Dingo Australian Jazz Journal - Issue 5 Autumn 2023

M USI C REVI EWS EDUCATI ON G I GS

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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.

This project is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria

PROUDLY PRESENTED BY

FED SQUARE

SATURDAY APRIL 29

JAZZ IN THE LIVE JAZZ GALA CONCERT 1PM – 6:30PM OUTDOOR STAGE FREE EVENT

7:30PM-9:30PM THE EDGE FREE & VIP EVENT

DETAILS & TICKETS

DINGOJAZZ.COM

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EDITOR Adam Simmons | editor@dingojazz.com CO-EDITOR & MARKETING Cal Barry | marketing@dingojazz.com ART DIRECTOR Perri Winter | artdirector@dingojazz.com COVER ART Louise Adams | www.louiseadamsartist.com WRITERS Dan Barnett, Jack Beeche, Des Cowley, Felix Elliot-Dedman, Billy Exton, Madison Foley, Bianca Gannon, Nat Grant, Julia Messenger, Eric Myers, Roger Mitchell, Natalie Morgenstern, Tim Nikolsky, Holly Norman, Tim O’Dwyer, Barry O’Sullivan, Michael Prescott, Isabelle Skaburskis, Josh Underhill COPY EDITOR Des Cowley & Sonja Horbelt ARTISTS Meg Kolac | www.megkolac.com Clare Caulfield | www.clarecaulfield.co.uk Joel 'Mulga" Moore | mulgatheartist.com.au John Prince Siddon | www.mangkaja.com/content/john-prince-siddon SUBSCRIBE subscriptions@dingojazz.com ADVERTISING marketing@dingojazz.com PUBLISHED BY Sounding Grace Pty Ltd 339 Clarendon St, South Melbourne, VIC 3205, Australia DISTRIBUTED BY ARE DIRECT 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.

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M USIC REVIEWS E DUCAT ION GI GS

M USIC REVIEWS E DUCAT ION GI GS

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editor Wominjeka/Welcome Our little Dingo is turning three!

MUSIC REVIEWS EDUCAT ION GIGS

MUSIC REVIEWS EDUCAT ION GIGS

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It feels we have managed to establish something of our identity over the past few years, though in preparing each edition I always enjoy the surprises: first, as the articles start coming in; then as the spreads are designed, bringing the words alive visually. And each time, it feels we are discovering new possibilities, new perspectives on what Dingo might be.

Jazz is inextricably linked to identity. Identity is our sense of self, our way to connect to a community; it informs our being and how we act in the world. In a recent university class with some young music students, they generously shared stories of how improvisation formed part of their being, their history and about the processes involved that create opportunities for authentic self-expression.

While each student presented a clear sense of identity through words and sounds, there was nothing limiting in regard to style within their responses. Improvisation for these young artists is alive and of the “now”, not a museum piece to be archived – encouraging indeed!

How we identify is crucial in these times. It can mean being included or excluded – though we don’t always get to decide for ourselves.

An example where definitions may have implications will be in how the jazz sector fits into the scope of activity for the newly announced Music Australia as part of the National Cultural Policy.

Identity may be expressed through style, but style does not define identity. Jazz is the same in this regard as identity. Unfortunately, the debate about what constitutes jazz can more often be based on style. Though if I could, I would give the final word to the beloved and recently departed saxophonist Wayne Shorter with his quote: “Jazz is not supposed to be something that’s required to sound like jazz. For me, the word ‘jazz’ means, ‘I dare you.’”

