Dingo Australian Jazz Journal Issue 2

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.

Excellence in jazz.

Performance Festivals Education Artist Development Touring New Work Commissions Learn more:

sima.org.au

EDITOR Adam Simmons | editor@dingojazz.com CO-EDITOR & MARKETING Cal Barry | marketing@dingojazz.com ART DIRECTOR Perri Winter | artdirector@dingojazz.com COVER ART Chelle Destefano | www.chelledestefano.com WRITERS Toshi Clinch, Des Cowley, Denis Curnow, Matt Dwyer, Matt Fripp, Hayley Egan, Rob Glaesemann, Alex Howroyd, Artie Jones, Ellen Kirkwood, Ross McHenry, Julia Messenger, Roger Mitchell, Jessica Nicholas, Tim Nikolsky, Barry O’Sullivan, Michael Prescott, Felicity Provan, Ken Simpson-Bull, Gareth Thomson COPY EDITOR Des Cowley, Elissa Goodrich, Roger Mitchell ARTIST Meg Kolac | www.megkolac.com SUBSCRIBE subscriptions@dingojazz.com ADVERTISING marketing@dingojazz.com PUBLISHED BY Sounding Grace Pty Ltd 339 Clarendon St, South Melbourne, VIC 3205, Australia DISTRIBUTED BY WRAPAWAY 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

This magazine thing has a steep learning curve, but with wonderful discoveries along the way. Here we are for the second edition already, full of a whole bunch of different stories and insights that we are eager to share.

There have been many wonderful responses to Dingo’s first edition. It is lovely to receive messages from excited subscribers about opening their Dingo packages, as well as from those who have stumbled upon the magazine by happy chance in their local newsagent. It encourages us greatly to know our passion is shared by so many others.

We know copies have been picked up in all major cities and found in all sorts of places including Coonabarabran, Nambucca Heads, Corindi Beach, Lennox Head, Nowra, Katoomba, Orange, Broken Hill, Horsham, Mildura, Moriac, Allansford, Pomonal, Milawa, Cann River, Cowes, Ipswich, Toowoomba, Stanthorpe, Cunnamulla, Bribie Island, Rockhampton, Bowen, Townsville, Gawler, Victor Harbor, Mount Gambier, Whyalla, Coffin Bay, Bunbury, Busselton, Kalbarri, St Helens, Launceston, Deloraine and Tennant Creek - and more than a few have headed overseas!

One comment received from Brisbane drummer Dan Hirsch after reading Dingo speaks to one of the themes that has emerged in this issue: “I feel like my community is suddenly so much bigger.” There is more than one story here about the strength and resilience of community, even if it involves a struggle. At the same time, there are examples of the power of art to enact change. Which one begets the other, does community create art, or does art create community? What can they achieve together?

I am writing this as lockdowns extend in some parts of the nation, impacting events around the country. We are extremely grateful to all of our writers, artists, festivals, presenters and advertisers that have done their best to keep us in the loop in ever-changing conditions to help put this magazine together.

Oh, and rest assured that we’re only just getting started – ideas are already flowing for 2022!

Enjoy Adam Simmons

con tents 005 EDITOR 'S LET TER 008 SPOTLIGHT 014

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OPPORTUNIT Y IN COMMUNIT Y BIG BANDS, YOUTH AND THE MAKING OF JA ZZ IN AUSTR ALIA

SINGING IN THE DARKNESS A PROFILE OF HOWARD BELLING

034 CROSSING THE FLOOR

HARMONY, LISTENING AND TRUST ACROSS GENRES 042 NOW IS THE TIME

THE CASE FOR A NATIONAL ARTS POLICY 050 JAZZ IN ADEL AIDE 056 REVIEWS 074 ARTIST

SAM BOON 076 EDUCATION

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE AUSTR ALIAN JA ZZ CONVENTION

CAPTURING THE INEFFABLE THE IMPORTANCE OF TONE IN A BIG BAND SET TING YOUNG ARTISTS

094 GE AR REVIEWS 102 LIVE 104

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GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE PEDALLING , FROM ONE THING TO ANOTHER I PL ANNED FOR A MONTH , AND NOW IT’S BEEN …

SHAMPOO & JA ZZ GIGS MEET ANDRE LE ROUX

114 CONTRIBUTORS

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24 56 104 76 74

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DINGO LAUNCH Dingo’s Gala Launch event was a great night of entertaining music at The Thornbury Theatre, marking the national release of our first issue.

Connecting with the 10th International Jazz Day (April 30, 2021), a large and enthusiastic audience were treated to fantastic performances from across the jazz spectrum of Australian jazz.

The night began in style with a VIP drinks and canapés reception, before starting with a surprise soprano trio fanfare of Fiona Burnett, Rob Vincs and Adam Simmons aptly performing a piece by the late saxophonist and composer Brian Brown, who was always a strong advocate for Australian jazz.

The Dingo Team is already preparing for next year’s International Jazz Day. P H OTO S BY AU RO RA KU H N

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spotlight F E S T I VA L S Several of Australia’s jazz organisations have received a combined $1.12 million injection of funds from the Federal Government’s Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE) Fund.

Two major recipients of the RISE funding are Melbourne International Jazz Festival (MIJF – $177K) and Wangaratta Festival of Jazz & Blues (WFoJB – $121K), to support their respective events this year. At time of writing, COVID-19 restrictions in Victoria and New South Wales make it unlikely either will proceed as hoped. MIJF’s CEO and Program Manager Hadley Agrez told ABC’s Virginia Trioli that there are contingencies prepared for COVID-19 disruption, including streaming events. WFoJB General Manager, Leanne Mulcahy told Dingo that, “all efforts are being made to deliver the National Jazz Awards online” similar to last year’s awards.

Perth International Jazz Festival (PIJF) was successful in their RISE application for $612K to guarantee their 2021 and 2022 events, with a further promise to expand into regional Western Australia. In comment to Dingo, Artistic Director Mace Francis said, “The diverse 2021 program includes a celebration of local jazz legend, Helen Matthews, through to freely improvised performances from national artists, duos to big bands, basement performances and a rooftop Brazilian party.”

The York Festival is a two-week multi-arts event (25 September – 10 October) that has also enjoyed success with the RISE Fund to expand its program. This year’s festival embraces the historic town’s strong jazz heritage, incorporating a special three-day program curated by PIJF Artistic Director Mace Francis.

Sydney Improvised Music Association (SIMA) is another RISE recipient, receiving $207K for a new initiative to support six tours a year for two years in regional NSW and beyond, beginning next February with Nick Garbett’s The Glider. In other news due to COVID-19 restrictions, SIMA has confirmed a reduced Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival program will move online in November.

Program announced 1 October – www.siwjf.org.au The Australian Jazz Convention celebrates a significant milestone this year, presenting the 75th edition in Albury, NSW in December this year. Read Ken Simpson-Bull’s article in this edition for a brief history of the world’s oldest continuing jazz event.

Unfortunately, Generations in Jazz, Castlemaine Jazz Festival, Merimbula Jazz Festival, Inverloch Jazz Festival, Newcastle Jazz Festival, Stonnington Jazz and Phillip Island Jazz Festival are amongst the many festivals and events that have had to cancel or postpone so far in 2021. On a positive note, Dingo is aware of at least two new regional festivals in planning for 2022.

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AWA R D S FIRST NAT IONS ART IST IN RES IDE N C E Presented in a partnership between Melbourne International Jazz Festival (MIJF) and the Australian Art Orchestra (AAO), the First Nations Artist in Residence Program is a new artistic professional development initiative that supports the career development of an emerging to midcareer First Nations musician with a practice in jazz, improvisation or contemporary art music and its composition. The inaugural artist is award-winning musician, dancer, director and proud Djab Wurrung/ Gunditj Mara and Ngarrindjeri man, Amos Roach, who states: “This is a profound shift in the dynamic between First Nations people and the general community, given the oppression and suppression of Cultural practices that has occurred here for so long.” The residency during August to October includes a cash bursary, a MIJF presentation and a period of employment with the AAO. A M O S ROAC H P H OTO BY M I TC H P OW E R

ART M US IC AWARDS The Art Music Awards were revealed online this year by the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) and the Australian Music Centre. The winner of Jazz Work of the Year is Vanessa Perica’s “Spaccanapoli”, while Phonetic Orchestra’s Silent Towns was awarded Performance of the Year for jazz and improvised music. The 2021 Richard Gill Award for Distinguished Services to Australian Music recipients are Penny Lomax and Maureen Cooney, the founding producers of ABC Radio National’s iconic program, The Music Show.

Working with presenters Christopher Lawrence and his successor, Andrew Ford, Lomax and Cooney pioneered an ecumenical approach, incorporating classical, jazz, traditional, pop, hip hop, music theatre and a myriad other genres.

FRE E DM AN JAZZ FE LLOWS HIP Flora Carbo, Joseph Franklin, Hilary Geddes and Maria Moles have been named as this year’s Freedman Jazz Fellowship finalists. This year the four finalists will work with mentors to hone their creative projects before meeting virtually with the judges as they decide the $21,000 prize. Speaking of the finalists, The Music Trust’s Dr. Richard Letts remarks, they “are stylistically different to an unusual degree. That’s a problem for the judges when they come to decide, but a boon for Australian jazz.”

H I L A RY G E D D ES

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DEUTSC H E R JAZZ PREI S – GERM A N JAZZ PRIZE Congratulations go to Australian trombonist Shannon Barnett for her nomination in the Brass category for the inaugural German Jazz Prize, along with Nils Wogram and Markus Stockhausen, who was judged the winner in June. Launched this year by the German Minister of State for Culture Prof. Monika Grütters, the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, and realised by Initiative Musik, the national funding institution for the music industry, this is a major initiative presenting €10,000 cash prizes for most of the 31 categories.

J OS EP H W. POLI SI PRIZE & J UI L LIA RD ’S F I RST JAZZ VO I C E M ASTER

S H A N N O N BA R N E T T P H OTO BY J U L I A G O L D S

In June, Olivia Chindamo not only graduated as Juilliard School’s first Jazz Voice Master but was also recognised for “exemplifying Juilliard’s values of the ‘artist as citizen’”, receiving the Joseph W. Polisi Prize, just prior to performing one of her own arrangements at the ceremony. Olivia can add these to a string of other achievements including receiving the 2016 Bell Award for Young Australian Jazz Artist of the Year and being a finalist in the 2018 Sarah Vaughan Vocal Competition and 2020 National Jazz Awards.

A BC JAZZ – C OMPOSER C O M M I S S I ON I N G F UN D In July, ABC Classic and ABC Jazz announced the recipients of the inaugural $90,000 Composer Commissioning Fund to support new Australian music from emerging and diverse voices. Five jazz artists – Omid Shayan (VIC), Ilaria Crocini (VIC), Mark Simeon Ferguson (SA), Minnie Hill (VIC) and Rafael Karlen (NSW) – were among the 15 successful applicants, chosen from a total of 150 applications, that will be recorded for broadcast and digital commercial release. This initiative has been overseen by newly appointed ABC Classic and ABC Jazz Content Manager, Joe Gelonesi, who succeeds Toby Chadd.

R A FA E L K A R L E N P H OTO BY DAV I D C O L L I N S

15 ——— — 24 OCT 2021

CELEBRATING JAZZ SINCE 1998

melbourne jazz.com

E D U C AT I O N Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) launch their new Bachelor of Music Degree in 2022.

Associate Dean of Music Dr. Jamie Oehlers states, “This course is designed to promote originality – we want to help the students develop whatever music it is that excites them, to explore new possibilities and extend their horizons.”

Possible streams cover jazz, contemporary, classical and composition with the option to explore different genres.

Creative Arts Research Institute (CARI) has been newly established by Griffith University and will be led by Brisbanebased percussionist and composer Prof. Vanessa Tomlinson, who said, “It’s about creating a collective voice for cutting-edge creative arts research within the university and strengthening our engagement with industry and the community. This is a genuine opportunity to connect the dots and combine our interdisciplinary expertise to do amazing things.”

VA N ES SA TO M L I N S O N

Celebrated pianist and composer Andrea Keller was recently announced as the new Head of Jazz & Improvisation at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne. This appointment is a welcome one, following the resignation for family reasons of Dr. Rob Vincs, who served in the role since the beginning of 2016, having taught there since 1990 (formerly Victorian College of the Arts).

The transition bodes well for the future of the institution and its continued contribution to the music community.

CONNECTIONS

ANDREA KELLER P H OTO BY JA M I L N AWA Z

Dingo is excited to be a World Jazz Network (WJN) partner, presenting Sam Boon’s AIME as part of the online World Jazz Conference (WJC) to be held 22-23 October. The WJN is a partnership between venues, festivals and other organisers in the global jazz industry, that aims to build bridges between audiences worldwide. Last year’s event was a wonderful learning experience – as outlined in this edition’s interview with South African WJN partner Andre Le Roux – and this year should be no different. But the hope is to meet in person again for the 2022 WJC. Last year’s inaugural Australian Jazz Forum (AJF) was held to inform a submission by Dingo’s Editor Adam Simmons, for the Parliamentary Inquiry into Australia’s Creative and Cultural Industries. The AJF will be presented again by The Usefulness of Art, this time in partnership with Melbourne Women’s International Jazz Festival, on Saturday 4 December. It will be a virtual/hybrid event, open to all. More details: www.tuoa.com.au

WA N DA BA LOYI P H OTO BY P E T E R P U T T E RS

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Opportunity in Community BIG BANDS, YOUT H AND T HE MAKING OF JAZZ I N AUST RAL IA WO RDS ELLE N KI RKWOOD

WA YO U T H JA ZZ O RC H EST RA P H OTO BY E L I ZA C OW L I N G

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Where do young musicians get introduced to jazz? How do they learn the style? Where can they meet other jazz musicians? For most, the answer lies in the classic big band format that was popularised a centur y ago during the Jazz Age and continues to play a pivotal role in the musical education of young Australians today.

My first foray into the world of jazz occurred when, in year 7, I joined the junior stage band at my co-ed public high school.

The music font was at first a little hard to decipher, and the rhythms were strange. Making sense of it took some extra computational effort in my 12-year-old brain. I must’ve been alright at it though, because soon I progressed to the senior stage band, and in a couple of years I was on lead trumpet at school, and 2nd or 3rd in the Arts Unit Jazz Orchestra, a byaudition ensemble run by the Department of Education.

Since high school I’ve been heavily involved with big bands: from Sydney Conservatorium Jazz Orchestra to Sirens Big Band; directing and composing for secondary, tertiary and youth big bands; composing and recording a long-form suite with Sirens, and more besides. So, I suppose you could say they’ve had a fairly significant impact on my career as a jazz musician.

Like me, a huge number of Australian jazz musicians had their first dose of playing jazz in their school stage band. The responses I got from an informal survey of musicians I know on Facebook, and at a gig or two, revealed this trend. Other types of jazz groups came up too – jazz combos and big bands outside school, jazz combos in school and, for later initiates, tertiary-level jazz bands.

To get a range of personal perspectives, I also chatted on the phone with several musicians across the country who have been heavily involved with big bands throughout their careers.

They were all emphatic about the value of their experiences in big bands as young people. The sheer joy of playing great jazz, the camaraderie and lifelong musical friendships, the challenge of difficult music, the teamwork, listening skills, people skills, discipline, development of precise playing, and being part of something greater than oneself, all came up multiple times.

Mace Francis, Artistic Director of the successful Perth-based WA Youth Jazz Orchestra (WAYJO) organisation, says, “As jazz musicians you’re probably always going to play in a band of some sort, so being able to work with people, being diplomatic, being able to play in time and in tune together, working as a team, all those things are really important.” Murwillumbah-based saxophonist Martha Baartz, who didn’t have the opportunity to play in big bands through high school, feels she missed out on a good thing. “If I have students who want to have a career in music, on sax or in jazz, my first inclination is to make sure they’re in a big band,” she says.

For those stage band kids who don’t become professional musicians, “playing well with others” also applies to just being a good human. They make great audience members too, being knowledgeable listeners.

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T H E S H E E R J O Y O F P L AY I N G G R E AT J A Z Z [ C O M E S FROM] THE CAMARADERIE A N D L I F E LO N G M U S I CA L FRIENDSHIPS, THE C H A L L E N G E O F D I F F I C U LT MUSIC, THE TEAMWORK, LISTENING SKILLS, PEOPLE SKILLS, DISCIPLINE, D E V E LO P M E N T O F P R EC I S E P L AY I N G , A N D B E I N G PA R T O F S O M E T H I N G G R E AT E R T H A N O N E S E L F.

S I RE N S B I G BA N D P H OTO BY B RI A N ST EWA RT

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JA Z Z M E L B O U RN E YO U T H BA N D P H OTO BY AU RO RA KU H N

But what about improvisation?

Despite the many valuable skills and experiences gained in big bands when they were young, not everyone agreed that they learned much about improvisation in that context. It’s an essential skill for jazz musicians. I also believe the opportunity to have a taste of improvising is valuable for all musicians. It’s a shame that many are not introduced to this form of musical creativity because of our Western, notation-based system of music education.

For myself, aside from some uninformed dabbling with Jamey Aebersold backing tracks, the first meaningful education I had in jazz improvisation was at the Young Women’s Jazz Workshops run by Sandy Evans when I was 18. Before this, I definitely had been interested in improvising, but in the stage bands I was in, the solos went to the kids who knew what they were doing. Others, like me, had no way of learning how. This seems common, especially if you have stage band conductors with little experience in improvisation.

Even for conductors with experience, it’s hard to go into much detail teaching improvisation to a large group; that’s more easily achieved in private lessons or smaller groups. Nevertheless, with the right approach and the right tunes, introducing improvisation to stage band kids is possible.

Several educators I spoke with have agreed

it’s best to do this when students are younger, normalising it. As Andy O’Connell from Blackburn High in Melbourne says, “if they start [improvising] from the beginning, it’s just a part of music.”

So, how do young people get into big bands?

A significant factor is the instrument they play. Big bands (also known as jazz orchestras, or stage bands in schools) have the standard instrumentation of four trumpets, four trombones, five saxes, bass, guitar, piano and drums. Sometimes you’ll have an added vocalist, maybe a fifth trumpet or percussionist. Because a lot of music has been written for this line-up, it’s quite difficult to bring in other instruments (unless you have the time to create parts for them, and trust me, this is time consuming). This means, sadly, that kids on instruments such as flute, violin and French horn are less likely to be introduced to jazz and improvisation.

