro Harry Cunningham Digital Buggu Dimitri Photography Eva Elijas Toa Heftiba Sinca Marcin Jozwiak Polina Kovalev Ron Lach Laker Oleg Magni Erik Mclean Kobby Mendez Miljan Mijatovic Manuel Moreno Humphrey Muleba Johann Piber Samen Regan Asante Anni Roenkae Casey Schackow Sides Imagery Silvia Adam Simmons Sergio Souza Star Digital The Nigmatic Vividd Pat Whelen

thanks

Additional Content Contributors

Pozible Campaign Contributors Mike Barry CAVEMANverses John Cheong-Holdaway Eyal Chipkiewicz Peter Clark Des Cowley Brett Dellavedova Louise Denson Ronny Ferella Mace Francis Gemma Horbury Joe Malignaggi Christine Manetta Music Susan Millard David Moyle Tim Nikolsky - Australian Jazz Real Book Dean Ormston Heather Rogers Paul Simmons Lisa Windon

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Dingo Australian Jazz Journal

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