Enjoy Adam Simmons

contents

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EDITOR’S LET TER

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S POTLIGHT

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RECORD STORES: WHAT ARE THEY GOOD FOR

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S HIFTING TH E CONVERSATION A PROFILE OF GEMMA FARRELL

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ACID ON TAP: E XPLORING JA ZZ THROUGH NEURODIVERSIT Y

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REVIVE CONSIDERING THE NATIONAL CULTUR AL POLICY

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JAZZ IN SYDN EY

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REVIEWS

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ARTIST L ACHY HAMILTON

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EDUCATION HISTORY LESSON: SIMA STEVL AND DEEP DIVE IMPROVISATION AND CRE ATIVIT Y YOUNG ARTISTS

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GE AR REVIEWS

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LIVE

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GLOBAL PERS PECTIVE

SPOTLIGHT ON SINGAPORE NO PL ACE LIKE HOME /

NÍL AON TINTE ÁN MAR DO THINTE ÁN FÉIN MEET LYNET TE IRWIN GR ANT WRITING 101: DEFINE YOUR PROJECT

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CONTRIBUTORS

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15

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50 67 105 80

ZÖJ G E L A RE H P O U R A N D B RI A N O ’ DWYE R

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spotlight

S O N JA H O R B E LT P H OTO BY F R E D K RO H

PAU L W I L L I A M S O N P H OTO BY L EO DA L E

M E L B O U R N E C O N S E RVATO RI U M O F M U S I C JA Z Z & I M P ROV I SAT I O N D E PA RT M E N T P H OTO BY M A R K C H EW

O RI G A M I

A A RO N C H O U L A I

SA LVO B I G BA N D

9 SA N DY EVA N S P H OTO BY K A RE N ST E A I N S

JAZZ IN THE SQUARE 2023 Jazz in the Square returns this year with another jam-packed day of jazz in the centre of Melbourne at Federation Square on Saturday April 29.

International Jazz Day – chaired and led by UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay and legendary jazz pianist and composer Herbie Hancock – is declared to be “the world’s largest celebration of jazz as a force for peace, intercultural dialogue and international cooperation.” As noted by Hancock during last year’s showcase event, “The music shows up when we need it most, to ease our burdens and boost our spirits.”

It is with this spirit that Dingo’s Jazz in the Square celebrates the richness and diversity across different aspects of the Australian jazz community.

The event will be streamed live by Dingo.

Federation Square Main Stage will come alive from 1pm with Melbourne’s finest emerging and established jazz artists such as the Salvo Bigband, Origami with Wang ZhengTing, Kennedy Snow, Paul Williamson’s Hammond Combo and ensembles from Melbourne Conservatorium of Music Jazz & Improvisation Department.

Our inaugural evening gala presentation in Fed Square’s The Edge at 7:30pm will feature the sublime improvised sounds of ZÖJ (Gelareh Pour and Brian O’Dwyer). Following them pianist Aaron Choulai – recently appointed as Artistic Director for the Australian Art Orchestra and back from living in Japan – will conclude with his trio featuring Tamara Murphy and James McLean.

Our key partner, Melbourne Conservatorium Of Music, are presenting their complementary Jazz & Improvisation International Jazz Day Concert on Friday April 28 with a free (ticketed) event at Lionel’s from 7pm, featuring students, staff and guest artist saxophonist Sandy Evans.

Jazz in the Square is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.

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F E S T I VA L S ADELAIDE JAZZ FESTIVAL It is great to welcome a new addition to the jazz calendar – Adelaide Jazz Festival launches on April 28 with a weekend-long program celebrating the city’s diverse music scene and UNESCO’s International Jazz Day. “As well as appealing to regular jazz fans, our aim is to surprise, inspire and delight audiences who might think jazz is not really their thing,” says AJF founder and producer, Kaya Blum. “It’s a festival for people with passion for music, not just jazz.” This is the first time Adelaide joins other Australian capital cities with an annual jazz festival on the calendar. The line-up includes Soylent Green who were equal winners of the national ‘Next Gen’ selection at Wangaratta Festival of Jazz & Blues, Bend, Lucky Seven, The 6Ft Pelicans, Kara Manansala, Penny Eames Band and ER@SER DESCRIPTION. For full details: adelaidejazzfestival.com ALL-STATE JAZZ CHAMPIONSHIPS It was announced in December that the Victorian All-State Jazz Championships weekend will unfortunately not be staged as planned in 2023, due to “unforeseen circumstances”.