Some are lucky enough to go to a school such as Blackburn High, where ensembles catering to instruments outside the standard big band range, and an emphasis on improvisation and aural learning, is built into their large music program. Unfortunately, programs like this are rare, and are not without their struggles. Opposition may sometimes come from other music educators within the school, who don’t want to make changes to their teaching style, and don’t see the benefits of learning improvisation.

If they start [improvising ] from the beginning, it ’s just a part of music.

S I R E N S B I G BA N D P H OTO BY B R I A N ST EWA RT

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The role of demographics We shouldn’t forget that many schools, particularly public schools in lower socio-economic areas, don’t have music programs at all, let alone any that open up the world of jazz to musical kids. And even before that, buying an instrument and paying for lessons is expensive. If you look at the overall demographic of successful jazz musicians in this country, you can see the flow-on effects of this class-based privilege. Sure, there are other factors, but we need to acknowledge that wealth, culture and ethnicity affect opportunity.

Those who run the WAYJO organisation, boasting three youth big bands and a variety of other jazz programs, acknowledge the need to address this problem. As Artistic Director Mace Francis puts it, “In Australia, jazz is mostly white people, whereas that’s not the case in the US, where it’s from. We’re trying to show that jazz is not just for private school kids; it’s for everyone, and everyone can have input.” WAYJO is expanding its program to give opportunities to kids from lower socio-economic areas, and showcase and collaborate with musicians from non-Western traditions. Government and philanthropic funding behind WAYJO enables them to run programs such as these – imagine what would be possible if this were the norm.

Gender also impacts upon participation. In the big bands I played in throughout high school and at the Sydney Con, and in other groups I sat in with before joining Sirens Big Band, I was always very firmly in the minority as a female. From the conversations I’ve had about co-ed high school and other student big bands, there is rarely a 50/50 split in these groups; it’s usually predominantly boys. There is also a trend to do with instrument choice. The archaic “gendering” of instruments won’t quite roll over and die. It just so happens that instruments that

WAYJ O P H OTO BY J O S H W E L LS

seem to be popular with boys (such as trumpet, drums, and guitar) are instruments found in stage bands and instruments chosen by lots of girls (flute, violin) are not. This means many girls don’t even get introduced to playing jazz. A lack of role models for girls playing instrumental jazz is another culprit, and is closely related to the gendered instrument thing. And finally, if it’s hard enough getting into jazz and staying there if you’re a girl, what if you’re non-binary or trans, or for that matter, any minority, or intersection of minorities, in your community?

Opportunity in community The social aspect of being part of a band, of feeling included or excluded, can make a huge difference to your inclination to stick with it. As I see it, the social aspect of big bands is a powerful opportunity to address the lack of gender and other types of diversity in jazz. We know the importance of friendships in our teenage years. I see it in the Young Women’s Jazz Orchestra (YWJO), which I direct.

The sense of community in the group is palpable; there are strong friendships and musicians back each other. When musicians are supported and feel they belong, they will want to stay in the band. The feeling of making great music accompanied by people with whom you connect is wonderful. Having friends in the band also helps when you’re asked to take an improvised solo; it’s a vulnerable situation to be in.

The positive relationships young people form in big bands continue to be important into their adult musical lives. Having connections with other musicians means you can call upon them for future projects, and they will call upon you. I have seen this in the YWJO members who, after leaving the band, often form gender-diverse groups of their own. The gender mix of my own musical network is pretty healthy now, largely as a result

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of being a member of Sirens Big Band. Sirens and YWJO also provide positive role modelling for young people, making women and gender diverse musicians more visible to jazz audiences, as do groups such as Artemis Orchestra in Perth, and Jazzlab Orcheztra in Melbourne.

Cheryl Durongpisitkul, co-leader of Jazzlab Orcheztra, says she and Madison Smith formed the band to “normalise diversity in big band music”, both through its players and the band’s repertoire, which comes from the members. She also sees that Australian audiences crave diversity: “There isn’t as much place for an all-white, all-male large ensemble in Australian music anymore.”

Big band educators who have seen a shift in gender diversity in their groups are noticing the benefit for everyone. Mace Francis says, “It feels more like real life. There’s contribution and input from a variety of people, and it makes for a better social environment.”

Educator and trumpeter Tim Crow, from Sydney, says that in various big bands and groups he directs he’s noticed boys being more encouraging towards girls, because “they want to see a change”.

Celebrating Us, Now Progress also lies with the music. Dan Hirsch, who runs the Talkin’ Jazz youth big band in Brisbane, says, “We need to show young musicians where jazz began, but we also need to show them how amazing Australian music is, and show them what they’re part of here.” The music we make in Australia is something to be proud of, and our musicians will be better placed to build on it if they participate in it from a young age. More than that, offering Australian music to audiences through our young big bands is a way of showing more listeners here at home that we have our own special thing going on, distinct from American jazz.

Moving towards greater inclusivity, in the players and in the music they play, will make big bands and jazz more relevant to more people. Diversifying in terms of the young people we bring into big bands, and maybe even in the instruments we include, as well as teaching and performing Australian music beside “the classics”, will solidify and strengthen the identity of Australian jazz. More than that, it will better connect us with our audiences, and show that Australian jazz can, and does, speak to our times.

WE N EED TO SHOW YOU N G M USIC IANS WH ERE JAZZ BEGAN , BUT WE ALSO N EED TO SHOW T H E M H OW AMAZI NG AUST RAL IAN M USI C I S, AN D SH OW T H E M WHAT T H EY’ RE PART O F HERE .

S I RE N S B I G BA N D P H OTO BY CAT H E RI N E M C E L H O N E

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I AM A PIANI ST, TH ROUG H AND T H ROUG H . I LOVE TH E PIANO. I LOVE FEELI NG T H E ALMOST I MPERCEPTI BLE DIFFERENCE I N WEI G H T FROM HAMMER TO HAMMER AS EACH ONE PUSHES BACK EVER SO SL IGH TLY WH EN I PL AY PIANI S S I MO.

HOW DOES A YA M A H A S I L E N T P I A N O WO R K? In 1993, Yamaha was the first piano manufacturer to make an acoustic piano with silencing capabilities. When the silent function is activated, the hammers no longer hit the strings (Figure 1); instead, a highly sophisticated sensortechnology captures all movements of the keys and sends them to the digital tone module.

Under each of the 88 keys is a Yamaha-unique key sensor. These non-contact, optical scale sensors (Figure 2) faithfully detect subtle movement of the keys without affecting their touch. The optical sensors precisely measure keystroke information, enabling the player to perform with rich nuance and precise expression. Since they do not come into contact with the keys, these sensors do not affect the feel of the keyboard in any way – hence there is no change in key depth and action.

With MIDI/Audio/USB connectivity, this acoustic piano is essentially digital, allowing performers/ artists/educators to achieve so much more in their artistry. Nearly all Yamaha piano models (upright and grand) are available in Silent.

More information au.yamaha.com

FIG 1

H A M M E R S H A N K STO P P E R

FIG 2

ADVERTORIAL K EY S E N S O R

G RAYS CA L E S H U T T E R

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YO U WA N T TO D O W H AT ?

I’ve grown accustomed to hearing this from sound engineers throughout the world as I carefully set up my shiny electronics around their acoustic grand pianos. An engineer’s job is to capture the sound of a piano and amplify it back to the audience with the highest fidelity possible. It is by no means an easy task, which is why I’m rarely surprised when I occasionally get “the talk”: This concert grand is exquisite, why mess up such a pristine tone? You should just play a synthesizer if you don’t want a piano to sound like a piano.

The simplest answer I have is that I am a pianist, through and through. I love the piano. I love feeling the almost imperceptible difference in weight from hammer to hammer as each one pushes back ever so slightly when I play pianissimo. I love hearing the distinctly quiet, haunting sound made when all 230 strings resonate from the lifting of the dampers as I step down on the sustain pedal with my foot. Most of all, I revere the sound, knowing that within the soundboard lives a tree, immortalized in sound as the voice of the piano. It’s all pure magic to me. And it is precisely that magic that I am trying to condense and consequently expand when I hybridise any acoustic piano with electronics.

Over the last 15 years or so, I have tried many different methods to streamline the set up. Ranging from contact microphones and piano pickups to more congruent options such as the Yamaha Silent Piano system (more information left), I have experimented so much from gig to gig that the road manager simply gave up with the band rider.

As an improviser, I live by the motto that every musician is supposed to “tell their story” on the bandstand. The goal to me is clear: put it all out there, spill your guts out and let the sounds vibrate so that someone in the audience (and/or me) may have that cathartic experience they so badly yearn for. In my humble opinion, if the purest goal of the artist is to translate our collective, abstract emotions into sound for the good of society, then I don’t know how I can possibly resist adding electricity into the mix, especially in the year 2021.

It doesn’t feel great to be met with scepticism, especially when I’ve spent hours tweaking my shiny electronics before a gig. Not that I need their approval but witnessing the sound engineer’s shift in tone as I pack up after each show certainly feels good. I never get tired of hearing “wow, I’ve never heard a piano sound like that before, that was awesome”. It drives me to do it all again the following night.

Fabian Almazan

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singing in the darkness A P R O F I L E O F H O WA R D B E L L I N G WO RDS D ENI S CURNOW

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IT’S HARD TO I MAG I NE A FATE MO RE TRAG I C FOR A LIFELONG JAZZ PIANI ST T HAN LOSIN G SE NSATI ON I N YOUR FINGERS. BUT THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT H OWARD BELLI NG , 87 , BEGAN TO SUFFER AROUND N OVE MBER OF 2019 .

“Suddenly, I couldn’t play anymore,” he recalls. “The neurosurgeon at the Austin suggested that it might be due to pressure on my spinal cord, so they operated.”

by billable hours over the genuine pursuit of justice. So it was at night that he really shone, as a pianist tearing up bars and nightclubs in his rapid rise in the South African jazz scene.

The surgery itself was nothing short of outrageous, according to his daughter, Fem Belling. “It’s usually a six-hour op, but because he’s an old man, they had to do it in half the time,” she explains. “They take your vertebra out, go into another room, grind it down to the right size and pop it back in.”

The South African struggle against apartheid from the 60s to the 80s was “the moment that South African jazz emerged as a sound and as a culture,” according to Howard’s son Zvi Belling, in the same way that the civil rights movements of the 40s and 50s shaped American jazz. “That moment in time will always be referred to by subsequent generations as the tradition of African jazz, and my dad was right in the thick of that. He did it during the dark days when it didn’t look like there was ever going to be any freedom, yet people fought and resisted, and put the struggle into music.”

But that was the easy part. Howard now faced the long road to recovery, which began with learning to walk again, and could only be “philosophical” about his situation, stoically accepting that his playing days, spanning eight decades, were likely over.

Putting the “struggle” into music Half a century earlier, and half a world away, Howard was navigating through a period which history will show to be one of the most divided in apartheid-era South Africa. An attorney by day, he “wasn’t enamoured with the ‘business’ of law” – he regarded the trade as being driven

Music was “absolutely important” and “always therapeutic” in those times, according to Howard.

“You have to be in South Africa to understand the role of music,” he says. “They would sing in the darkest times, and they would dance and be happy.”

But beyond its therapeutic role, jazz was a political weapon in the anti-apartheid movement, according

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to legendary South African drummer and Howard’s lifelong musical collaborator, Brian Abrahams. Musicians like them took great pride in supporting the Struggle and providing a musical service to it at rallies. As a result, many protest tunes arose and became anthems for freedom and justice, such as “Yakhal’ Inkomo” by Winston “Mankunku” Ngozi. Its title translates as “the bellowing of the bull, its final cry as it heads to slaughter”, which Mankunku said was the sound of his people.

Another such tune was “Mannenberg” by Abdullah Ibrahim. “Can you imagine a jazz song with no words? Whenever this would have been played, as soon as the first two bars were recognised by the audience, the entire venue would stand up and put up their arms in a power salute showing they supported the struggle and the downfall of apartheid,” Zvi describes. “How is that, that music can get so loaded with that kind of power? It only happens rarely in the world.”

Challenging the apartheid establishment Despite the spirit of protest championed by musicians, the music industry was plagued by the separatist policies of apartheid. Black and white musicians were forbidden from playing together, which drove many mixedrace bands out of the country. For that reason, along with concern about his young children growing up in an environment where the “toxicity of apartheid” was taught in schools, Howard left South Africa.

He would move to Botswana then Swaziland, where he built a name for himself and his highly successful Howard Belling Quartet. For seven years, they played in residence at grand hotels and shared the stage with artists

such as Ray Charles and Sarah Vaughan when they toured. As the band grew in fame, venues began offering more and more lucrative contracts – one such offer came from a nightclub in Johannesburg. But there was one problem.

“Brian Abrahams was in the band. And what’s the problem there? Brian Abrahams is ‘coloured!’ And this was apartheid South Africa,” Howard explains.

“So, I went to see my friend, Jimmy Kruger, who was then the Minister of Police (I gave him his first brief when he joined the bar in Pretoria, but this was totally different). I said, come on man, give us a licence to take this band. ‘They must go and play their music in their own places,’ he says. Wouldn’t let us go.”

“So Howard said, ‘Thank you very much, I’m not interested in your contract. If I can’t bring the drummer that I have, I do not want to come and play in your club,’” Abrahams recalls. “I really respected Howard very much for being so good at that time. He saw that it was an injustice, and why should he sign the contract and replace one of the musicians just because [of] their skin colour?”

Having experienced firsthand the injustice that riddled the music industry, Howard set out with the memories of his legal training to rectify the situation.

He began by working pro bono to help those musicians who had been excluded from the all-white union, by negotiating on their behalf with recording companies who had been taking advantage of them. Over the course of two decades, he worked his way up to the point where he was running the union and decided to challenge the very structure of the industry. “I couldn’t stomach the fact that you had your great lot of white musicians and your great lot of black musicians, and they seldom got together,” he recalls. “There was a white union, so I kept saying, invite the black guys too. ‘Oh, we can’t do that,’ they’d say. So I said, ‘Nonsense! It’s got to stop. We’ve got to have one union for everybody.’”

Howard pressed on, facing hostility from both sides – conservative white musicians who refused to let go of apartheid culture and nationalistic black musicians who wanted to “tear down the old house before we can put up a new house”. For five years he tirelessly chipped away, gathering support almost for no money before he finally prevailed, at long last writing and signing the constitution for the newly established, racially united Musicians Union of South Africa.

H OWA R D B E L L I N G , BA RN EY RAC H U BA N E

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A teacher like no other Around the turn of the century, Howard’s mother-in-law’s health was declining but, as an Australian, she could receive free healthcare here. Without a second thought, and despite being almost 70 years of age, he and the family “just uprooted and came to Melbourne”.

Soon after, the late great Brian Brown, in whose band Howard had played when he visited Melbourne in the 70s, called him to tell him that Scotch College was looking for a jazz teacher. As a muso who had learned the traditional way, by “paying his dues” on the bandstand without any formal education, Howard was “terribly trepidatious” at the prospect, but he was talked into going for an interview.

“They said when I got there, ‘We’ve got this little sectional, come and take the thing.’ So I thought, ‘Oh, well this is where I don’t get employed,’” Howard laughs. “I open the music and what is it? ‘Sweet Georgia Brown.’ Now I know the tune! I ask, what tempo have you been taking it? It happened to be David Dower on the drums, ‘About so fast’. I said, ‘Right, let’s go guys.’ And they were terrible! So I stopped them and said, ‘For God’s sake, this, that and the other …’ And they were terribly impressed, and they gave me the gig.”

For Dower, now an internationally renowned jazz pianist and drummer, Howard was a teacher like no other. His genuine care and investment in his students’ development not only as musicians, but as people, was unmatched. “He’d invite me to his gigs in the city, and be like ‘Come down, and bring a flute from school so that you can get past the bouncer,’” he recalls fondly of his days as Howard’s first student. “So I’d carry this flute on the train and get in because I’d say I was playing. And then he’d get me up to play as a 15-year-old with these top Melbourne musicians! In hindsight, it was probably an awful 10 minutes of their lives trying to survive playing with this kid, but for me that was just incredible. For Howard to be willing to support that, and regularly too, not as a once-off, is just amazing. It goes beyond the expectations of what a teacher normally has to do.”

And this is a sentiment shared by many of his students. Patrick Jaffe, a rising Melbourne pianist, last year released his first album, which was recorded while Howard was recovering from his surgery in hospital. “It was very important to me that he was the first person who got to hear the mix and the album,” Jaffe says. “So he was the first person I sent the link in the Dropbox to.”

Taking it slowly In late 2019, the news of Howard’s worsening condition came as a shock to all who know him. “I heard about it because I was working with him for two years [as a teacher at Scotch], then we got the announcement that he’d ‘retired’.

When I phoned him up about it, it turned out he was in hospital,” Dower recounts. “I went and visited him before the surgery, and it was probably the most distressed I’ve ever seen him, in terms of how bad it had gotten and how uncertain the whole circumstance was. It was highly distressing, I felt awful seeing him in such a state and hearing about the surgery he was about to go through and the 50/50 chance that it would be successful.”

It seemed almost certain that Howard would never play again, according to his children, and to exacerbate the loss of his own ability to perform following the surgery, Melbourne’s lockdown came just as he was discharged from hospital.

Live events came to a screeching halt, meaning he was also unable to go out and enjoy other people’s gigs in what his daughter Fem calls a “music cold turkey”.

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“Howard would never admit he was feeling depressed about it. But his zest for life and his zest for getting up every day had definitely diminished,” she says. “I think he would argue with me saying that it’s not depression, because he had his family and everything else, but you can’t sort of quantify the loss of music against other things. Only musicians get that.”

But Howard was determined, and he was patient. Around May 2020, he started practising again. Progress was slow – there were good days and bad, and he had limited control over his fingers. But his will stood strong – as it did when Jimmy Kruger told him he couldn’t play with a coloured drummer, as it did when record companies and musicians of all creeds opposed his push for justice and unity against apartheid. In the face of this ultimate challenge, he took counsel from his wisest piece of advice – “Take it slowly. Practise slowly first, and it’ll gradually come right. Then gradually build it up.”

In June, Dower called him to see how he was doing.

“He picked up the phone and played me a chord he’d just discovered,” Dower reminisces. “That was his way of just letting me know he was back.”

In late November, over a year since Howard last played, Fem and Zvi booked a return gig for the family. It was a small private gig for just their nearest and dearest. Fem had tried to ease the pressure on him in the lead-up, telling guests to lower their expectations as he was still recovering and was out of practice. And then came the gig.