The statement on their Facebook page continues: “We will still be operating as an organisation, with workshops, professional development, educational tools and scholarships for educators and students becoming our focus (which we’re very excited about).”

WANGARATTA FESTIVAL OF JAZZ & BLUES After navigating the difficulties over the past few years, and despite flooding in the region prior to the event causing programming changes, the 2022 Wangaratta Festival of Jazz & Blues was finally able to return to a successful in-person, live event. As journalist Jessica Nicholas wrote in her review for The Age, “it was enormously satisfying to see it back in action”. The 2023 festival will be “centred on the National Jazz Awards and a boutique, highest-calibre program of artists.”

S OYL E N T G RE E N

MILDLIFE P H OTO BY K EV I N M C D OW E L L

P E T E R KO O P M A N

AWA R D S ARIA AWARDS Melbourne’s Mildlife has been awarded Best Jazz Album for the second year running at the 36th annual ARIA Awards held in 2022, for their LP Live From South Channel Island. While their style has been hotly discussed in some quarters, there is no denying the international impact they are having in raising the profile of Australian creative music.

Over the past year, they’ve been busy with 100 concerts in 17 different countries and are currently working on a new album for release in 2024.

NATIONAL JAZZ AWARDS

PAU L F U RN I S S

The 2022 National Jazz Awards (guitar) presented by Wangaratta Festival of Jazz & Blues were warmly welcomed back as live performances, though with a reduced format of five finalists only. Expat New Zealand guitarist Peter Koopman (now NSW-based) took out first prize, which includes a $7,000 cash prize and a recording session with Melbourne’s Pughouse Studios. Joshua Meader (NSW) and Julius Schwing (TAS) placed second and third respectively. Each year, the NJA’s focus on a different instrument – for 2023 the featured instrument is bass.

ORIGINAL TUNES COMPETITION The Original Tunes Competition held at the 2022 Australian Jazz Convention in Newcastle was won for the second year in a row by NSWbased saxophonist and clarinettist Paul Furniss, with his composition, “Who Knows?”. This is Furniss’s fifth award since his first win in 1970.

Second and third place went to Khuslen Baasanbayar and Binder Uguunbayer respectively, members of the visiting Mongolian All Stars.

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A RC H I E ROAC H P H OTO BY N I C H O L L AS H A R RI S O N

L I N DA M AY H A N O H P H OTO BY S H E RV I N L A I N EZ

AUSTRALIA DAY HONOURS LIST In this year’s Australia Day Honours List, recognition at the highest level of the Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) was posthumously awarded to singer, activist and storyteller Archie Roach, for his “eminent service to the performing arts as a songwriter and musician, to Indigenous rights and reconciliation, and through support for emerging First Nations artists.”

Melbourne-based Ken Simpson-Bull has been recognised with a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for his service to jazz music preservation. Starting at the ABC in 1955, in more recent years Simpson-Bull has played a significant role in extracting and preserving rare music for the Australian Jazz Museum.

GRAMMY AWARDS Australian artists continue to contribute at a high level internationally. This year’s Grammy Awards held in February awarded Best Jazz Instrumental Album to New Standards Vol. 1 by US drummer Terri Lyne Carrington leading a quintet including Australian New York–based bassist Linda May Han Oh. The album was “created to shine a light on women composers in historic new ways”, comprising 11 selections from a new jazz “real” book dedicated solely to women composers.

A A RO N C H O U L A I P H OTO BY TS UYO S H I F UJ I N O

CONNECTIONS AAO – AARON CHOULAI ARTISTIC DIRECTOR The Australian Art Orchestra have made two recent appointments that auger well for this almost 30-year institution to continue, as AAO Chair Brian Ritchie proclaims, “at the cutting edge of forging a distinctly Australian approach to musical improvisation in Australia since it was founded by Paul Grabowsky.” Pianist and composer Aaron Choulai has been appointed as Artistic Director, returning to Melbourne for the role after living in Japan for 15 years, where he has become a prominent musical figure. Choulai takes over from Peter Knight, who has successfully steered the Australian Art Orchestra for the past ten years. At the same time, Jasmine Moselely replaces Rosemary Willink as Executive Producer, bringing a breadth of local and international experience across artforms and contexts. Aaron told Dingo: “Jasmine Moseley and I are both excited to begin at the Australian Art Orchestra together this year. We have plans in place for works that will see the AAO undertake new directions in creative music while building on its existing foundations.”

JAS M I N E M O S E L EY P H OTO BY C H RI STO P H E R A L L E RY

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

australianjazzrealbook.com

A RT WO R K BY

T H EO ST R AS S E R

L I M I T E D E D I T I O N T- S H I R T S

$5 5 FA I RT RAD E

D IN GOJAZZ.C OM /STORE

P RIN T ED IN AUST RAL IA BY

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WAYJ O - P RO G RES S I O N S

WAYJO’S 40TH ANNIVERSARY The WA Youth Jazz Orchestra (WAYJO) has reached the mighty milestone of 40 years: presenting an annual program of visiting guest artists, regional WA tours, pathway programs, recordings and commissioned work for its three 18-piece big bands. In 2023, WAYJO’s ongoing focus on gender equality sees the long running Young Women in Jazz program change its name to Progressions – in response to feedback about being more inclusive for non-binary and trans musicians. WAYJO will also expand the Composer in Residence program to include a commissioning category for female, non-binary or trans composers under 30 years. One of the special events celebrating this achievement will see WAYJO takeover over the State Theatre’s Studio Underground for May 26-27. Friday Night will feature a gala performance with all three WAYJO bands. On Saturday, the Studio Underground and foyer will be transformed into a mini festival hub of conversations, small group jazz ensembles, historic photo displays, alumni appearances and big band performances.

AUSTRALIAN JAZZ MUSEUM The Australian Jazz Museum have announced the resumption of their jazz improvisation workshops, starting this May. For many years Marina Pollard ran the workshops at the AJM, until interrupted by COVID and finally her passing in 2021. Finally, the Wantirna-based workshops will resume again, with tuition and guidance from Viv Doolan (brass, woodwind and rhythm) and South African expat Brian Abrahams (drums and percussion). The 12-week course focuses on areas such as chord knowledge, aural training, jazz styles and performance skills.

7 VIRTUAL JAZZ CLUBS CONTEST Congratulations to Lachlan McGargill Quartet as the only Australians that made the Live Round of the 7 Virtual Jazz Club Contest’s 8th edition.

The South Australian quartet reached the final 25 finalists in the Under 25 category for the public voting stage. They were unsuccessful in progressing to the final judging stage, but to get that far is a great achievement in a competitive international field. The call for entries for the 9th edition will open on April 17th, including changes, new sponsors and new prizes.

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RECORD STORES:

WHAT ARE T HEY GO O D FO R? WO RDS DES C OWLEY

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TH ESE DAYS, YOUR FAVOURIT E REC O RD STO RE I S MORE L I KELY TO BE FOU ND I N T H E MI D D LE- BURBS, O R TUCKED AWAY O N A T H I RD - FLO O R I NNER- C ITY LOF T.

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How much time have I spent in record stores?

With apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning , let me count the hours . In the beginning , there were childhood visits to “safe spaces” like Palings and Brashs, where you could anonymously slide purchases across the counter, without needing to engage with staf f. Later – armed with the swag ger of youth – came visits to Melbourne’s Missing Link , Au Go Go, Gaslight, Greville Records, spaces that functioned as businesses and as clubhouses for the like -minded, where your tastes were open to challenge, and where knowledgeable staf f tossed around critical opinions like confetti and told you straight up what you should or should not be listening to.