“He made a liar out of me! He went out there and played like an absolute mofo!” Fem exclaims. “Howie just gets to the piano and starts ripping out these solos, just playing like the Belling legend he is. Over a year of not playing together, where we’d been playing every week.

There was something amazing about that. It really is an extraordinary thing to get to make music with your family.”

Late in the night, a weary Howard’s eyes lit up as he was joined onstage by some surprise guests. “Here we have Howie’s legacy!” Fem declared to the crowd. Flanked by his former students Patrick Jaffe and Jonathan Cooper, and his children, Fem and Zvi, he played tune after tune, before finally retiring back into the crowd. The others continued, just enjoying being able to play together again, and dedicated to their beloved mentor the final tune of the night – “Yakhal’ Inkomo”: the bellowing of the bull, the cry of a people facing all the world could throw at them, a glimmer of hope in the darkest times.

It really is an extraordinary thing to get to make music with your family.

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PAU L G RA B OWS KY & PAU L K E L LY P H OTO S BY P I A J O H N S O N

cros sing H A R M O N Y, L I S T E N I N G A N D TRUST ACROSS GENRES WORDS HAYLEY EGAN

the floo r

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I’m not saying that any random person I stop in the street could tell me what Sting, Joni Mitchell and Kendrick Lamar have in common, but I think I’m pretty safe in assuming that Dingo readers will know. They ’ve all collaborated with jazz musicians.

Kenny Kirkland, Charles Mingus, Pat Metheny, Kamasi Washington and Ambrose Akinmusire are just some of these musicians, and they have received international recognition for their respective contributions to albums such as Sting’s Mercury Falling (1996), Mitchell’s Mingus (1979), and Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly (2015).

In Australia also, these types of collaborations happen all the time. Artists such as Missy Higgins, Paul Kelly, Midnight Oil, Clare Bowditch, Katie Noonan, and Kate Ceberano have all brought jazz musicians on stage and into the studio with them. I spoke to Paul Kelly and Clare Bowditch, as well as their respective jazz collaborators, Paul Grabowsky and Monique diMattina, about the crossover of genres and what Australian jazz musicians contribute to the wider music scene in this context. The aim was to pinpoint exactly what it is about a jazz background that adds value to a musical collaboration, and what Australian pop and rock musicians are looking for when they collaborate with jazz musicians.

Clare Bowditch says that when choosing musicians to perform with, she is looking for “beauty and skill in their playing, as well as fun and flexibility in their approach”. Also important to her is the musician’s ability to understand and make sense of her intuitive way of writing and performing songs.

Paul Kelly, on the other hand, wants to avoid feeling constrained, “like we can’t stray into different grooves”. He is looking for musicians with the “ability to substitute chords and improvise”.

To me it sounds as if a musician with a jazz education would fill those criteria. But what is it about an Australian jazz education that prepares musicians here with the versatility to play with anyone, across genres?

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C L A RE B OW D I TC H

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I thought Rob Vincs was a good person to ask.

After all, with his years as the Head of Jazz and Improvisation at the Victorian College of the Arts, he has had a hand in educating a good chunk of our improvisers.

“The main thing that differentiates jazz education from more usual music studies is the focus on learning how harmony works,” says Vincs. “This is an expression of jazz as real-time composition. The second vital element of jazz education is to help the student play with regard to the rhythmic feel of a piece by phrasing their harmonic lines in relation to ‘the backbeat’ or ‘2 and 4’ feel of the music. This construction of harmonic and rhythmic phrases comprises the artistry of the jazz musician.”

When you’re an outsider to jazz, it can seem a lot more mysterious than this. Clare Bowditch’s appreciation of jazz dates back to her uni days working on the door of the landmark Melbourne venue, Bennetts Lane.

“The players took beautiful, thrilling, glorious risks,” she says. “They delighted, they soared, they reimagined, and they created magic out of thin air. They were almost architectural. They made music feel like a solid building that we were all sitting in together.”

Bowditch has worked with jazz pianist Monique diMattina for a number of years, for exactly these reasons, as she embodies all of the above.

DiMattina has a lot of experience playing pop music, an idea that was normalised for her during her time living in New York. “It wasn’t really an idea I’d come across in Melbourne,” she says. “When I started out as a fancy young jazz person, I had this attitude that pop was somehow less. But my experience has taught me that there is really a lot to pop music.”

At one point, diMattina refers to playing pop as “crossing the floor”, which evokes an image of musicians from different genres stepping out to visit one other, then scuttling back to their own musical corners. As we speak it becomes clear, however, that diMattina really doesn’t see it that way. “Nothing I do is straight ahead jazz,” she says. “I’ve always had that blend of singer-songwriter with jazz and pop.”

M O N I Q U E D I M AT T I N A P H OTO BY SA RA H E N T I C K N A P

The album Please Leave Your Light On by Paul Kelly and Paul Grabowsky, winner of the Aria in 2020 for Best Jazz album, sees Grabowsky “crossing the floor” and Kelly taking a few steps of his own to meet the pianist halfway.

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“Working with Paul is like walking on a tightrope,” says Kelly. “He doesn’t play the song the same every time. You have to pay attention and respond. He reimagines my songs and that makes me sing them differently.”

I’ve never thought of Paul Kelly as a jazz musician, and he hasn’t had a “jazz education”, but in the studio with Grabowsky, in Please Leave Your Light On, it sounds to me as if he’s trying something new.

So, do you need a jazz education to “sing jazz”?

Getting this question answered seemed like another good reason to bother Rob Vincs. “A blanket statement is hard to make,” he says. “But a vocalist who has strong harmonic and rhythmic awareness is likely to have the tools to express an idea.”

Everyone I spoke to agreed on one thing: To play or sing using a “jazz approach”, you do have to be pretty good on your instrument.

When I asked diMattina what she thought a pop musician such as Clare Bowditch appreciated most about her musical contribution, the pianist replied, “I think she appreciates the flexibility I have on the instrument. I can bring other ideas, because of my jazz background. I have the freedom to bring more.”

Kelly talked about the importance of technical skill when he discussed the timing of his own exploration of jazz.

“I’ve always been interested in jazz, but I’m not that kind of a guitar or piano player,” he continued. “I don’t really have the skills, but as I’ve aged, my voice has gotten better.”

Grabowsky had more to say: “You’ve got to really be able to get around the instrument and make it work for you. Technical challenge, where that challenge becomes a barrier, means that you are not really able to express yourself.

It’s not really about being an elite player,

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IT’S ABOUT BRINGING A JAZZ M E N TA L I T Y I N T O T H E R E L AT I O N S H I P. I T ’S N OT A BOUT ‘ P L AY I N G J A Z Z ’.

IT’S ABOUT B R I N G I N G YO U R OW N P H I LO S O P HY AROUND MUSICMAKING. I REGARD JAZZ AS A PROCESS, AS A W AY O F D O I N G THINGS, AND A TO O L TO C O N N ECT WITH MUSICIANS FROM ALL C U LT U R E S .

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but it is about doing whatever you have to do with the instrument to feel like you are in control of it, and the instrument is not controlling you.”

Also important for a jazz musician, says Grabowsky, is the ability to listen: “You have to really hone your listening skills. You’ve got to actually shut up, park your ego to the side, and listen to someone else telling you something. And you have to trust. Because your improvisation is only as beautiful as what other people are doing around it. It’s a musical agreement totally based on trust.”

Harmony, listening and trust. It sounds as if jazz has all the qualities of a great friendship. But if jazz were a friend, would it be one who comes over for a meal, brings the wine, ends up doing most of the cooking and cleans the house before leaving?

In other words, what’s in it for jazz? What do jazz players get out of these collaborations?

DiMattina says her musical relationship with Clare Bowditch is far from one-sided. “Playing with Clare is an inspiring and fabulous musical experience. She makes a beautiful sound, and that’s what I’m in it for.

Clare might not use the same musical language as me, but her ear knows exactly what she wants. It’s a very exact aesthetic that she has.”

More generally, I asked Paul Grabowsky what it was that he thought pop “gave back” to jazz.

“That’s easy to answer. It’s the songs. It’s always been that pop music has been a feeder back into jazz. The gift from pop to jazz is the music itself, and it always has been. If you, as a jazz musician, are working with an incredible artist like Paul Kelly, you can start saying: ‘What is this song about, and what do the lyrics say?’

The process becomes entirely about the songs themselves. You ask yourself: ‘How do I make this work?’ and you tell yourself: ‘Let’s stop and listen.’”

How “jazzy” the final product sounds is, for Grabowsky, beside the point.

The idea of jazz as a particular kind of music, is not one he subscribes to.

“It’s about bringing a jazz mentality into the relationship. It’s not about ‘playing jazz’. It’s about bringing your own philosophy around music-making. I regard jazz as a process, as a way of doing things, and a tool to connect with musicians from all cultures.”

So rather than the doormat friend who gives and gives and never receives, I’ve come to see jazz as some kind of generous, charismatic socialite. For a pop musician, becoming familiar with jazz opens myriad opportunities, and provides the space for connection between musicians from all genres.

The value of this connection is evident for all artists, as they’ve expressed here.

When jazz is embraced as a process that embodies freedom and trust, it assists in raising its profile, elevating the music to, in some cases, award-winning heights.

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now is the time THE CASE FOR A N AT I O N A L A R T S P O L I C Y WO RDS ADAM SI MMON S I L LUSTRAT ION MEG KOL AC

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T HIN GS WE BEL IEVE IN DON’T SU RVIVE J UST BECAUS E WE BEL I EVE I N TH E M .

T HEY D O SO BECAUS E P EO P LE D O SOM ETH I N G ABOUT IT.

Across the nation’s creative industries sector, there are many conversations being had about the need for development of a national ar ts and culture policy. But why do we need one? Where does jazz fit into this? Is anyone speaking up for jazz? Is this even relevant to the jazz community?

Currently, with lockdowns continuing to impact the nation, it can be hard enough just getting through the morning press conferences and surviving the kids’ homeschooling. Consideration of lobbying for a change of heart by a Federal Government that has barely acknowledged the arts during the COVID-19 pandemic, is probably low on the priority list for most. But right now, with a federal election looming for a highly reactive government on a waferthin majority, and an opposition advocating for the arts, it might be our best shot in years to push for real change in how the arts are perceived for their contribution to our national wellbeing.

Jazz plays a crucial role in Australian culture – look at the range of jazz festivals around the country as just one example, or consider the strong sentiments expressed in the interviewees’ answers to “What is Australian Jazz” in our first edition. Though at times it can be difficult for jazz to be seen within the larger arts ecosystem, whether looking from the inside or outside, we should be contributing to any conversations about who we are, and how we want to be, as a nation.

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A national culture policy is the government’s framework empowering its citizens to express their identity. It is a document that supports others to contribute to the country’s narrative on who we want to be. It is a powerful statement of how a government interacts with its citizens – while its absence can also speak volumes.

Arts and Culture Policy - Where are we and how did we get here?

Australia’s federal governments have supported the arts in one way or another for decades. Priorities may shift, budgets go up and down, but regardless of political persuasion, the arts have been on the list of federal responsibilities. But the manner in which support has been implemented has not always been cohesive and coordinated on a national scale.

Australia has only had two truly nationally comprehensive cultural policies: Creative Nation, launched by Paul Keating in 1994; and Creative Australia, launched by Simon Crean in 2013.

Creative Nation has had a more lasting impact, by shifting the arts into economic policy and broadening the notion of how Australians considered the arts.

Creative Australia sought to build upon this legacy, as then Prime Minister Julia Gillard wrote, by affirming “the centrality of the arts to our national identity, social cohesion and economic success.”

This second policy initially had bipartisan agreement but was scuttled that same year by the incoming Tony Abbott Government. Since then, there has been no overarching cultural policy in Australia.

As for the impact of George Brandis’s cuts to the Australia Council in 2015 and the whole Catalyst funding shemozzle – well, there was a senate inquiry about that, which received a record number of submissions, but let’s move on for now.* On top of this, federal spending on the cultural sector per capita has decreased by 18.9% since 2007, according to the recent report, Creativity in Crisis: Rebooting Australia’s Arts & Entertainment Sector, commissioned by the Media, Arts and Entertainment Alliance (MEAA). In the void left, funding has increased substantially at the local government level.

We arrive at the beginning of 2020 on a precipice, without a cohesive national plan, with the impact of sustained cuts to Australia Council funding about to result in the defunding of dozens of organisations across the country, with an urgent call to return funds taken for the now defunct

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Catalyst fund (to the sum of around $7 million) to avoid a looming bloodbath. Then COVID-19 hits. And everything in the arts sector stops.

Why should the arts be funded?

Two reasons for funding of the arts – increase economic growth and improve national wellbeing.

Normally, the arts contribute anywhere from $14 billion to $111 billion to the economy annually, depending on how the sector is defined and who is reporting – the fact these figures can vary so much goes to the heart of the issue. The arts are operating without proper infrastructural supports and lack the mechanism to communicate effectively with government.

Welfare and health are two things that get large amounts of money. Despite not being direct economic or employment drivers, they are about national wellbeing. Arts does both. The economic argument has been well-established as per Creative Nation. To understand the wellbeing perspective, just look at the way the consumption of arts has sustained communities in lockdown across the world during this pandemic.

Crucially, the arts sector must get out of the mindset that funding is a handout, something we are lucky to get. For many other sectors, accessing public money is just a part of business: Investors (real estate, shares) get tax incentives such as negative gearing and franking credits; Export businesses access tax breaks and funding to encourage trade; Australia’s car manufacturing industry was only viable with significant subsidies, as seen when the Government withdrew them.

The mining industry relies heavily on subsidies as outlined in The Australia Institute’s report, Fossil fuel subsidies in Australia: “In 202021, Australian federal and state governments provided a total of $10.3 billion worth of spending and tax breaks to assist fossil fuel industries. The $7.8 billion cost of the fuel tax rebate alone is more than the budget of the Australian Army.”

The various COVID-19 stimulus packages put in place have all communicated the idea that it is about getting money moving through the economy to generate activity – a la JobKeeper/ JobSeeker/JobMaker. Financial capital flows

through a network that can be used to leverage other financial capital, or it can be converted into social or cultural capital. Governments have the financial capital, but they require us to help convert it to social and/or cultural capital.

Imagine what could be achieved if we shifted from a mindset of being “funding recipients” to one of “investment partners”? Working together instead of fighting for crumbs.

How does jazz fit in?

It should be a no-brainer: jazz is music is performing arts is art is culture. Though, exactly how jazz fits into the arts ecosystem and engages with the various support mechanisms is much trickier to elucidate.

Jazz has found itself in a strange position where it is at its best in both smoky bars and concert halls.

It retains a sense of entertainment from its reign as a global phenomenon, but it has developed into a highly sophisticated form also. In both settings, jazz enjoys a mercurial image that decries the bounds of conformity. Though, I wonder if this is why jazz has lost some industry supports along the way – I have been involved in more than one discussion where those within the community see the need for funding as irrelevant, unnecessary or that applying would be futile anyway. It can even be a badge of honour to be operating without funding. Something for the aforementioned mining magnates to consider, maybe?

From a survey I conducted last year, I found a disturbing picture of disconnect, in terms of political engagement, between the Australian jazz community and all three tiers of government.

Less than 2% felt there was enough federal support for jazz, compared to just under 10% at the local level – neither is adequate. There was a corresponding low level of regular reciprocal engagement indicated by respondents.

What is not always understood is the value that our community’s activities generate for others, irrespective of the sub-style of jazz. Whether it is the way that a band can help fill a venue room on a dead night, or how a $10,000 council contribution to a local non-profit jazz festival can generate $850,000 of economic activity for local hospitality, retail and tourism businesses – not to mention the tax revenue raised through GST, alcohol and fuel excise – we are not encouraged to understand or leverage the value of our contribution to these exchanges.

IT MI G H T BE OU R BEST S H OT I N YEARS TO PUSH FOR REAL CHAN GE I N H OW T H E ARTS ARE PERCEIVED FOR T H EI R C ONT RI BUTI ON TO OUR NATI O NAL WELLBEING

There are positives to work from here. The scene is of high quality across the board and our musicians are respected internationally. Our venues, festivals and presenting organisations are well-established, and some have just received significant cash injections from the Government’s RISE program.

Given the low starting point for political engagement, there is a huge opportunity for both sides to gain from even just a small increase. And if we can begin to work in a spirit of partnership with governments, who knows what we might achieve.

These words from Bruce Johnson, writing in 1998 about how his perspective had changed after 10 years as President of the Jazz Co-ordination Association of NSW, still sound a clarion call to action today: “Not only is it clear that jazz should intervene to give itself a voice in the public arts consciousness, but that it can do so to outstanding effect. Why should jazz intervene? Simply: cultural empowerment. My increasing involvement in arts policy bodies at state and commonwealth level confirms that things we believe in don’t survive just because we believe in them. They do so because people do something about it.”

the usefulness of art

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So why a national arts policy now?

Times have changed, society has changed, the world has changed – the way we tell our stories is changing and it is time to recognise their value and empower our storytellers.

Other sectors have recently developed national 2030 plans – agriculture, sport, innovation, tourism and defence technology. The arts sector contributes at least as much to the economy as sport does in terms of GDP and employment, as well as being vital for national wellbeing. Having a strong statement about the value of arts and culture, and a policy to continue the growth of the sector, will help us move forward at a time when certainty and vision have been lacking.

For last year’s Parliamentary Inquiry into Australia’s Creative and Cultural Industries and Institutions, there were many voices, including from last year’s Australian Jazz Forum that informed my submission, pushing the need for such a policy to be among the Inquiry’s recommendations. There has been no report from the Inquiry as yet, but encouragingly it received many submissions and even more responses via the questionnaire.

It is well within the remit of the Inquiry to recommend the Government develop a national plan, such as their own National Sport Plan, Sport 2030, as a precedent.

Over recent months, a variety of voices have been prosecuting the case for a national arts and culture policy. And there is nothing like an impending election to help motivate politicians to try and win your vote – especially when the Federal Government is already on the slimmest of margins. Labour and The Greens have both advocated for the arts in their policy platforms in contrast to the Coalition’s vacuum in that area. But when talking about national identity and wellbeing, this should be a bipartisan issue. There are potential allies across the political spectrum – we just need to help make support for arts and culture a salient issue.

How might we get there?

Don’t expect any specific support for jazz in any national plan – just as you won’t find table tennis mentioned in Sport 2030. But a plan that articulates the benefits of developing engagement and participation in the performing

arts to connect communities, help mental wellbeing and contribute to economic growth, will provide a supportive framework for jazz to comfortably operate within.

With little steps and by walking together, we might just get somewhere. Firstly, with our own communities, then with the wider jazz community, and finally joining the march with everyone else.

Discuss these ideas within your circle – consider your place and value in the music/arts ecosystem, whether as producer, creator, consumer, presenter.

Develop a relationship with your political representatives, tell them your story of involvement with the arts and why. Make it personal and real.

Talk with friends, colleagues and family – encourage others to become advocates for the arts.

Look out for the Australian Jazz Forum to be held in early December, which will be an opportunity to contribute and connect with other members of the jazz community. If we all bring our different strengths together and share the load, we will achieve so much more.

* In 2015, the Australia Council’s budget suffered a 28% cut ($104 million), used by George Brandis to set up a ministerially administered fund, Catalyst, which was axed within two years. A Senate Inquiry was held to investigate the impact of the 2014 and 2015 Commonwealth Budget decisions on the Arts.

Further reading: Imagining 2030: Preparing for a National Arts, Culture and Creativity Plan – A New Approach Performing Arts Advocacy in Australia – John Daley (former CEO of the Grattan Institute) Creativity in Crisis: Rebooting Australia’s Arts & Entertainment Sector – Alison Pennington and Ben Eltham (commissioned by MEAA) Re-imagine: What’s Next? – Australia Council TUoA Submission to Parliamentary Inquiry into Australia’s Creative and Cultural Industries and Institutions – Adam Simmons, The Usefulness of Art

50 P H OTO BY E M M A LU K E R

WE’RE ALL MUCH BETTER OFF AS A COLLECTIVE N AT I O N A L ENTITY WHERE THE BEST IDEAS FROM ALL LO CA L ES CA N INTERMINGLE, AND WHERE WE ALL GIVE E AC H OT H E R PERMISSION TO M A K E T H E BEST WORK POSSIBLE FROM WHEREVER WE A R E AT.

jazz in

ADEL AIDE WORDS ROSS MCH ENRY

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A friend once said to me, “Man, you know all the best players are in New York, but all the best ideas are in L A .” We were sitting at the bar at the Blue Whale in downtown Los Angeles and the comment was a throwaway one af ter several drinks, and several sets of music. Of course, he didn’t really mean it, and it hasn’t stuck with me all these years later because it was par ticularly aphoristic. In fact, if I remember rightly, he either immediately withdrew the statement or qualified it with another. In any case it wasn’t the comment that was impor tant, it was the broad reframing of the dominant discourse about who gets to do what and where they get to do it that stuck with me.

What he meant was that whereas New York was indeed the fast-paced, high-intensity, universally acclaimed incubator of the world’s finest musicians we all know it to be, it wasn’t necessarily the be-all and end-all of music in the way we often consider it is – or at least that I did then, even if it is the undisputed mecca of most improvised music. Of course, comments made by friends in bars late at night should never be taken as gospel, but that statement – however throwaway – has stuck with me over the years. In large part this is because it has framed the way in which I perceive my city, Adelaide.

When I was coming up, as an Adelaide artist I often felt somewhat inferior to my national and international peers. This was largely because of where I was from, and where I perceived you needed to be in geographic terms, to be making great music. But I see that’s changing now and Adelaide,

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as a result, has changed too – with a generation of new artists who don’t see their geography as necessarily a hindrance in the way I once did.

The story of how the Adelaide scene started to own its narrative is built around two great ideas that have far reaching implications for the national creative music sector. The first is COMA. Creative Original Music Adelaide was formed in 2005 and is still going strong 16 years later. COMA is built on the back of the hard work and dedication of its volunteer board members, whose singular passion and enthusiasm for the organisation have built the scope of its work to one of national significance.

The COMA board has been driven by lynchpins of the Adelaide creative music scene such as the great bassist Lyndon Gray, violinist and restless collaborator Emily Tulloch and guitarist Sam Cagney.

These people believe in the music that is made in Adelaide and have created a space for emerging and experienced practitioners to work alongside each other. COMA has provided a platform to almost every current Adelaide jazz musician to develop their ideas and their body of creative work.

Importantly, alongside championing the creative ideas of the city’s musicians, COMA creates a space for collaboration, which means expatriate artists such as Anna Butterss, Matthew Sheens, Jon Hunt and Hugh Stuckey, and international guests like Will Vinson, have a longstanding and ongoing creative connection with our city. COMA has also been an important breeding ground for new music in Adelaide, providing opportunities for people such as Angus Mason and Nick Pennington to take their practice to the world through wideranging national and international collaborations as well as supporting artists like Kyrie Anderson and Lauren Henderson to present and develop their important bodies of creative work.

H I L A RY K L E I N I G P H OTO BY E M M A LU K E R

Other organisations similar to COMA exist in other cities, but COMA is unique. One aspect to this is the genuine intersection between different musical communities that COMA allows – artists such as Hilary Kleinig, Iran Sanadzadeh and Gabriella Smart, who come from different musical backgrounds, have an ongoing connection to the city’s jazz artists to the mutual benefit of each. Furthermore, in recent times COMA has also been one of the key drivers of emerging artist development, action on diversity and inclusion and work around equality in the improvised music community. It is overdue and vital work for which they deserve credit.

A N G U S M AS O N P H OTO BY E M M A LU K E R

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WIZARD TONE IS A SPACE FOR CREATIVE THINKING, CREATIVE MUSIC MAKING AND OF C OURSE , MAKING REC ORDS. The second great idea around which the Adelaide creative music community orbits is Wizard Tone Studios, and their offshoot Wizard Tone Records. Founded by three of our city’s most well-loved artists – James Brown, Adam Page and Jarrad Payne – Wizard Tone is a space for creative thinking, creative music making and, of course, making records. Whereas COMA has provided the platform for performances that seed new ideas, more recently Wizard Tone has provided the creative space to further realise, refine and document the Adelaide creative music scene. The creative licence Wizard Tone has granted to the community has resulted in forward-facing albums such as Django Rowe’s Cauldron (featuring Rachel Johnston, Kyrie Anderson, Adam Page and Dylan Paul), James Muller’s Live at Wizard Tone (featuring Sam Anning, Ben Vanderwal and Will Vinson), Adam Page’s The Colours of Grief (featuring Brenton Foster, James Brown and Rachel Johnston) and Mark Simeon Ferguson’s Songs from an Imperfect World (featuring Lyndon Gray and Josh Baldwin). These records point to a sense of identity in the music of this city that is collaborative and outward facing as well as inspired by the geography and ideas of this place. These and others in the slew of recent recordings made in Adelaide point to a burgeoning sonic identity, long overdue, that challenges the dominant ideas about the city’s place in Australia’s creative musical conversation – which is a good thing.

A DA M PAG E , JA M ES B ROW N , JA R RA D PAYN E P H OTO BY M A N DA N

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The dichotomy of our broad national conversation about new creative musical works and the sounds and ideas we all create is much more nuanced than throwaway comments in late night bars about where the best ideas are from and where the best musicians reside. But there is a grain of truth in the observation that different places have different strengths and that thinking of one place as the sun around which we all move is unhelpful. Our broad aims as an interconnected national community of artists are best served not by partisan propositions about who has the best scene. Rather, we’re all much better off as a collective national entity where the best ideas from all locales can intermingle, and where we all give each other permission to make the best work possible from wherever we are at. The great music that is made in Adelaide already recognises this through its strong connections to the musicians of Melbourne, New York, Los Angeles and many other places.

For the uninitiated who find themselves in Adelaide or those who simply want to know more, there’s no better place to start than COMA and Wizard Tone. These two great ideas are the window into the heart of Adelaide’s scene.

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reviews

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Harkins’ Larkins John Harkins Independent

Since Subito ME ATSHELL Earshif t

This recording celebrating the enduring relationships among generations of jazz musicians during the global pandemic was made possible largely through people donating their time, talent and equipment. Tunes such as Bud Powell’s “Oblivion” and Thelonious Monk’s “Hackensack” allow the band abundant opportunities to exchange ideas, sounding not the least bit derivative, despite bearing all the charms of the masters’ handiwork. Throughout the recording there’s an abundance of very fine jazz on display providing a wonderful glimpse of four young masters captured fortuitously while approaching their prime. John Harkins’s style is showcased on four of the seven tracks with his stately pianoforte sophistication which is attuned with an uncanny intuition to the phrasings of the “younger guns”.

Sometime in late 2020, double bassist and vocalist Helen Svoboda parachuted into Melbourne, as if out of nowhere. One minute she wasn’t there, the next it seemed she was everywhere – bassist of choice for a range of ensembles, recipient of the Freedman Jazz Fellowship, Pathfinder Associate Artist with the Australian Art Orchestra.

Hailing from Brisbane, she and MEATSHELL collaborator Andrew Saragossi spent several years studying in Germany and the Netherlands (where this, their second album, was recorded) before making the move to Melbourne. Billed as an experimental-folk-jazz duo, the pair revel in sheer eclecticism and avant-garde sensibility. I can imagine Hugo Ball enjoying this music at Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich in 1916. Employing a strictly minimalist colour palette of bass, saxophone and voice, Svoboda and Saragossi conjure Cubist storylines that are equal parts spiky and playful.

Opening track “Face” is driven by Saragossi’s rhythmic squawks and yelps, acting as backdrop to Svoboda’s vocal contortions, as she sputters numbers, whoops and nonsensical phrases, evoking Cathy Berberian, Meredith Monk, even Björk. Next comes “RJD”, a delicate duet of voice and sax that meanders through a variety of moods. Svoboda’s bass, strident and dynamic, cultivates an increased urgency, as the music swirls and eddies. “Growing (out of nothing)” comprises two minutes of lilting and joyful song, Saragossi’s sax literally dancing throughout. The brevity of Since Subito, which runs to just half-anhour, acts to intensify the listening experience.

It is a bravura performance, virtuosic and dazzling, heralding the work of two artists whose multifaceted vision is firmly fixed on the future.

The material furnishes Lachlan Hamilton on saxophone and Jacob Graham on double bass the opportunity to shine on solos which are as sharp and nimble as they are persuasive. Leo Larrett’s guitar is rendered more potent by his refined musicianship, which is praiseworthy throughout and textbook on “Relaxin’ At Camarillo”. The music seems to pour out of him slickly, making it always simultaneously relaxing and exhilarating. Drummer George Greenhill meticulously keeps time while the others calmly tend to their business, making sure that no nuance is overlooked and that every note counts. Crucial to the success of the band’s music is that they are all distinct personalities who manage to improvise simultaneously without getting in each other’s way or upstaging each other. On this outing, these young maestros may well give you a walk to remember.

Barry O’Sullivan

Des Cowley

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Sunrise of Happiness | ade ishs Trio Self-titled | ade ishs & eMotion Band Independent Two different but excellent releases from Devonport/ex-Melbourne pianist ade ishs.

A rare thing for an album title, Sunrise of Happiness is a clear indicator of the music contained therein, bright and cheerful, and maybe the perfect tonic for these lockdown times. That is not to say it is frivolous or light and fluffy, it is simply very uplifting, thoroughly enjoyable and gets better every time you play it. Ishs has a brilliant sense of melody and wonderful lines simply flow from his piano in an almost constant stream, adorning these mostly self-penned tracks. He is ably supported by bassist Rory Brown and drummer Alex Roper with Adam Simmons adding some beautiful shakuhachi to “Northern Sunrise”. The only real exception to all the positivity is the solo tribute to the late Lyle Mays, but even the final track, “Bass Coast Blues”, whilst definitely blues based, is still guaranteed to improve your mood!

The second release, more of a mini album at 24 minutes, is a different beast but no less successful. Ishs is supported here by another band: Paul Bonnington on semi-acoustic bass, Lachlan Wallace on drums and featuring Vincent Bradley playing sumptuously on flugelhorn, trumpet and euphonium. As with Sunrise of Happiness, ishs’s compositions stand out as well-constructed and tuneful, from the fastpaced opener with its repeating motif, the aptly named “Morning Blues”, the evocative “Dawn” to the beautiful closer “Solitude In A Crowd”.

Mention must be made of the extras available from the QR code located inside both CDs. They add 44 minutes to Sunrise of Happiness and a whopping 51 minutes to eMotion. Yes, they are mostly live tracks but all are worthy additions to already very fine albums.

Michael Prescott

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Nova Nova Louise Denson Group Independent

Rockpool Josh Baldwin Independent

Pianist Louise Denson has always played several decks at once, fanning each hand as wide as it can go. She is an accomplished jazz and classical composer with a life-long commitment to melody, as shown in her latest jazz release Nova Nova.

Josh Baldwin is a man of many talents. Aside from being a seriously good drummer, he recently appeared onstage as a visual artist at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival. He painted several different covers for the vinyl issue of this album, the below right is but one example.

The album starts with “You Said”, a cool and swinging composition which shows off the artful and impressive playing of the group as a whole. The catchy unison horn melody showcasing Lachlan McKenzie on flugelhorn and James Sandon on tenor sax provide a colour palette that excites and swings, taking you to an ill-lit and smoky jazz club in downtown Central Avenue LA, sometime around the 1950s. McKenzie takes flight with a beautifully virtuosic flugelhorn solo, slurring and teasing with a modal finesse reminiscent of the innovative players who penned the West Coast feel.

But it is Baldwin’s skill as a jazz musician that is the focus here. He has assembled a crack band: Lyndon Gray on bass, guitarist James Muller and pianist Matthew Sheens. Baldwin propels his troops from behind the drum kit with simply great drumming, never in the way but always driving the soloists. He is ably supported in the rhythm section by the ever-reliable Gray on bass, chiming in with some very tasty solos of his own.

The double bass of Helen Russell magnificently extends the melodic contours and purpose of the trio tracks. In “Parting” and “Serious Undertaking” she both compliments the playing of Denson and, at times, moves effortlessly independent of it.

“Samba Lucia” with an up-tempo piano feel, features Denson in her element, surrounded by those able to fulfil her compositional wishes: Sandon on sax, who appears to be speaking lyrically through his horn with an extempore and rhythmic brilliance; and the steadfast rhythm section of Russell and Hudson, who shines here with some impressive and playful drum soloing.

There is a delicate and seasoned communication between Denson, Russell and Hudson. Add to this the pleasure and excitement of McKenzie and Sandon with the texture and colour they bring to the core and you have one fine Australian quintet.

Julia Messenger

However, it is the songs that feature here, with the bulk of the soloing left to master guitarist Muller and Sheens. Most of the tunes were composed by Baldwin and Ed Heddle, with some Monk, Charlie Parker and one from Sheens. Sheens, 2009 Downbeat Magazine Student Award winner and pianist to the likes of John Patitucci is a revelation here, with strong and inventive solos and an ability to capture the essence of the song, from almost dissonance and block chords on “Monk’s Dream” to the circular motifs that open “Belvedere”. It is his originality that stands out.

Muller compliments these piano explorations with his own brilliant, fluid playing and together they form a potent front line, making firm the case the Australian drummer has serious talent that runs very deep.

Michael Prescott

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FIK A Elysian Fields Move As bandleader Jenny Eriksson explains in the liner notes to this album, the Swedish word fika is usually translated as “coffee break”, but actually refers to a more expansive concept of spending quality time with family and friends.

The album was recorded in Sydney just before COVID-19 hit in 2020, and while its release was delayed by lockdowns and restrictions, the title now has added poignancy. Here is an album that offers solace and warmth in challenging times, just as a fika with loved ones might bring.

Eriksson (who is classically trained) plays the rarely-heard electric viola de gamba, and in recent years her Elysian Fields ensemble has developed a beguiling repertoire with a Scandinavian focus. On FIKA, the band presents jazzinflected arrangements of traditional Swedish folk songs, contemporary Nordic tunes and original compositions.

Four of the six band members are jazz musicians, but there’s barely a hint of conventional swing here. Instead, the music lilts and glides with graceful lyricism, the players favouring delicate understatement over virtuosic solo flights.

Eriksson’s viola de gamba creates delicate harmonies with Matt Keegan’s legato saxophone, as Susie Bishop’s angelic voice drifts effortlessly above them. Pianist Matt McMahon plays a central role, evoking moods of wistfulness and tender beauty with unerring sensitivity.

There are moments where the temperature rises slightly, as on the Swedish midsummer maypole dance (“Vi Ska Stalla Till En Roliger Dans”) and Keegan’s tune “Cold Soul”, where McMahon sashays over a walking bassline. Overall, though, the mood is one of subtle understatement.

Several band members (including Eriksson) have Swedish ancestors or close connections to Scandinavia, making the choice of repertoire especially meaningful.

And my own part-Swedish heritage means I am naturally drawn to this music. But the alluring melodies and wonderfully nuanced playing on this album make it a highly successful jazz-classical hybrid with wide appeal.

Jessica Nicholas

Award Winning Hand made in Germany

E XCLUSI V E TO T H E

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Live Archival Recording Dewey Redman Quar tet Independent

Gullfoss Nadje Noordhuis Little Myster y Records

Tenor saxophonist Dewey Redman warrants a place in the jazz pantheon. Aside from his recordings as leader, he graced a half dozen Ornette Coleman classics, as well as playing a critical role in Keith Jarrett’s American Quartet. That said, his star has waned since his death in 2006, meaning this release, engineered by pianist Barney McAll, is a cause for celebration. These archival recordings were made in 2002 in Chicago, when McAll was woodshedding in Redman’s quartet, alongside bassist John Menegon and drummer Matt Wilson.

There’s a lot of music to take in here, with Redman’s quartet stretching out in a relaxed fashion. All up, these thirteen extended performances total some two-anda-half hours of music, not all of it essential, but the bulk of it played at a very high level indeed. There are ballads and standards, some of which recall the late club recordings of Dexter Gordon, but equally there’s a slew of Redman originals that find him digging deeply into his free-bop and avant-garde roots. Redman’s tenor sound is raw and big-boned, reflecting his Texan origins, yet equally he retains a facility for skittering across the rhythm, a lesson he gleaned from Ornette Coleman’s melodic invention. While Barney McAll portrays himself in the liner notes as “a little green”, he acquits himself in style, freely switching between blues licks and Cecil Taylor-like flurries. McAll sought approval from the saxophonist’s widow Lidija to issue these archival recordings, and his accompanying heartfelt memoir of his friendship with Redman makes for essential reading.