It was an analogue world back then, where knowledge and information – in fact, personal predilection – was built incrementally via the hard yards of radio listening, going to gigs, and accessing print magazines. But it was equally founded upon browsing the racks of record stores, talking with owners, and stumping up hard-earned cash. We know that world has largely vanished and it is a pointless exercise to reminisce.

The rise of the compact disc – the initial salvo in the digital music revolution – brought with it the golden age of the megastore. Remember Richard Branson and Virgin Megastore, and JB Hi-Fi, before it was selling phones and rice cookers? It was a boom time for the music business, before streaming put paid to it and it all came crashing down.

By rights, record stores – like so many other things – should have gone the way of the dodo, swallowed up by the all-devouring digital interface. But against all odds, they have continued to survive, even flourish. Sure, the prime city flagship stores of yesteryear have vanished, killed off by rising rents and falling demand. These days, your favourite record store is more likely to be found in the middle-burbs, or tucked away on a thirdfloor inner-city loft. Chances are, it might be no larger than the average bedroom. And, safe to say, it will most likely be trading in vinyl, spearheading another anti-evolutionary trend.

But more to the point, it is likely to be independently run, fuelled by passion rather than practical business sense, specialising in niche genres that serve a specific community. It’s been a guerrilla response to digital overabundance and consumer exhaustion, aided in part by the vinyl revival. After all, it’s not

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as if we are starved for choice these days; the fact is music is coming at us every which way, much of it freely available. But, following an initial hiccup, record stores have managed to re-insert themselves into the broader continuum of how we access music. Begging the obvious question: how has a supposedly outmoded business model – the corner record store – been able to rekindle itself?

What role do record stores play in the broader musical ecosystem – a labyrinthine network made up of digital downloads, streaming, Bandcamp, online purchases, merch, bricks and mortar – other than functioning as cool places to hang out?

… A ND W H E RE KNOWL E D G EA BL E STA F F TOS S E D A ROU ND C RI T I CA L OPI NI O N S L I K E C O NF ET T I AN D TO L D YOU STRA I G H T UP WH AT YOU S H OUL D OR S HOU LD N OT BE L I ST E N I N G TO.

I remember, back in 1999, staying in the East Village, New York, and coming across Downtown Music Gallery (DMG), a small record store located at 211 East 5th Street. It turned out to be a cornucopia of obscure jazz releases, boasting a comprehensive stock relating to the downtown improv scene, back then centred around the Knitting Factory and later the Stone. It was mind-boggling to be suddenly exposed to the vast back catalogue of labels such as John Zorn’s Tzadik, Tim Berne’s Screwgun, Knitting Factory Records and hundreds of other small, independents, virtually none of which were then available in Australia. Owner Bruce Gallanter, a garrulous enthusiast willing to talk music all day, was encyclopaedic, and I remember leaving the store with a Thomas Chapin box set tucked under my arm after Gallanter waxed about the late saxophonist’s work, billing him as “my main man”.

Ostensibly a jazz store, DMG was not the place to go in search of recordings by Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, Stan Getz. It was where you went to buy Elliott Sharp, William Parker, Tim Berne, William Hooker, Vinny Golia, and later Matana Roberts, Nicole Mitchell, Jamie Branch, Tomeka Reid and others. From the get-go, Bruce nailed his colours to the flag, unwavering in his mission. He wasn’t in the business of selling what was on offer at the local Tower branch; instead, he and coowner Manny Maris were in the business of building their community, the downtown scene. In other words, the store’s primary purpose was to support and nurture the music that excited them. It wasn’t just about volume or traffic through the cash register.

DMG hosted weekly in-store performances, issued in-depth email newsletters, serviced mail-order, posted reviews, supported the annual Vision Festival, championed artists they believed were flying under the radar, turned people on to this music. Bruce knew every experimental musician in New York, he was part of the scene and they in turn called on him for support.