Horn player Nadje Noordhuis musically answers an encounter with the majesty of the natural world on her latest release, following a journey to Iceland’s volcanic landscape, and to the waterfall after which the album is titled. Released digitally but designed intentionally as a vinyl recording with a crafted story – an A side leading to a B side – the recording navigates the listener on a cinematic journey leading to a triumphant ending that is “Gullfoss”. The recording was made over three nights, performing live in Switzerland with a band composed of a selection of Noordhuis’s favourite players. It features Maeve Gilchrist (harp), Jesse Lewis (guitar), Ike Sturm (bass) and James Shipp (synthesisers and percussion). Pristinely recorded, Gullfoss transforms the live performance into a unique sonic experience, saturating the fortunate listener with a world shaped by nature and travel, shed of shadows and revelling in its bright musical light.

Chalk this as another victory for Noordhuis, whose audio engineering pedigree ensures fine separation and an artful blend, with the defining sound of the album unquestionably derived from its leader. The album opens on the atmospheric “Migration” with horn, harp and synthesiser wafting like perfumed incense throughout the composition before the floodgates open to the remainder. Horns, harp, guitar, bass, and percussion all stand out amidst the shifting tempos and the varied moods of Noordhuis’s multifaceted work, with the musicianship bringing them to life in a unique way. The result is a varied, atmospherically inspired masterpiece of modern jazz showcasing the playing talents of its band members.

Des Cowley

Barry O’Sullivan

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Sounds Good Fr yder yk HD Independent Pianist Fryderyk HD displays exceptional compositional versatility with his ambitious debut album, Sounds Good. Born in Poland to Vietnamese parents and a graduate of Berklee USA, his multifaceted diversification is firmly apparent in influences drawing from jazz, fusion and classical.

The Elephant in the Room Ar temis Orchestra Independent

“Little Prince” starts with expressive bass by gifted Australian Jack Schwenke and gradually builds into a bewitching and haunting piano motif. This subtle yet solid bass underpins the delicacy of the piano, which intermittently delights in superb melodic unison with guitar by Luca De Toni. After a wonderfully executed piano solo, introduced drum and percussive elements uplift giving a sonic build that flawlessly invites the listener to immerse themselves into a captivating rhythmic and melodic flow. It’s no surprise that Fryderyk is not only a pianist, but has also won awards in sound engineering.

Comprising of original compositions by women based in Perth, this ensemble’s debut recording is impressive.

The themes of the album vary from political and ecological to the social uncertainty of the age. The collaborative ensemble, created to envelop members of marginalised genders into the Australian jazz scene, has the brilliant Gemma Farrell as its musical director.

Their music is a fine example of contemporary jazz for orchestra with arrangements of an international standard. Farrell and her collaborators uniquely utilise dense textures and forms, framing numerous well-executed and dexterous solos, delivered with both panache and occasional tenderness within the compositional form. Throughout, no one grandstands, no one is pushed into the shadows.

Unfolding with a reflective sense of longing and movement, the arrangements in “Looking Back” are as impressive as the playing. The rhythmic and musical exchanges seamlessly create an unexpected excitement that grows upon each listen. “L n f” starts with a tranquil piano, where the influence of Eastern European minor harmonies is apparent, before unexpectedly moving to aggressive rock-fusion, with emphatic distorted guitar. Grammy award winning Polish jazz violinist Mateusz Smoczyński features on “Between You and Me”. Employing short lyrical forms moving through minor modalities, it evokes an intimate longing, and like “L n f”, it almost gives us a nod to impressionist classicists. Few pianists today could have made a debut of such ambitious scope and inspired vision. But for Fryderyk, it seems to have come naturally.

“Charcoal Hills” with its spoken words interweaved with the music, expresses the heartbreaking relentlessness of the wildfires that Perth experienced in recent years. The lengthiest composition, “Municipal Gum”, is music inspired by black rights activist, poet, and environmentalist Kath Walker’s (Oodgeroo Noonuccal’s) poetic lament for the fate of a tree stuck in the city. “Silenced” reflects on a dark and cloudy past filled with hate and fear, and features sensitivity in composition and an emotive solo from Jemima Mills on baritone sax with the haunting vocals of Lucy Iffla. On the title track “Elephant in the Room”, trumpet and drum solos are the standouts from Charlie Teakle and Julius Rogers, respectively. To have outstanding music by this ensemble in their debut, with the promise of more to come, bodes well for the future of jazz in this country.

Julia Messenger

Barry O’Sullivan

on tracks Roger M itchell selects two disparate tracks from a favourite album for a closer listen .

Live at the Jazzlab Omelette FMR Records, 2018 For this live recording in September 2017, Luke Howard stepped in for Omelette’s guitarist Stephen Magnusson, so this line-up had never played together. There was no pre-planning. The result was not merely beautiful playing but, as the liner notes state, “beautiful listening”. “What we hear becomes what is possible [and] … at all times there are more possibilities than one.”

Utforske 12:45 Anticipation of a destination can be a lure or a burden, as in “Are we there yet?” If the end point is unknown, for players as well as listeners, that adds mystery and intrigue, an in-the-moment compulsion to focus on the journey. In “Utforske” we explore many paths, many moods. Jordan Murray’s ’bone offers expressive purity and beauty as well as staccato abrasiveness. Howard’s piano builds tension, but also drops delicate melody on to Ronny Ferella’s restrained but never constrained drum work. Javier Fredes percussion contributes intricacy, complexity and textural changes.

Skape 32:46 The attraction here is that our attention is held so well during this lengthy track, without ever wavering. In a way that devotees of The Necks will appreciate, lightly percussive beginnings belie what is to develop as the piece progresses. We are not to know that in the gentle early offerings are the seeds of utterly compelling music that will grasp and hold the listener in thrall. Exquisite horn ruminations extend that illusory calm for a while, underpinned by the drums. Then the piano introduces a strong flow that is not swing, yet has rhythmic drive that gradually burgeons into a full-blown explosion of gripping urgency, punctuated by the horn. As if on an ever steeper and faster roller-coaster ride, we metaphorically hang on. The pace eventually eases. Slowly, while firmly held by what is being created in real time as we listen, we allow muscles to relax. The long wind-down is a delicious release, yet the piece ends not with a whimper, but energetically.

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Austral Jazz: The Localization of a Global M usic Form in S ydney Andrew Robson Routledge When it comes to Australian jazz from the past half-century, it’s fair to say we’ve not always been well-served by our publishers.

John Clare’s Bodgie Dada & the Cult of the Cool (1995) remains a seminal work, as does John Shand’s The Australian Accent (2008). Miriam Zolin’s short-lived independent journal Extempore (2008-2010) was a shot in the arm. We’ve benefited from several biographies, such as Geoff Page’s Bernie McGann: A Life in Jazz (1997) and Norman Meehan’s Serious Fun: The Life and Music of Mike Nock (2010). But it remains the case that much historical information is scattered and ephemeral, salvaged only via the indefatigable efforts of jazz historians and writers like Bruce Johnson and Eric Myers, sites such as australianjazz.net, or archival projects such as the Australian Jazz Museum.

The appearance of Andrew Robson’s book Austral Jazz, issued as part of UK publisher Routledge’s Transnational Studies in Jazz series, is therefore to be welcomed. Robson is a prominent Australian saxophonist, composer and bandleader, as well as being a member of Ten Part Invention and other ensembles.

His book, which focuses on the development of jazz in Sydney from the late sixties to the nineties, is a natural outgrowth of his PhD research, undertaken at the University of Sydney (awarded 2016). And while it’s possible still to discern the skeletal structure of its prior academic life, Robson’s book on the whole proves surprisingly engaging and readable, shining a light, as it does, on an exciting and formative period of Australian jazz.

I had the good fortune to be living in Sydney in the late seventies, just a stone’s throw from Paradise Jazz Cellar in Kings Cross, where I’d routinely head to catch performances programmed by the Keys Music Association, especially any featuring firebrand saxophonist Mark Simmonds. The Basement, another haunt, was in full swing. But Robson’s book brought home missed opportunities, such as Jenny’s Wine Bar or Morgan’s Feedwell in Glebe Point Road, where on any given night I might have caught Bernie McGann in his prime. To his credit, Robson goes some ways to evoking a specific time and a place.

Robson’s thesis argues that a localised version of Austral jazz, exploring “alternative points of connection” to the dominant American vernacular, developed in this country from the seventies onwards. While he limits himself to the Sydney scene, Robson intends his theoretical framework to be a useful tool for understanding other such localised developments (Melbourne is an obvious comparison, but we could go further afield). He takes

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SA N DY EVA N S P H OTO BY P E T E R S I N C L A I R

as his starting point – designated a pre-Austral moment – the 1967 release of the LP Jazz Australia, issued on the prestigious CBS label. Robson sees in its appearance a harbinger of the creative shift soon to take place. The compilation featured just four bandleaders – Don Burrows, Judy Bailey, John Sangster and Bernie McGann – each contributing extended original compositions, something rare at the time. Significantly, the two Bernie McGann tracks – “Spirit Song” and “Lazy Days” – captured his earliest playing on record, predating the release of his first album At Long Last by some 20 years.

Other pre-Austral currents Robson identifies are Charlie Munro’s 1967 release Eastern Horizons, and the early work of Mike Nock’s The 3 Out trio.

If Robson settles on 1973 as his date for the foundational shift to an Austral jazz, it’s largely because of two simultaneous occurrences: the establishment of a jazz studies course at the NSW State Conservatorium of Music – which he likens to “a very large boulder dropped into a relatively small pool” – and the opening of The Basement, which provided students with close and ready access to “after dark” jazz performance.

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US saxophonist Howie Smith, the inaugural director of the jazz studies program, was a regular performer at The Basement, playing with Jazz Co/op, a progressive quartet that included pianist Roger Frampton and percussionist Phil Treloar. There was an obvious ripple effect from this synergy of students practising music by day and being exposed to live music at night.

Of course, there were those who believed the development of jazz studies courses would lead to an ossification of the spirit of jazz. That no matter how many sophisticated licks you drummed into a student, the next Charlie Parker would be made on the bandstand, not in the classroom. But, as Robson is at pains to point out, the situation was more complex. It wasn’t necessarily a case of either/or. Lloyd Swanton, while still a student, spent evenings playing in Bernie McGann’s trio. A decade later, while still students, Cameron Undy and Tim Hopkins were honing their skills in Mike Nock’s band.

Formal studies helped foster important networks, creating a “physical space where like-minded students could meet, practice, and perform.” In effect, there was a twoway flow, with genuine benefits, operating between classroom and the bandstand.

Outside the academy, there was plenty happening too, not least of which was the formation of the Keys Music Association (KMA), an artist-run initiative modelled along the lines of Chicago’s AACM. While the KMA began organising, presenting and promoting music in 1979, its genesis predates this, stretching back to the early seventies, fostered by a loose network of friendships that included Mark Simmonds, Steve Elphick, Martin Keys and others. Robson considers the KMA as “perhaps the most important and least acknowledged music organisation in Australian jazz history.”

The sole album issued by the KMA March of Five Limbs (1983) more than whets the appetite, with tracks by Mark Simmonds’s Freeboppers, the Benders, Sandy Evans, Dale Barlow, Tony Buck and others. While the KMA’s aesthetic – coming as it did out of the “free jazz approaches of Shepp, Coltrane, Sanders et al.” – differed markedly from the Conservatorium, which continued to adhere to bebop licks, there was some crossfertilisation, with artists like Sandy Evans and Simmonds having a foot in both camps.

Musicians, needless to say, are generally more adept at playing music than managing organisational practicalities, and the KMA eventually gave way to the more professionally run Sydney Improvised Music Association (SIMA), formed in 1984, two years on from the Melbourne Jazz Co-operative, and still operating today. SIMA’s long-running series of concerts held at the Strawberry Hills Hotel, from 1989 to 1997, were integral to the burgeoning Austral jazz scene Robson describes. In particular, he singles out eight key Austral ensembles that recorded during the period, including The Necks, The catholics, Clarion Fracture Zone and Wanderlust. The sheer fecundity and creative hotbed of this scene is evidenced by the number of musicians who played in two or more of these ensembles.

Robson highlights the problematic nature of our recorded legacy when it comes to assessing the period he writes about. Albums such as Jazz Australia, KMA’s March of the Five Limbs, or Bernie McGann’s At Long Last have never been issued on CD. Try getting your hands on the Benders’ albums. Bands like Women and Children First and the Freeboppers were criminally under-recorded at the time. While it’s the nature of live performance to be in-the-moment, and thus ephemeral, the recorded legacy assumes importance as a legitimate source of insight – often the sole surviving one – into the recent past. As Robson makes explicit, the exciting state of jazz in Australia today was built on solid musical foundations, despite our being hazy on some of the detail.

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Robson broaches the thorny issue of gender equality. While the founding of the Sydney Conservatorium jazz course, with its meritbased selection, provided a level playing field on paper, the reality is women continued to be “vastly outnumbered by their male counterparts”.

Despite this, a number of significant female musicians did emerge, including Cathy Harley, the late Jann Rutherford, Nicki and Lisa Parrott.

Saxophonist Sandy Evans confesses to being originally annoyed by questions focused on gender, wanting instead to be taken on her own terms, but she would later emerge as a driving force and role model, engineering SIMA’s jazz improvisation course for young women in 2001.

The Jann Rutherford Award, established in 2005, was a further driver, evidenced by the all-female and trans ensemble Sirens Big Band, founded in Sydney in 2009 by bassist Jessica Dunn and transgender saxophonist Harri Harding, both previous recipients of the Award.

Robson concludes his book with a brief reflection on developments in Australian jazz over the past two decades, believing that “from around 2000, the Austral shift was entering a new developmental stage”. As early as 1990, Paul Grabowsky, as captured in the film Beyond El Rocco, reflected on how the changing nature of Australia, its increased cultural diversity, might “be expressed in new Australian music.” Recent decades have borne out Grabowsky’s prescient

comments, whether we look to the Australian Art Orchestra’s collaborative engagements with South Indian classical music or First Nations music, or to the music of artists and ensembles such as Simon Barker, Sandy Evans, Adrian Sherriff, Way Out West and others. Despite increased globalism, we’ve become more engaged with telling our own stories, displayed in works such as Lloyd Swanton’s Ambon or in the rich musical storytelling of composers like Andrea Keller, Adam Simmons and Phil Slater. These recent changes, if anything, reenforce Robson’s thesis, further highlighting the importance of “experience of location” as a means of comprehending developments in jazz in this country over the past half-century.

Robson’s book has been published by a UK academic publisher, and comes with a stiff price tag, beyond the reach of most readers. Those interested would do well to investigate access to the e-book version held in a number of local libraries. It would be a shame if its academic outlier status kept it off-radar. With Austral Jazz, Andrew Robson has made an original contribution to our jazz history, helping to tease out the means by which Australian improvising musicians broke free from a dependence on overseas models to forge a uniquely localised sound. One has only to scratch the surface of improvised music in Australia today to hear the ongoing reverberations.

Des Cowley

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The Black Artists Group of St Louis: Creation Equals Movement 2020 Whenever I’m asked to name a favourite album, my response tends to vary. But there is one album I trot out on a regular basis: Julius Hemphill’s Dogon A.D., originally pressed in just 500 copies on Hemphill’s short-lived Mbari Records in 1972, and later re-issued by the Arista Freedom label. Fifty years on, it remains a searing listening experience, stark and raw.

Hemphill was born in Fort Worth, Texas – a town that produced an overabundance of saxophonists, including Ornette Coleman, Dewey Redman and John Carter – but his formative years were spent in St. Louis, where he co-founded the Black Artists Group (BAG) in 1968. While BAG was originally inspired by Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), Bryan Dematteis’s 48-minute documentary film makes clear that the St. Louis experience of an artist-run collective was very much the product of local conditions, politics and issues.

BAG formed during a time of immense creative energy in the African American arts, a swirling melange of James Brown’s “Say it Loud”, free jazz, the Black Panthers, Angela Davis, and the declamatory verses of Amiri Baraka. Too often marginalised, Black artists increasingly took it upon themselves to create their own opportunities. In combating discrimination in the arts, BAG stood out for embracing the full gamut of creative endeavour: music, theatre, dance, poetry, visual arts.

Dematteis’s film opens with black and white footage showing Julius Hemphill on stage in an experimental theatre production. It dramatically sets the scene for the filmmaker’s exploration of BAG’s brief history, as told largely through the voices of those involved: musicians Oliver Lake, Hamiet Bluiett, George Sams, Charles Bobo Shaw; along with writers, dancers, painters, and activists: Shirley Bradley LeFlore, Patricia Cruz, Portia Hunt, Percy Green II and others.

Early on, BAG received several major funding grants, enabling it to rapidly expand. By 1969 the Group had established headquarters in an old, abandoned warehouse on Washington Boulevard, paying just $1 annual rent. The building became a hotbed of artistic pursuits, its interior carved up

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into spaces for theatre and music performance, painting studios, along with classrooms for teaching creative writing, dance, music, theatre, film and art.

It is estimated that some 2,000 young students benefited from BAG’s educational programs.

BAG’s political credentials were to the fore when it provided support for the 1969 public housing rent strikes in St. Louis, activities that brought the Group within the orbit of the FBI. But gradual rifts began to open that would lead to BAG’s eventual demise. As funds began to dry up, so too did frustrations rise at the lack of opportunity to reach wider audiences. A series of concerts was staged to raise funds, allowing a group of musicians to head to Paris. In direct contrast to home turf, Lake, Joseph Bowie, Bakida Carroll, Charles Bobo Shaw and Floyd LeFlore found themselves feted, their first performance televised by French TV. They would subsequently appear at the prestigious Antibes and Moers jazz festivals, and record their one and only album: Black Artists Group in Paris, Aries 1973.

It was a random reference to this album, cited as one of the top ten experimental albums ever recorded, that first tweaked filmmaker Dematteis’s interest in BAG. His documentary film, a labour

of love carried out on a shoestring budget over seven years, honours the group’s radical and pioneering spirit, along with its multidisciplinary approach. Fittingly, Dematteis dedicates the film to BAG members, featured in the film, who have recently passed: Charles Bobo Shaw, Hamiet Bluiett, Shirley Bradley LeFlore, and Malinké Elliott.

While St. Louis’ Black Artist Group lasted just four brief years, 1968-1972, its aftermath continues to resonate. From Paris, several musicians relocated to New York, where they became mainstays of the burgeoning loft scene. Hemphill, Lake and Bluiett, along with David Murray, went on to form the World Saxophone Quartet. Increasingly, Julius Hemphill is acknowledged as a towering figure in jazz history, evidenced by the recent release of a seven-CD set of unreleased recordings, The Boyé Multi-National Crusade for Harmony. If Dematteis’s film does nothing else – and it most certainly does – than turn a few more listeners on to Hemphill’s Dogon A.D., it will have served its purpose.

Des Cowley

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SA M B O O N P H OTO BY M O L LY H A R RI S

artist SAM BO O N

Sam Boon is often performing with the likes of Guy Sebastian, Ella Thompson and Vance Joy, though here he shares about AIME, his new platform for his creative musicians. Sam’s “Cardiology” is the bonus track available with this copy of Dingo, performed live by AIME at Dingo’s Gala Launch for International Jazz Day. What’s your musical background?

I first learnt classical piano from my grandmother, from a young age. Learning the sax was the gateway to my love of blues, jazz, composition and improvisation. After studying at the Victorian College of the Arts, I toured extensively internationally and nationally. I currently work mainly out of my new home studio in Ballarat as an arranger, composer and session player.

What is jazz?

It’s the raw and open “magic” in the musical landscape. Expression, freedom, diverse experiences all shared in that improvised moment.

For me, jazz is the constant challenge to be a better musician, to be more open-minded and forever learning how to blast my true self out of my horn.

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What excites you about composing?

Much like playing jazz, composing is when I feel the most like myself. In my career as a side person and arranger, I craft my musical ideas into the mould of the composer or songwriter I am working with. Composing for AIME is an incredible journey. I get to spend time collaborating with my favourite musicians and people, all from different backgrounds, who take the music to a place that I could only ever dream of!

Tell us a little bit about how “Cardiology” came about.

Aha! Well funnily enough, this piece was written during a long and arduous stint waiting for my mum in the cardiology ward at the Austin Hospital. With multiple deadlines looming and the added stress of her worsening condition, this piece became the chaos, anxiety and uncertainty that I was feeling at that time. I still remember the constant beeps and alerts; different rhythms, sounds and timbres. It all became inspiration. The melancholic melody (played beautifully by Cheryl Durongpisitkul and Nat Grant, with an amazing trumpet solo

by Audrey Powne and double bass solo by Miranda Hill) really brought the piece to life.

What is the vision behind AIME? Collaboration, composition, improvisation and experimentation, all whilst bridging genre divides. We are bringing together unique artists from Melbourne’s diverse and often disparate music scenes.

Drawing on the ensemble’s collected experiences we aim to develop original and innovative performances, and create opportunities for contemporary composition and cross art form collaboration.

What is planned next for AIME? Arun Roberts of Dirt Hand (who was featured with AIME at the Dingo Jazz launch party) and I intend to develop a new collaborative work with multidisciplinary artist Anastasia La Fey. I look forward to putting this unique premiere together with a small performance season for 2022 or when COVID-19 will allow us! Watch this space!

FREE D OW N LOA D www.dingojazz.com/aime - cardiolog y Passcode: CARDI2021

AIME (Artists In Music Ensemble) premiered at Dingo’s Gala Launch in April this year, with jazz reviewer for The Age, Jessica Nicholas, highlighting their “wildly inventive arrangements encompassed dreamlike textures, loping waltzes and pulsating grooves.”

The video recording of AIME’s full performance will be presented by Dingo as part of the 2021 World Jazz Conference 22-23 October. www.amersfoort.nl/dingo

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B A RM ST RO N G , A D E M O N S B O U RG H , P RO B E RTS , R B E L L , R M U R P HY, S M AC K A , B U D BA K E R

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A B R I E F H I STO RY OF THE AUSTRALIAN JAZZ CONVENTION KE N SI MPSO N- BULL This year, Australia’s oldest and longest continuously running jazz event turns 75! The Australian Jazz Convention (AJC) is more than just a showcase of Australian jazz, it is the community, a gathering of musicians with a prime interest in the origins and history of jazz music.

The AJC had its gestation during the final days of World War II when iconic multi-instrumentalist Ade Monsbourgh, while serving in the air force, penned a letter (dated Sydney, 10th of October 1944) to jazz identity C. Ian Turner which read in part: “I have plans after the war for a terrific jazz convention (the first in history).” Ade’s dream came to fruition in December, 1946.

Earlier in 1946, Graeme Bell’s Jazz Band, which included Ade, was playing at the Eureka Youth League Hall in North Melbourne under the name of the Uptown Club where Harry Stein was President of the Eureka Hot Jazz Society. Between members of the society and others, the first Australian Jazz Convention was arranged.

The program of this first AJC, held in Melbourne over a five-day period, had interstate visitors, live jazz sessions, record-listening sessions, lectures, jam sessions and recording engagements. Added were discussion groups and a riverboat trip requiring two boats. The final concert at this convention was jampacked with an attendance of 200 plus. The session included Ron Webber’s Band, Father Ade Monsbourgh & His Backroom Boys, The Geelong Jazz Group, Tony Newstead’s Band, The Jazz Appreciation Society Band, Frankie Johnson’s Band, a duet by Rex Green (piano) and Ade Monsbourgh (trumpet), Graeme Bell’s Dixieland Band and the Southern Jazz Group. What a line-up!

Ade Monsbourgh himself – who went on to play with a multitude of major jazz bands including his own – is probably best remembered for his many years with brothers Graeme and Roger Bell. He was equally competent on trombone, trumpet and reeds, truly becoming a jazz icon.

So popular was that first AJC that it has continued annually, unbroken, to the present time – some 75 years – the world’s longest running! It has been held in every state and capital city plus major provincial centres.

Its valuable historical archives of recordings, photographs, sheet music and memorabilia, curated for many years by the late Don Anderson OAM and his wife Margaret, are safely located within the building of the Australian Jazz Museum in the leafy Melbourne suburb of Wantirna.

The 75th convention will run 26-31 December, 2021 in Albury NSW. www.australianjazzconvention.org.au

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CAPTURING T H E I N E F FA B L E D R . TI M N I KO LSKY The Necks are one of the great cult bands of Australia.

Together the trio conjure a chemistr y that defies regular pigeon holing. Leng thy pieces which slowly unravel and are frequently underpinned by an insistent deep groove. There is a deceptive simplicity of their music: not entirely avant-garde, nor minimalist, nor ambient, nor jazz; existing between free jazz and ambient sound ar t. If a genre had to be applied, perhaps it would be “jazz-minimalism -trance -jam trio.” The music of The Necks’ debut album, Sex, is possibly unique in the world today.

All three players – Chris Abrahams (piano), Lloyd Swanton (bass) and Tony Buck (drums) – demonstrate a quite astonishing degree of virtuosity, physical endurance and poise in their ability to create, sustain and incrementally transform repetitive patterns and textures that a listener would normally associate with loops, samples, machinery or robotics – playing that, for many others, would

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T H E N ECKS C O NJ URE SOUN D FRO M AN OT HER C O N SC I OUS N ES S, AN D T H E N CAPTU RE T HE AI R .

surely result in repetitive strain injuries. Add to these attributes a vibrant and responsive collective imagination and a philosophical commitment to making each improvisation a journey of discovery and the result is description resistant musical alchemy – music that has become much more than the sum of the three performers’ respective influences, abilities and imaginations: inspirational spontaneous composing to hypnotic grooves.

Although, some clearly don’t get it either: “What they improvise is simple licks that they vamp over and over, licks that ever so slowly and slightly alter, move, transmogrify. There is no melody line over the trio’s vamping, no main line of development.

The net effect is of very long introductions to events that never happen” - John Litweiler, 2009.

It’s clear that listening with “jazz ears” and applying specific neo-conservative values and restrictive expectations to this music is not going to work. A removal of expectations and a broader, more open musical aesthetic

is required for this interaction, particularly in experiencing The Necks in a live context.

The Necks conjure polarising, visceral, emotional, physical and sometimes spiritual reactions. I feel a Necks experience is best when you succumb and be taken along for the ride. For those who wish to be in control of their listening experience, or have predetermined expectations met, this can present a challenge. It’s like the degustation menu: do you go to the fancy restaurant and dictate to the kitchen how and what you want to eat? Or do you place your trust in the expertise and wisdom of the chef and say, “Feed me”?

The Necks are unbound by time. The music involves little happening – and happening slowly. Space is critical to The Necks, but more important is time. Time is expanded by repetition but shrunk with change. Through the meditative, hypnotic space they create, they elasticise time. Hour-long sets can seem short, or indeterminately long if you are unwilling to free your mind or allow your consciousness to be taken by their musical journey.

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Opening motif of Sex.

As an audience member of a live concert, if you allow yourself, you can enter a hypnotic, trancelike state. People use recordings to access the alpha state of consciousness, a dream-like state akin to when you relax before you fall asleep.

Arts journalist Jessica Nicholas seems to suggest that The Necks can encourage a synaesthesialike experience, if the listener allows: “a hypnotic soundtrack that allows the listener to add improvisation and his or her visual accompaniment” The Necks largely ignore the lure of modern production, recording and editing. In that way, listening to a Necks recording is more akin to the art of classical recording, minus the editing.

Some people like to compare and reference Brian Eno’s Music for Airports; however, where there is similarity in ambient textures and gradually unfolding themes, Eno plays the studio as an instrument.

The Necks conjure sound from another consciousness, and then capture the air.

Venue choice is also a factor; largely shunning the dedicated performance venues where serious art music takes place. In Melbourne’s instance, The Necks instead usually choose to perform at Richmond’s Corner Hotel, more commonly associated with music at the other end of the experience spectrum. The conscious removal of familial listening context provides the opportunity for a different musical exchange to take place, perhaps contributing to a reconsidering of listener expectations.

Perhaps The Necks are not really a music ensemble at all. Perhaps they are more akin to a painter mixing colours to achieve the right hue at the appropriate moment; or even the sculptor working their materials to produce a particular texture. Personally, the musical textures of The Necks go beyond melody, harmony and rhythm.

IT ’S M O RE ABOUT C OLOU R , T EXTU RE , FL AVOUR , I NTE NTI ON.

Examples of piano textures improvised over continuing bass ostinato.

With the mindful trust and absence of musically familial expectations that worldwide audiences have placed in The Necks for the past 30 years, this band has established and maintained an aesthetic consistency from which it has essentially not deviated. It is essential to note that The Necks are adamant in interviews that decisions about what and how they play – from the first sound to the last – are made intuitively in the course of performance: “We wanted to find a music where we were totally in the moment,” Swanton says.

There is a sense of totally freeing the mind and being totally accepting of what develops.

No discussion of music takes place beforehand, and nothing is prepared in advance.

Sound is coaxed out of meditative silence on stage, and in the audience.

The Necks formation in the late 80s was, to say the least, unusual. The intention was not to perform in public. Swanton has said: “The entire focus was on the process of making music, with no concern for the actual product” There exists a purity of approach; the sound is not trying to reference any musicological lineage, convention or history; it is not aiming to please an audience with the familiar or the nostalgic. There is no “greatest hits catalogue”. There is no encore. The familiar tropes of both modern and early music presented in listening environments have been upended. In some respects the sound presented is an absence of ego; seemingly coming from another place where the conscious mind of the trio is diminished and the subconscious is prioritised.

Expert transcription performed

by Jex Saarelaht.

So, how did Sex end up in the Australian Jazz Real Book (AJRB)? In conversation with Jex Saarelaht: TN: How would you even notate The Necks? Their pieces are really long.

into a three-page lead sheet with no intention of it being performed.

There were various moral issues in notating this improvisatory music that presented:

TN: Who would want to even play this chart? It goes against what they are trying to create; every performance is different, unique, unreplicatable.

How do you notate the more textured elements of improvised music? Does this transcription accurately represent what is happening musically? What insights can be gained into the composers’/improvisers’ thought creation processes? Should this transcription have been done? What is the benefit of this transcription’s existence?

JS: Some people might be interested in analysing the composition for thematic development, etc.

Thankfully, The Necks discussed and approved the inclusion of the transcription in the AJRB.

TN: I don’t even believe it can be done.

The benefit is that the observer gains visual, notated, composition analysis of thematic development. There are also insights into structural improvisation, for example the inversion of the form. For our own benefit, there is insight into the creative process if you look and listen deeply enough.

JS: You could reduce it, summarise the themes, etc.

JS: Hold My Beer.* Here’s a chart for The Necks’ first release, Sex. The inclusion of The Necks’ Sex in the AJRB is a curious anomaly. A 52-minute unrepeatable improvisation condensed

Material from midsection of Sex with outline of the form's mirrored structure.

There is inspiration to be taken from this example: creative and improvised music in Australia does not need to conform to a pre-existing set of expectations or defined set of parameters. We can be free to create our own solutions, if we are open to the possibilities. *Author’s note: Jex didn’t actually say “Hold My Beer”, although he may as well have done. Jex, thanks for taking the conversation as a challenge, and doing this wonderful transcription for all our benefit! You thoroughly proved me wrong, and I’m so glad you did.

Dr. Tim Nikolsky is the editor of the Australian Jazz Real Book, and is a musician based in Melbourne. He can be contacted via www.australianjazzrealbook.com The album discussed can be found at thenecksau.bandcamp.com

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THE I M P O R TA N C E O F TO N E I N A BIG BAND SETTING TOSH I CLI NCH Co-Founder & Managing Director of Jazz Melbourne

Directing a big band can be an intimidating task for many and is potentially hard to navigate due to the ability of the ensemble or personal musical background. However, many musical characteristics cross genre and style, and can give us an advantage when rehearsing a large jazz ensemble.

Out of all the characteristics, tone plays a pivotal role in shaping a band, where it can set the foundation for all other components. But what is tone? What is a favourable tone? And are there multiple “good ” tones?

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Simply put, tone is the culmination of technique and timbre, resulting in a sound which is favourable to the ear. Depending on your particular taste in music, different tones may appeal to you more so than others. Fortunately, we have close to a century of recorded big band music to help us with establishing what a “good” tone is for this setting. By focusing on this one area, we can create a solid base for the ensemble to sound good regardless of their technical ability, providing the perfect stepping stone to more common rehearsal points such as intonation, rhythm and balance.

When a person begins playing an instrument, one of the first areas focused on is their tone. This is because as educators we try to establish the importance of creating a good sound on the instrument before revealing more complex aspects of music to our students. However, many times in a band setting we find ourselves focusing on note accuracy, rhythm, and intonation as they are easier to critique.

Of course these are all valid areas of concern, but by disregarding tone we can be potentially creating further issues in the future. In my experience as a school big band clinician, I often find senior bands that are technically efficient but still sound like an amateur ensemble. In almost all cases this is because the musicians are unable to distinguish whether they are playing with a favourable tone. It is important that we treat an ensemble similarly to that of a new student, going slowly to establish a good initial tone even if that means delaying progress in other areas.

No matter what repertoire the band is learning, by focusing on tone production you are guaranteeing that the ensemble as a whole will generate a favourable sound.

Now that we have established the importance of tone in an ensemble setting, how can we improve it practically? There are many ways to go about improving the tone of both an individual and a band, but at the core it is critical that the director

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has an understanding of what a good tone sounds like. This can come from many different areas, but by listening to established musicians perform you will have at least one reference point to reflect back on. From here we can use this foundation to assist our own students. In an ensemble setting the simplest exercise is to have the band play a tuning note. Aside from focusing on intonation, by holding one note it is easy to assess the tone of the whole ensemble as well as individually.

If they play a note which has good tone you can move on, but in the case where there are issues, you can expand the exercise. Question the band about whether they are playing with good tone, and use their responses to gauge whether they are critically listening to the notes they play. It is essential that each member is actively engaged in their tone production to guarantee the best ensemble results.

From there, identify the members with problematic tones and help them solve what might be causing the issue. In almost all cases this will come down to either a technical problem, a gear problem, or not having a tonal reference point. If you do not feel comfortable with a particular instrument, have a colleague help who does.

Ideally this exercise would be repeated at the beginning of each rehearsal until it is clear that all members can hear their own tone and adjust where necessary.

As a result of focusing on tone first, you will allow the students to not only perform better, but also understand one of the most critical areas of music. It paves the way to work on more complex areas, with the previous exercise able to be manipulated to work on intonation, balance and blend. Not only will you see improvement in your own ensemble, you will be providing each musician with a set of skills that can help them create their own voice on their given instrument; ultimately setting up any ensemble with a solid foundation while also mapping out a trajectory where individuals listen deeper, analyse themselves and think critically.

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Ca me ron Fe rmoyle (19) Perth / Whadjuk land Western Australia Academy of Performing Arts, 2nd Year

I began learning about jazz music in year 10, joining the school band. After much of my own homework, I started sitting in on jam sessions, and was asked to play in WAAPA’s Jazz Young Artist program. In my final year of school, I attended the week-long Brubeck Summer Jazz Colony in San Francisco, studying under Carl Allen and more. Since studying at WAAPA and being a part of WAYJO, I have had many opportunities to learn from world renowned players and delve into the traditions of this music to play my part in its forward momentum.

Teachers: Daniel Susnjar, Chris Tarr, Alex Reid Inspiration: Max Roach, Elvin Jones, Jimmy Cobb, Tony Williams, Paul Motian, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Nasheet Waits … so many.

What I like about jazz? The push and pull. The interplay. The boiling of the pot.

The highs, the lows. The intensity.

What will I be doing in 10 years? Well, I hope that this pandemic will be over and that I get to tour, record albums and play all the time. I hope Herbie Hancock will still be around. It’s a dream of mine to study at his Institute in California and learn from his stories and theories.

Favourite pizza: Pepperoni Favourite jazz club/festival: It’s got to be the Ellington Jazz Club.

I also like: I love going on walks through nature, swims at the beach and enjoy painting when I can.

Best practice tip: Imitate. Assimilate. Innovate.

Em m a C h ristie (19) Clayton / Wurundjeri Land Monash University, 1st Year

Emma Christie is a 19-year-old Melbourne based contemporary vocalist. She developed a keen interest in jazz music while growing up in regional Victoria, drawing inspiration from artists such as Kristin Berardi, Rachael Price and Katie Noonan.

Emma is currently studying Popular Voice at Monash University, where she is merging her love for jazz and popular vocal styles to create her own unique sound.

Cameron Fermoyle / Drums

Teachers: Gerald Marko, Nitida Atkinson Inspiration: Recently I’ve been inspired by nu-funk jazz bands like Lake Street Dive, Reliably Bad and Sammy Rae & The Friends. However, as most jazz singers would agree, the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday will forever inspire me.

What I like about jazz? I like how free I feel when I am singing jazz. I love that being cheeky and crossing musical boundaries is celebrated. I also love that individuality is viewed as an asset.

What will I be doing in 10 years? I will still be playing music, that’s for sure.

Favourite pizza: Can’t go past a trusty Margherita.