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DMG, still going strong more than twenty years on, sets itself apart by being localised and community-based (even if that community is global), intent on providing comprehensive coverage of, let’s face it, a micro-niche scene. It is run by madcap enthusiasts, bursting with passion. As a business, it defined itself as much by what it wouldn’t stock, as what it did.

Having recently left my long-term place of work, I found myself with more time to get around Melbourne and, you guessed, visit record stores. It got me to thinking about our own local environment, especially considering the vibrancy of our jazz and improv scene, awash with exciting musicians, alternative performance spaces, and a deluge of quality recordings. What are our homegrown equivalents? Which record stores operate something along the lines of Downtown Music Gallery?

Northside Records, located in Gertrude Street, Fitzroy, arguably comes closest to reflecting a community spirit, albeit running to a vastly different soundtrack, ostensibly billed as: “JAZZ FUNK SOUL HIP HOP REGGAE SOUNDTRACKS DUB DANCEHALL LIBRARY 45’s MOOG BREAKS DISCO AFRO BEAT and more.” If that sounds like a broad brief, the reality is owner Chris Gill is vocal about Northside being groove central, a bastion of Melbourne’s funk/soul community.

He concedes the impetus for the business came about in response to the dearth of soul and funk bands in Melbourne, something he’s played a part in remedying by helping support and grow the scene.

Since setting up in 2002, Gill has spread his wings widely, championing local funk, soul and everything in between. This has entailed not just stocking records but hosting regular in-store gigs, launching local releases, doing his own live DJ sets, presenting his weekly radio spot Get Down on Triple R and founding his own record label.

Gill will talk the leg off anyone who strays near the counter, it’s infectious, and it’s what community-based records stores thrive on.

As I’m leaving, he shouts out the catchcry “Jazz is Dead”, alluding to the US-based label – specialising in funk-based jazz by Doug Carn, Gary Bartz, Roy Ayers and others – whose very existence announces that jazz is anything but. Increasingly, a stream of Australian jazz has been feeding into this mix, meshing in with Northside’s penchant for funk: Barney McCall’s Precious Energy, JK Group, I Hold the Lion’s Paw, ZEDSIX, Midlife, 30/70 Collective, ZFEX, or compilations like Seven Wonders and Sunny Side Up. Gill goes one further, stressing that visitors buying these records don’t come to his shop looking for jazz; they are far more likely to consider this stuff part of a wider groove continuum, along the lines that Northside fosters. Gill – in both look and manner – is like a revivalist, spreading the good book.

Sydney’s Birdland Records, founded by Keiran Stafford in 1991, has always adhered to its founding mission of promoting jazz in all its forms. I remember visiting the store, soon after it first opened in Barrack Street, Sydney, and being amazed that a single store could carry that much jazz. Thirty years on, and four moves later, the store now operates out of level 4 of the Dymocks Building in George Street, stocking – in contrast to the current vinyl obsession – local and international releases on multiple formats: CD, SACD, XRCD,

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Blu-spec CD, DVD, Blu-ray and vinyl. Birdland, from the outset, championed Australian jazz, stocking a large range of local independent releases. At the same time, the store founded its own record label, releasing music by Mike Nock, Judy Bailey, Dale Barlow, James Muller, Blow, Mothership Jazz Orchestra, Theak-tet, and others. If nothing else, Birdland has earned its place in jazz history for releasing Mark Simmonds’s Fire, recorded with his band the Freeboppers. Incredulously, Fire stands as Simmond’s sole album, a towering achievement in an otherwise criminally under-recorded career, a seminal statement, and one of the hands-down greatest recordings ever issued in this country.