Favourite jazz club/festival: Wangaratta Festival of Jazz & Blues I also like: Exercising, reading, and being a devoted plant mum.

Best practice tip: Firstly, record yourself practising because often what you hear when you sing is different to what other people hear. Secondly, when you listen back, imagine it’s a friend singing and you’ll be far less critical with your feedback, I’m sure!

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artists

YO U N G

H olly Forste r (18) North Lake / Whadjuk land Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, 1st year

Growing up, I was raised in a very jazz-centric household with my dad being a jazz saxophonist and music teacher, and my older brother a jazz guitarist. When I was 12, I decided to follow in my dad’s footsteps and start learning the saxophone. Later in 2018, I joined the WA Youth Jazz Orchestra which increased my love of big band music. A year later I joined the all-female Artemis Orchestra which recently launched their debut album, The Elephant in the Room.

This year, I started studying a Bachelor of Music at WAAPA and I’m loving every second of it.

Holly Forster / Alto Saxophone / Flute

Teachers: Erin Royer, Harry Mitchell, Gemma Farrell Inspiration: Karolina Strassmayer, Alexa Tarantino, Camille Thurman What I like about jazz? I like that playing jazz presents a lifelong challenge. I will never be done practising; I will always have new goals to work towards.

What will I be doing in 10 years? I’ll hopefully be overseas playing gigs and recording albums of original music with my own group. That’s the dream!

Favourite pizza: I’m an absolute pizza fiend! I like a good meatlovers!

Favourite jazz club/festival: Perth International Jazz Festival I also like: Soccer and visual art.

Emma Christie / Vocals

Best practice tip: If you use your phone as a metronome or tuner, chuck it on aeroplane mode – no distractions!

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Freddie Q uin n (16) Newcastle / Awabakal land Hunter School of the Performing Arts, Year 11

I started piano lessons at age six and by age 11 I was listening to Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald and starting to improvise. Around this time, I saw American pianist Christian Sands in concert. Meeting him afterwards, he was really encouraging, giving the advice to “study ragtime”, and I knew then that jazz was my passion. At 13, I started composing jazz and had the opportunity to visit the London Jazz Festival where I met Snarky Puppy’s Bill Lawrence, whose advice was “study scales and arpeggios!”

Since then, I have been mentored by and played gigs with an incredible group of Newcastle’s jazz musicians. I also play saxophone, guitar and drums.

Teachers: I am currently studying with Aaron Blakey in Sydney but have also studied with Terence Koo, Shane Landry and Jacob Neale in Newcastle.

Inspiration: My biggest jazz inspirations are Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Bud Powell and Art Tatum (working on ragtime!). I also still study classical piano and am inspired by Bach and Chopin.

What I like about jazz? I love the freedom of jazz and how, no matter how much you feel you have accomplished, there is always more to learn. I also love how jazz musicians interact during a performance and how when you step on stage you know that you are creating something unique that will never be repeated.

Freddie Quinn / Piano

What will I be doing in 10 years? I hope to be overseas composing music for soundtracks, producing my own music and playing a jazz gig every night of the week.

Favourite pizza: The “Procida” from Newcastle’s Napoli Centrale (where I also play jazz from time to time): pork and fennel sausage, truffle pecorino, roasted capsicum, porcini mushroom, mozzarella.

Favourite jazz club/festival: My favourite club would be Newcastle’s local jazz night hosted

by Newcastle Improvised Music Association (NIMA) at The Grand Hotel. I loved going to the London Jazz Festival and one day hope to make it to Montréal and Newport.

I also like: I love surfing, basketball and playing a wide range of music. I am currently in jazz, funk and indie rock bands and have released some original songs.

Best practice tip: Set out a structure for what you want to accomplish each session and tick each goal off the list as you go. Practicing scales and timing has also been essential to my growth (Bill Lawrence was right). For example, when improvising over a tune I will play quavers, semi-quavers or triplets at different tempos to improve my timing.

Alisha Karunagaran / Guitar

Teachers: Andrea Keller, Stephen Magnusson, Julien Wilson Inspiration: I’m inspired by people who do what is true to them and no one else. People who find success in personal growth and choose not to follow others. And people who uplift and celebrate other people’s journeys, growth and successes.

Alish a Ka runaga ra n (20) Sydney / Melbourne / Cadigal Land University of Melbourne (Jazz and Improvisation), 2nd Year

I am a 20-year-old singer/songwriter, born and raised in Sydney. Music has been my whole life since the age of nine, when I first picked up a guitar that was bigger than me. Writing and creating music gives me the magical ability to create something so beautiful and impactful, yet completely intangible. Art for every individual is so unique. I got into studying jazz music because I thought if I could understand jazz theory, I could understand anything. At the moment I am working on my second solo album during lockdown, collaborating with many musicians whom I’ve met throughout my music education.

What I like about jazz? I love the feeling jazz music emits. Whether it’s fast tempo bebop lines or a slow sax ballad, there’s always a myriad of stories occurring within one piece of music, within one band, within one individual or even within one individual’s foot on the hihat. Then there’s also the incredible stories that occur between the individuals, or between components of one individual; all of this complexity emits an indescribable and inimitable feeling.

What will I be doing in 10 years? I have dreams to become a music therapist, where I can deeply and meaningfully help people with my music. So still playing music, I hope!

Favourite pizza: Peking Duck Pizza completely unheard of but phenomenal.

Favourite jazz club/festival: Melbourne Women’s International Jazz Festival I also like: Running and painting.

Best practice tip: Consistent and repeated routine. Trust the process and results will appear in due course. Learn the fundamentals and always, always, always make it your own.

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gear reviews

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D PA CORE4099 For live performance in venues larger than a lounge room, there are usually speakers to help reinforce the sound – and where there are speakers, you’ll also find microphones.

Clip-on instrument microphones offer a little more freedom than a microphone on a stand, but can they produce a sound that is as good?

If you’re playing with the Danish-made DPA CORE4099, then the answer is “better”.

While the entire CORE4099 series looks almost identical, there are subtle differences between the models made specifically for saxophone, trumpet, piano, guitar, piano, violin, cello and more. Essentially, it’s just the cleverly-designed instrument mounts that differ between each model – apart from the trumpet mic (which can cope with the more extreme dynamic nature of brass instruments).

Our test microphone is the CORE4099S, which will suit all saxophones. It’s super easy to clip on to the bell and you really won’t notice it while playing, with the mic and 140mm gooseneck weighing just 17 grams. The 1.8m cable is also lightweight and the supplied XLR adapter will enable connection to any mixing console. Note: being a condenser microphone, it will require phantom power from the desk.

The sound? That’s what sets the whole CORE4099 series above any other choice of clip-on microphone.

The soft boost in the upper frequencies is pleasant, and the best word to describe the sound is “natural”.

The sax sounded exactly like it was supposed to.

Clipped onto the outer side bell of the alto, around 10cm distance and pointing midway between the inside of the bell and the G# key was the best sound.

All the lower notes sound powerful without overloading the microphone, while the upper register is clear, and – dare we say it – sweet, not harsh.

For almost any acoustic instrument, there is a CORE4099 model that will faithfully capture the sound – rather than a rough approximation. As an added bonus, there are extra adaptors available to allow connection to almost any wireless bodypack system in the world.

In the wise words of DPA Microphones: “From pianissimo to forte, you will experience increased clarity and openness.”

Artie Jones www.factorysound.com

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Eastman AR372C E Archtop G uitar For far too long, archtop guitars have been either overpriced (putting them out of reach of many guitar players) or wanting in quality – sometimes both, due to quality control issues. As well as that, mere availability in Australia can be an issue, forcing potential buyers down the online route and we’ve all heard horror stories about how that can turn out.

Enter the Eastman AR372CE. From its classic machine heads to the mahogany bridge, this archtop guitar is a class act.

The first time I picked up an AR372CE I thought the price tag was a misprint.

For the life of me, I could not figure out how a guitar handmade in Beijing could be so affordable. On top of the price, the build quality is astounding.

Straight out of the box it played like a dream. The Kent Armstrong pickups have just the right output and tonal range to cover all the bases – from the warm buttery jazz tone of Kenny Burrell and Grant Green to the subtle bite of T-Bone Walker, the raunch of Chuck Berry and the low end twang of Duane Eddy. While it’s easy to assume that this guitar is a “jazz box”, it can cover more tonal territory than just about any other guitar. The traditional “Even C” neck profile is simply a joy to play, with no “flat” or “dead” spots.

Matt Dwyer Blues, jazz and rockabilly, guitarist, singer, songwriter Eastman Guitars endorsee

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Kühnl & Hoyer Revision Bb Trumpet When I first played the Kühnl & Hoyer “Revision” model trumpet I was instantly impressed with the horn. I found it very responsive with a nice crisp sound which I believe would be very versatile across many genres. One of my VCE students is playing a Revision and he sounds fantastic on it. He’s playing a combination of jazz and classical repertoire and the instrument suits both styles very well.

My personal experience checking out the Revision model led me to believe that it would work well for horn section and big band work as well as having a nice slippery sound for improvising. The intonation is very even and the scale is consistent across the range.

It suits a number of different mouthpieces, making it easy to adapt to different genres. The build quality is very high which is typical of the Kühnl & Hoyer brand, helping with the longevity of the instrument.

The valves feel silky smooth and move quickly without effort.

I would see the trumpet as a great alternative to a Bach 43 Lightweight, especially considering the price point which would see you making a considerable saving. It is also comparable to the Yamaha custom trumpets such as the 8310z with a flexible warm sound that can really sizzle when you put a bit more air through it, although, I believe the sound of the Revision has more character than a Yamaha. The Revision also slots very securely, giving the player a lot of confidence in their own playing. Overall, this handmade German instrument was a pleasure to play.

Alex Howroyd

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Real Book M ulti-Track Series Book and Online Audio I’ve been teaching jazz improvisation for many years and have used various backing tracks and The Real Book Multi-Tracks have some excellent and useful features.

Slowing the tempo slightly degrades the audio performance but it’s totally acceptable.

The advantage of being able to control the overall tempo outweighs the degradation.

The looping facility is also a great way to create repetition for students to learn a specific part of the tune and/or work on a harmonic situation like a turnaround.

The band used for the recordings is fantastic and you can be sure you’re playing with very fine musicians. It’s alive and exciting. If you want to play with a trio then turn off the piano and play with the drums and bass. If you don’t want to be restricted by the harmony, then just play with the drums. It’s very flexible. The click track is not necessary and tends to play out of time with the musicians. I suspect the original band wasn’t playing to the click track so I don’t find that option useful. It doesn’t detract from the overall functionality of the software though.

I trialled this software several months ago and gave some feedback: I can report that not only did they put effort into fixing bugs, but they also created an excellent and valuable tool.

Rob Glaesemann Head of Woodwind | Director of Jazz Studies | Melbourne Grammar School

GET REAL WHEN YOU PRACTICE!

PRINT.HALLEONARD.COM.AU/MULTI-TRACKS/

Supporting art music composers to create jazz, classical, sound art, improvised and experimental music • Art Music Fund • Art Music Awards • Mentoring, grants, Me workshops

apraamcos.com.au

2021 Art Music Fund recipient Ellen Kirkwood Photo: Andy Baker

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F E S T I VA L S 2021 September 25 – October 10 The York Festival York, WA yorkfestival.com.au

October 1-4 (online) Manly Jazz Festival Manly, NSW www.northernbeaches.nsw.gov.au/things-todo/whats-on/manly-jazz

October 1-10 Earshift Music Festival Australia/Switzerland (online) www.earshift.com

October 15-17 South Coast Jazz Festival Goolwa, SA

October 15-24 Melbourne International Jazz Festival Melbourne, VIC

November 5-7 (Perth) November 13 (Busselton) Perth International Jazz Festival Perth & Busselton, WA

www.melbournejazz.com

www.perthjazzfest.com

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

December 5-12 Melbourne Women’s International Jazz Festival Melbourne, VIC

www.wangarattajazz.com

www.mwijf.org

November (dates TBC - online) Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival Sydney, NSW

December 26-31 Australian Jazz Convention (75th Anniversary) Albury, NSW

www.siwjf.org.au

www.australianjazzconvention.org.au

May 6-8 Generations in Jazz Festival Mt Gambier, SA

June 10-13 Merimbula Jazz Festival Merimbula, NSW

www.generationsinjazz.com.au

www.merimbulajazz.org.au

May 27-29 Big Band Blast Port Macquarie, NSW

June 10-13 (TBC) Castlemaine Jazz Festival Castlemaine, VIC

www.bigbandblast.org

www.castlemainejazzfestival.com.au

May (dates TBC) Sydney Con Jazz Festival Sydney, NSW

July 28-31 Devonport Jazz Festival Devonport, TAS

www.sydneyconjazzfestival.com

www.devonportjazz.com.au

June (dates TBC) Cronulla Jazz and Blues Festival Cronulla, NSW

August 5-7 Inverloch Jazz Festival Inverloch, VIC

www.cronullajazzandbluesfestival.com

www.inverlochjazzfestival.com

June 10-12 Orange Winter Jazz Festival Orange, NSW

August 19-21 Newcastle Jazz Festival Newcastle, NSW

www.owjf.com.au

www.newcastlejazz.com.au

www.sajazzfestivalsinc.com

2022 January 21-23 (Launceston) January 28-30 (Hobart) MONA FOMA Hobart/Launceston, TAS www.mofo.net.au

January 28-30 Sound Out Festival Canberra, ACT www.facebook.com/ SoundOutFestivalandEvents/

February 11-13 Port Fairy Jazz Festival Port Fairy, VIC www.portfairyjazz.com.au

February 16-20 Clarence Jazz Festival Clarence, TAS www.clarenceartsandevents.net/ clarence-jazz-festival/

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

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

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live

GIGS Earshift Music Festival The fourth edition of the Earshift Music Festival will be held online 1-10 October, broadcast nightly from Earshift’s website, Facebook and YouTube channels. Artists such as I Hold the Lion’s Paw, Hillary Geddes, MEATSHELL, Cameron Undy and Scott Tinkler will contribute live streamed performances and artist chats from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Bruny Island and Lucerne.

Our Lady of Jazz – Helen Matthews Described as “WA’s First Lady of Jazz”, Helen Matthews’s music and contribution to the music scene will be celebrated in this special presentation on 6 November at The Rechabite as part of the Perth International Jazz Festival.

Helen will be joined by vocalists Ali Bodycoat and Libby Hammer, along with longtime contemporaries Ray Walker, Karl Florisson, Gary Howard and special guest Sue Bluck.

INSIGHT This new series at Brunswick’s Tempo Rubato, features masterful artists improvising new music and sharing some of their inspiration along the way. Curated by woodwind specialist Adam Simmons, the first concert will feature master vocalist Shobha Sekhar and pedal steel guitarist Graham Lee on 28 October. The “agile” series will pop-up occasionally, as lockdown restrictions ease.

SIMA – Jazz:NOW Summer In February 2022 Sydney Improvised Music Association (SIMA) will present a month-long Jazz:NOW Summer program showcasing artists such as Freedman Fellowship winner Emma Stephenson, Alister Spence Trio featuring Ed Keupper, Paul Cutlan and Chloe Kim with their respective new ensembles, Arcing Wires and more, in venues across Sydney.

WAYJO Swings & WAAPA Sings This huge event sees all three WAYJO bands team up with the WAAPA vocal program to present a joint show at the Quarry Amphitheatre, City Beach on 27 November. For those who do attend, please enjoy the show doubly for the sake of those deep in lockdown in Australia’s east!

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PEDALLING, FROM ONE T H I N G TO A N OT H E R FEL ICITY PROVAN After having spent a winter in London at the end of the Thatcher era in the early 90s, arriving in Amsterdam felt like stepping into technicolour. There were flags and people everywhere celebrating the five-yearly event, Sail Amsterdam, with fleets of heritage Tall Ships from around the world dropping anchor in the city’s harbour.

Amsterdam is a busy, multicultural, compact city. I’ve always been amazed by how much goes on in this small area of land and water. I arrived in a golden period for the arts, with a diverse live music scene thriving in cafes, clubs, theatres, museums, concert halls and on the street. During that first summer, I shared a houseboat and busked every day with Australian bassist Belinda Moody. We’d frequent concerts and jam sessions and quickly became integrated into the community and immediately I felt an open and welcoming spirit. Amsterdam is not only a hub for Dutch musicians but also attracts foreign artists from all over the world.

The way to get around is definitely by bicycle and I love pedalling from one thing to another, with everything so easily accessible. A place I visited frequently was the Bimhuis. In 1971 a group of Dutch jazz musicians whose music was more experimental and progressive formed the BIM (Beroepsvereniging an Improviserende Musici), a union that lobbied for recognition and eventually secured proper government funding for musicians. In 1974 they started the Bimhuis, a club which has become the main Dutch centre for improvised music and acquired international status. This traditional canal warehouse building has a special relaxed atmosphere, a place where musicians and public could hang out together, including a cafe and adjoining amphitheatre, rehearsal and office spaces.

It was here that I learnt a lot about improvising and different approaches to making music. I was truly lucky to both perform and hear so many inspiring concerts from local and visiting legends such as Misha Mengelberg, Han Bennink, Ab Baars Trio, Willem Breuker Ensemble, Michael Moore, Tobias Delius, Cor Fuhler, Cecil Taylor, John Butcher, Steve Lacy, Roswell Rudd, Anthony Braxton, Art Ensemble of Chicago. There were strong female musicians around too – Ig Henneman, Corrie van Binsbergen, Mary Oliver and Anne la Berge – but not so many. Thankfully that’s been steadily changing over the last decade and now the scene has a much healthier balance!

Groups and projects I performed with mainly combined composed material (melodic, rhythmic or harmonic structures) with improvisation. Many were jazz influenced and some more textural, classical or rock based.

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global PERSPECTIVE

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“The Ex Orkest” is a great example of a real Dutch approach with a colourful mix of players. This group was an extension of the punk/improv band “The Ex”, five musicians whose strong rhythmic music was also largely influenced by collaborating with Ethiopian musicians in Ethiopia. In 2000 they invited a bunch of improvisers, composed pieces and booked a European tour. You can find some music on YouTube, Ex Orkest-Een Rondje Holland.

A lot of musicians here regularly tour with set bands or one-off projects to different parts of Europe and maybe once a year to America or Canada, performing at festivals, in established venues or independent alternative places. One of the most unusual trips I made was to Mongolia. Together with an American vocalist we represented The Netherlands as part of a cultural team celebrating so many years of Dutch and Mongolian partnership.

We collaborated with traditional folk musicians which was both complicated and inspiring.

Currently, Amsterdam has a number of alternative/ independent spaces which host regular concerts: former squats, an abandoned petrol station, cafes and as a special mention, “Splendor”, a building bought by artists presenting an extensive range of performances since 2013. Current local groups and projects are often made up of musicians and artists from across the generations and there’s an eclectic mix of styles: classical, new music, improv,

electronic, jazz, world music, dance music and collaborations with dancers, film makers and poets.

My quintet, the Felicity Provan 5tet which I compose and write text for, is best described as a groove chamber ensemble with all musicians using their voices together with cello, clarinet/ tenor sax, drums, cornet/voice and a vocal artist, and is an example of this generational mix.

Sadly, government funding is not what it used to be, but the spirit to make things happen is alive and thankfully some grants are still possible. During this coronavirus time one such grant was created to support live concerts in “safe” environments: in parks, on balconies, in courtyards, glasshouses and churches. I recently completed a series in churches called Close. Each concert was performed by a different combination of three improvising musicians: a pianist on church organ, a string player and myself, cornet and voice with projected photo and video material I made during the lockdown. Close-ups of objects, shadows, etc., from within the home. The concept was to capture my personal experience of quietness, of time slowing down and reflection.

After so many years I still enjoy my life here as a musician and am settled with my family. My husband Joost is a Dutch trombone player and we have two children. Apart from performing, I teach young children part-time and definitely get them improvising!

‘I PLANNED FOR A MONTH, AND NOW IT’S BEEN … ’ GARETH TH O MSO N It’s a familiar story over beers with fellow expats: “I planned for a month, and now it’s been ... years.” Moving to Vietnam was never the plan, but it has somehow stretched into almost two years.

Why Vietnam? My partner is Vietnamese Australian. We’d travelled here a few times together, but she was keen to try a longer three-month trip to reconnect with her roots and experience living abroad. Being a graphic designer, she can work remotely.

As a drummer, producer and mixing/mastering engineer I was busy and comfortable in Melbourne with musical projects, gigs, a studio space, our house, our cat. Three months seemed a bit much, but I could join for one month perhaps.

I was in the middle of mixing a few records, so I put together a mobile rig (laptop, interface, mini keyboard and a few sets of headphones) and gave remote work a go. Straight away I had a glimpse of a different way of life and that first month went way too fast. I nervously booked another lengthier trip, but during that second leg the pandemic hit and our return flights were cancelled. We decided to stay put, our gut told us that our time here had not quite finished yet.

Friends back home ask me what life is actually like here. Vietnam is rapidly developing: it’s both very traditional and hypermodern. It’s a nation in the middle of a boom, and amongst its congested and high-paced life there is a compelling sense of freedom and potential here. The soundscape of Saigon is intense – constant noise from motorbikes, construction sites, noisy street vendors and late-night reverberant karaoke.

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There is something distinctly beautiful in the rough edges and diversity of this place: half-built construction projects, intense tropical heat, mouldy concrete, French Modernist architecture, swanky bars, restaurants and luxury apartment buildings.

It’s a cultural melting pot, a very international city.

I’ve recently put together a studio space with a friend, so five days a week I ride over to the studio, grab a cà phê đen đá (iced black Viet coffee) on the street, and work on music all day. As the sun sets and the heat subsides, I usually scoot home for a run or swim, then head out for dinner and drinks somewhere in the city with friends (night-time is when Saigon really shines).

The food here is, of course, incredible. Vietnam has a low cost of living compared to home – life is comfortable if you can earn some Western dollars.

Everyone gets around via motorbike: I have a rusty 70cc 1970’s Honda Super Cub that I fill up for a few bucks a week. Sometimes the perfect antidote for being alone in the studio all day is to simply get out on the bike to ride around the city for a few hours, maybe even head out of town for a few days (a necessary part of Saigon life). I’ve been attempting Vietnamese classes once or twice a week – I’m still a babbling beginner. At least my VCA (Victorian College of the Arts) Aural Studies classes are paying dividends with the tonal part of the language.

Workwise, I’m 95% online – mixing, mastering and producing with my friends and community back home and all over. Being here out of my comfort zone with less drumming work (and less distractions) has afforded me the time to deep dive and develop

my audio skills, something that I found harder to do back in Melbourne with so many different things on my plate. When I’m not working on a client’s record, I’m still practicing the craft: learning, reading, listening, trying to outdo myself every day.

I’ve been fortunate to meet many musicians and producers here too. I’ve jumped on gigs with some Vietnamese pop artists and jazz musicians. I’ve also had a lot of fun hosting bilingual workshops on drumming, mixing and mastering that have been enthusiastically received.

In the music scene, a younger generation is coming up strong. They fuse a very fashionable, worldly sensibility with great pride for their culture. The Vietnamese work so hard, are so grateful and are so welcoming – you can’t help but be inspired by them in all sorts of ways.

As jazz musicians we learn how to react in the moment and see where the music takes us, but it took an unplanned move and a pandemic to discover how to do this more in real life. Vietnam was at first an opportunity to support my partner and get out of my comfort zone. But it also became a chance to learn how to find a different life balance, embrace new cultural perspectives and learn how to serve my music community whilst overseas throughout these strange times.

How much longer will we stay? Just like many musicians around the world right now, I’m doing my best to go with the flow.

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SHAMPOO & JAZZ GIGS MAT T FRI P P | JAZZ FUEL.C O M If you’re a jazz musician working to get more gigs, there are sometimes lessons to be learned from the most unlikely of sources …

I was in the supermarket the other day, tasked by my wife to buy some shampoo. I didn’t give it much thought until I got to the right aisle and was faced with a whole section, floor to ceiling, full of different shampoos. At least 50 different ones.

PITC H I NG FOR A GIG BY EMAI L Do the words you use convey the style of your music?

Are you showcasing the credentials that make booking you a good idea for them?

Does the video you link to look professional and capture the essence of the music?

Do you seem like a musician who would be fun, easy and professional to work with?

Unless you’ve got a favourite one, how do you choose?!

I stared for a bit, read the details on a few of the most eye-catching packages, looked at the prices and then picked one at random.

There is literally no way to “know” which one is best, without trying it, so you have to make a decision based on the visual information you’ve got. I know full well that several of the shampoos come from the same factory, in which case it’s the packaging which is making the difference between attention and no attention.

You see where I’m going …

For most artists, there’s a big difference between being a great player and a successful musician. If your goal is “only” to be a great musician, then you don’t need to worry about selling records, building a network, winning awards or getting press coverage. You simply need to listen, practice and make music. It might be good if, as with sport, the best were automatically the most successful too, but that’s not always the case.

If you define success as playing in front of bigger and bigger audiences, having magazines write about your music and earning a good living from your creative work, it often requires more than just great music.

The great music part is essential, but not enough. With so much content on offer, fans, gig bookers and journalists don’t have the luxury of listening to all the music out there and deciding what they like best. You need to somehow grab their attention, motivate them to take that first listen and make them excited to be a part of your journey. Before you have the chance to convince them with your music, you have to convince them with your words and visuals.

Booking gigs is a good example. I’ve heard from many festival and club promoters who are receiving literally hundreds of emails a week from musicians. If you do the maths, you’ll realise that it’s just not possible for them to digest each one and listen in detail to the music.

They’re faced with that wall of shampoo and have to look for clues as to whether it’s going to be interesting and relevant for them.

Of course, hair products are a million miles away from music, but there is a similarity in that often people make a decision on what the music is about without first listening. It might not be how we’d like things, but it’s a fact – the way you present your project can actually determine how likely people are to dive deeper into it. Embracing that can help to massively increase the potential of your project.

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MEET ANDRE LE ROUX G IVING VOI CE TO SOUTH AFRI CAN ARTI STS

ADAM SI MM O NS Andre Le Roux is a man of warm humour and generosity, who seems to have been the right person in the right place at the right time. In helping a fledgeling industry navigate South Africa’s post-apartheid rebuilding, he has had immense influence in creating policy and establishing support mechanisms for artists and organisations across the musical spectrum.

Andre has spent over two decades as an arts administrator, from grassroots to global levels. He spent 15 years as managing director of Southern African Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO) Foundation, overseeing the funding for 100 bursary scholarships and supporting 47 music schools.

In addition, he has served on numerous boards, including as chairperson of major organisations such as Moshito Music Conference, Arterial Network South Africa and South African Coalition for Cultural Diversity.

Over the past year, Andre’s consultancy, IKS (Indigenous Knowledge Systems), has helped pivot the long-running Concerts SA presentation program to become the Digital Mobility Fund, produce research on digital streaming (Digital Futures) and the impact of COVID on World Jazz Network members, as well as coordinate the 2020 World Jazz Conference (WJC) in partnership with Jazz NL and Amersfoort Jazz Festival. With over 250 participants for the WJC livestream, including an opening statement

by Wynton Marsalis, this event offered a unique opportunity for the global network to share experiences and connect with one another.

We first met at the 2017 WJC in Amersfoort. I was there in my then new role with Wangaratta Festival of Jazz & Blues to establish a relationship with Amersfoort Jazz Festival. Andre was accompanying a trio of SAMRO Overseas Scholarship winners, Zoë Modiga, Bokani Dyer and Linda Sikhakhane, who were standout performers at the festival. We hit it off straight away, being Southern Hemisphere neighbours with a shared sense of art, politics and humour.

South Africa has suffered on a larger scale due to COVID-19 than Australia, with more than 2.5 million cases in total and almost 80,000 deaths, in comparison to Australia’s totals at the same time of approximately 43,120 and 980 respectively. At its peak, daily cases in South Africa were reported in excess of 25,000.

The personal toll for Andre was palpable in our discussion, during which he was informed of the passing of two colleagues due to COVID-19.

Shortly after this interview in early June, Andre contracted the virus himself, but has since recovered. Our talk was more circumspect than usual, but throughout, his humour still shone through as well as his strong passion to find ways to support his community.

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A N D R E L E RO UX & KG O M OTS O L E RO UX

Andre Le Roux, you have contributed at a high level across a wide range of national and international bodies. But where did it start?

Did you play music when young? Is this how you imagined your career would develop?

Firstly, I don’t read a note of music. I’m not a musician per se, I’m an arts person generally. I think my journey has been serendipitous. Things happen for a reason. I grew up in Cape Town, on the Cape Flats, which is 1,500 kilometres from Johannesburg where I’m now. My mother was a nursing assistant, my father was a traffic officer, my brother was a policeman, my other brother was in law enforcement and my sister was in Avis. They were all in uniform.

I knew that was not going to be the route for me.

When I was at varsity and I was acting part-time in community theatre, our country was in apartheid years and in major transition. I wrote my honours dissertation on a framework for community theatre and development, which was all about how we need to use community theatre instead of formal theatres, instead of the formal institutions. For me, it was always about grassroots activism.

In ’93, our theatre group was supposed to participate in a discussion on, “What will the arts look like in a future South Africa?” Everyone said, “Andre, you’re at varsity, why don’t you go and talk nonsense

to those people?” I got pushed to go to these meetings because nobody else wanted to go. I started engaging with intellectuals that had been in exile and began serving on the boards of the cultural desk of the African National Congress, our biggest political party, which meant I was helping to influence policy. At the time, I was studying law and thought I was going to be a lawyer but then I was like, “Oh, wait a minute, lawyers they work within the realm of legislation. I love the arts, so why don’t I try and work within the realm of influencing the livelihood of artists?” So, on the ANC’s cultural desk we started writing policy.

At the 2018 WJC, the presentation by your colleague, James French [manager SAMRO Foundation], enlightened me about SAMRO Foundation’s activities and in particular, the political role that jazz plays in aiding South Africa’s social cohesion. Why do you think it is that jazz has taken up this role in South Africa?

I think that thing of improvisation, the thing of accepting a come-all kind of scenario, and that it’s a fluid language where you don’t have to stick to the script. We will allow the drummer to do a solo and the bassist, even if people get bored. We will accommodate different people and we will be able to talk together and communicate together.

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SA M RO FO U N DAT I O N W I N N E RS

JOIN US FOR A VIRTUAL JAZZ JOURNEY

JOIN US

to the most adventurous jazz festival in Europe IGOR BUTMAN

(RU)

IZALINE CALISTER

(NL)

JOHN CLAYTON BEETS MEUTGEERT

(USA)

TIM HENNEKES

(NL)

JAZZ ORCHESTRA

(NL)

JAKUB ‘MIZER’ MIZERACKI

(PL)

OLEG AKKURATOV

(RU)

SAM BOON’S AIME

(AUS)

W W W.AMERSFOORTJAZZ.NL/DINGO

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In South Africa, it’s about the melody, the harmony, the rhythm. It’s about the movement and the language of the music that accommodates others and doesn’t alienate them, that welcomes them into the space. That’s the thing about African choral music, African jazz, South African jazz. You do not expect the audience to sit still – you welcome them to dance, you welcome them to engage, you welcome them to be part of the experience.

With jazz, it’s much more accommodating of styles and it was used as a political tool. The messaging within jazz was about, “How do you overthrow this government?”; was about, “What is the police doing to harm you?”; was about, “Who suffered and whose names were raised?”; then, “How do you whip up the people?” A lot of the jazz tunes and the jazz standards come from either traditional repertoire or freedom songs. It was cultivated and inculcated.

You’ll find that people who have engaged in the political struggle, people who are activists, people who are serious about music, they’re not serious about Western art classical, they’re serious about jazz. They’re serious about jazz collaboration.

What has the impact of COVID been on life in South Africa?

We’ve been on and off in lockdown. We’re back now in level three, limited alcohol sales, limited travel, curfews, no international travel. The hard part is people are really getting sick. People I know are getting sick, people I know have been ventilated, people I know have died. The death rate is quite bad. The worst thing in our sector is that many artists haven’t worked for a long time, for over a year. Those that have worked, it’s been a little bit here, a little bit there. It’s been quite rough – lockdown has a way of making you feel extremely local, so local that you worry about leaving your home. I’m not feeling very global at the moment.

You have played an important role in international research, not just in the jazz scene but in other spheres as well. Can you speak of how COVID has impacted your activities?

Initially, it was just shock. I had inherited this Norwegian live music project called Concerts SA. We’ve run the project for eight years, supporting over 9,000 artists across the Southern African Development Community region, across the whole of Southern Africa, even Madagascar, Réunion, Tanzania, Namibia. We have both real mobility, and

suddenly, bang! – all the borders are shut down, everything closed, everyone’s sitting at home.

I think the most important thing we did last year was to stop and ask, “What just happened?” First we did that little research booklet on live streaming, called Digital Futures, because we knew that we wanted to get people to start doing work online, but we didn’t know what we were doing. It turns out when we did the WJC, everyone else also didn’t know what they were doing. It was a wonderful, wonderful experience to realise, “Oh, we’re all stuffed!”

After leaving SAMRO, I had to figure out how to survive. Then we [IKS and Jazz NL] started working on a range of projects. The projects have just snowballed. My Facebook page has been so busy. Sometimes it’s about people in hospital and sick, sometimes it’s about gigs that are happening, sometimes it’s actual live streams that are going on, sometimes it’s research.

Anyway, one of the best things that came from the WJC was that we’re all stuffed and we’re managing it differently. Similarly, we’re all going online, we’re all looking at the art to generate revenue, we’re looking at collaborating – we don’t know how it will happen, but people are starting to innovate.

So, what can you see emerging from this period of disruption in the music industry?

On the one hand for artists themselves last year, we didn’t just have to consider the bigger picture, we were forced to engage with it. We were forced because we saw nobody else putting our voices forward. I think last year was a good year for building artist-led organisations to lobby and advocate for better policies.

Maybe now we’re going to see some structural reform, some increased local advocacy, and lobbying and local institution building. Someone was talking about like, we have these big arts councils, we have orchestras and all of that. When a mountain burns, you need the pioneer grass, you need the green shoots. Policy doesn’t take good notice of microgrants in your local pub down the road, where the local music can be performed regularly, but artists need to engage with the churches, the market squares, the town squares. They need to engage with the local pubs and the restaurants, those that survive this messed up economic situation, and they need to create their own platforms, but they also need to lobby for policy change. I think now is a good time for that to start happening.

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SUPPORT ACT CRISIS REL IEF & WELLBEING HOT L I N E 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.

Support Act’s COVID-19 Crisis Relief Grants are now open to applications for arts workers in any of the performing arts, not limited to music, provided they meet a set criteria. This has been made possible by an additional $20 million in funding by the Australian Government through the Office for the Arts.

Support Act Wellbeing Helpline – free & confidential 24/7 support: 1800 959 500 www.supportact.org.au

VA L E Dingo wishes to acknowledge the passing of the following valued members and contributors of the Australian jazz community and extend our condolences to their beloved friends and family: Graeme Osborne – ex-Chairman of Melbourne Jazz Cooperative, record distributor, critic, radio presenter Bob Gillespie – drummer, musical director Bill Kerr – clarinet, tenor sax, voice, composer/lyricist, bandleader

Additional Content Contributors ABC Jazz Amersfoort Jazz Festival APRA AMCOS Australian Art Orchestra Australian Jazz Convention Australian Music Centre Creative Original Music Adelaide Earshift Music Festival Eric Myers IKS Cultural Consulting Melbourne Conservatorium of Music Melbourne International Jazz Festival The Music Trust Perth International Jazz Festival Queensland Conservatorium Support Act Sirens Big Band Sydney Improvised Music Association Wangaratta Festival of Jazz & Blues Western Australia Academy of Performing Arts WA Youth Jazz Orchestra Wizard Tone Studios The York Festival

Additional Photographic Contributors Raphael Biscaldi Josh Calabrese Thomas Charters Rachel Claire Cottonbro Pawel Czerwinski Dane Deaner David Van Dijk Gregory Fullard Bryan Garces Toa Heftiba Abel Y Costa JB Parsoa Khorsand Klara Kulikova Quaid Lagan Oleg Laptev Jason Leung Mitchell Luo Katie McNabb

Liana Mikah Burgess Milner Joakim Nadell Chris Nagahama Megan Nixon Realkina Alex Rodriguez Santibanez Nick Scheerbart Janita Sumeiko Malena Gonzalez Serena U Paul Weaver Scott Webb Pat Whelen Augustine Wong Goh Ryh Yan Delila Ziebart

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it is creating space it is creating connection it is creating for the future it is daring to dream

ISSN 2652-9637

ISSUE 02 S P RI NG 2021 AUS : $ 14 . 95 Publ ish ed by

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Cover Art ‘The Wheatsheaf Hotel’ Watercolour 2015 Chelle Destefano