In comparison to Northside and Birdland, Melbourne’s Rocksteady Records, located upstairs in Mitchell House – an art deco building worth visiting for the architecture alone – in Lonsdale Street, seems like the new kid on the block, having only opened its doors some six years back. But founder Pat Monaghan is no neophyte, having worked in record stores for nearly forty years, from Perth’s Dada, to Melbourne’s Au Go Go, as well as the sadly defunct Basement Discs. While Monaghan is keen on reggae – the name gives it away – the store embraces funk, soul, rock, jazz, hip hop, with a strong emphasis on local releases. Key to it all, according to Monaghan, is cultivating strong networks within the wider music community. It’s not just about stocking records, it’s about building relationships with radio, print and online magazines, musicians, record labels, even other record stores. This last is worth dwelling upon – by specialising in niche

genres and developing their own unique identify, indie stores are no longer competing, but instead supporting one another, helping grow the market.

But what about musicians, those making music?

Where do they see record stores sitting within a broader continuum of how their music circulates?

Pianist and composer Andrea Keller singles out Northside, Birdland and Rocksteady, praising “the enthusiasm and support of record store owners such as Chris Gill at Northside”, and further noting: “Bandcamp, Spotify, me on the mic at my gigs – none of those acts in the same way – there’s no other space that provides that kind of advertising.” Trumpeter Reuben Lewis cites Northside as a constant supporter of his work: “They have tremendous enthusiasm for championing interesting independent Australian music to a broader audience.” Lewis acknowledges it is difficult to quantify in dollar terms, especially in the light of soaring production costs for producing vinyl: “For my music, the importance of record stores is more intangible. I make more money as an artist through Bandcamp sales and in person at gigs, but record stores are congregation and access points to a wide range of different audiences, and the right record store can introduce your music to a lot of new dedicated listeners.”

Saxophonist Julien Wilson points to the vibe that record stores create, the buzz and in particular the promotion generated by in-store performances, signings and album launches. When Wilson founded Lionsharecords in 2013, he specifically set out to build relationships with specific stores, selecting

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Birdland Records in Sydney and Readings Bookshop in Melbourne as exclusive outlets for his product. He is overwhelmingly grateful for the support he’s received: “Birdland, in particular, have been massive supporters of my music, so I still try to give them a month of exclusivity before the albums hit the rest of the stores (now mostly via a distribution relationship with MGM). On top of actively promoting the CDs via posters, prominent placement and playing the albums in-store, Birdland also have an active monthly email newsletter promoting new releases.” The proof is in the pudding: Wilson’s collaborative album This World, with Mick Nock, Jonathan Zwartz and Hamish Stuart, was nominated Birdland’s top selling album in 2019, edging out Coltrane, Bill Frisell, Joe Lovano and others, no mean feat.

As the market grew for Lionsharecords, Wilson expanded the range of stores he dealt with, especially once he began issuing vinyl: “There are a bunch of great record stores in Melbourne that love vinyl … Northside Records are probably the most active and enthusiastic promoters of local product. The staff are all local DJs and radio presenters, they really know what’s going on. Fitzroy and Collingwood are full of record stores. Rocksteady Records is my favourite store in the CBD and is very proactive in promoting new releases both online and via social media, as well as by constantly playing local releases in-store.”

Record stores are clearly one cog in a vast complex machine. As Wilson says: “Gigs, Bandcamp, and brick and mortar record stores are all vital to the ecosystem. They all play a part in promoting the music. Social media makes a lot of noise, but to be perfectly honest the real effect (from my personal research) is made by physical outlets: record stores.

At bottom, people still love browsing and finding something new and unexpected.”

We can point to any number of stores, aside from the above-named, that support local music: Natural Selection, Wax Museum Records, Naturestrip and Plug Seven in Melbourne, or Black Swan in Ballarat, or Papa Disquo and Redeye Records in Sydney, or Safari’s Record Shack in Perth, or Monster Robot in Brisbane. Go ahead and add your own favourites to this list. Clearly, it’s not a case of one size fits all, the best of these businesses – and we should not shy away from that term – are about more than selling records, they are about forging an identity, growing a community of like-minded people, supporting musicians, and the local scene. Sometimes, it comes down to just being excited by the next new local release that walks through the door. In an increasingly soulless corporate world, it represents a return to first principles, surely a cause for celebration. Because, let’s face it, if it’s not about the music, what is it about?

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A P R O F I L E O F G E M M A FA R R E L L WO RDS H OLLY NORMAN

SHIFTING

TH E C ONVERSATI O N

G E M M A FA R R E L L P H OTO BY J O S H W E L LS

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Saxophonist, bandleader and composer Gemma Farrell has blazed her own path through the Australian jazz scene. An alumna of both Conser vatorium van Amsterdam and Queensland Conser vatorium , Gemma’s perspective on musicmaking is multi-faceted: shaped by her experiences as a multi-instrumentalist, mother, founder and musical director of multiple projects who has recorded eight albums as a leader. I sat down with Gemma to gain some insight into the work she values most and get her perspective on the cultural shif ts within the Australian jazz sector.

Despite being drawn to music from a young age, Gemma admits her earliest forays into formalised music education were lukewarm. “I sat in the background (of music class) at first,” she admits, though she “started to take music more seriously in year 5 when my dad suggested I give the saxophone a go”. Attendance at a high school with a strong music program motivated her to improve her reading and theory, simultaneously igniting an urge to venture into improvisation, “liking how in jazz you could interpret the melody your own way”. Gradually pinpointing that this style of music she liked the sound and feel of was known as “jazz”, Gemma dove deeper, devouring recordings and naming Branford Marsalis as an early influence. When Marsalis visited Perth in 2000, a 13-year-old Gemma arrived early to his concert and was rewarded with an autograph.

Firmly committed to pursuing music as a career, Gemma commenced study at the WA Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA). Reflecting on this time, Gemma ventures that the culture at WAAPA has come a long way since her time as an undergraduate there. “I didn’t feel very welcome, or that I fit into the scene,” she says, so much so that enthusiasm for continuing the course began to wane. Craving a reset, Gemma planned to defer her studies for a year. During this time, she travelled to Sydney for some lessons with Sandy Evans, who she cites as an enduring mentor and source of inspiration.

When Gemma shared her feelings of apprehension and desire to withdraw from her studies, Sandy encouraged her to explore other options. Inspired and re-invigorated, Gemma auditioned for other universities on the east coast and made a fresh start the following year at Queensland Conservatorium, where Canadian-born pianist and composer Louise Denson was leading the jazz department. Seeing a female musician in such a role made an indelible mark on Gemma, who recalls Louise as the first female instrumentalist on a fullA RT E M I S O RC H EST RA P H OTO BY J O S I E N O L A N

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time salary in an Australian tertiary jazz department. Throughout these formative years Gemma acknowledges both Sandy and Louise for their influence and encouragement to continue making music. “Sandy and Louise in particular were huge role models for me and are still people that I am in touch with and admire a lot,” she confirms.

Studying with saxophonist Graeme Norris, Gemma finished the remainder of her undergraduate degree with honours in 2009 and just a few months later relocated with her husband Fred to Amsterdam, where she commenced her master’s degree at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. Whilst overseas, the possibilities for writing and performing music expanded rapidly for Gemma: primarily playing baritone saxophone in university ensembles (“the teachers there had a very specific idea of what a baritone saxophone player should sound like,” Gemma says) but also taking classical bass clarinet lessons, playing in the university jazz orchestra, exploring other saxes in her own projects and being introduced to the EWI (Electronic Wind Instrument) for the first time. Gemma recalls the huge expat student cohort being the best part about studying in Amsterdam. “There were people from 70 countries,” she enthuses. “It was a great melting pot.” One legacy of her time abroad chapter is Gemma’s project MFG (shorthand for Maas/Farrell/Goralski) with Cologne-based guitarist Nico Maas and Zurich-based keyboardist Thomas Goralski. The trio has released three albums, completed two Australian tours and a European tour, and plan to tour again in 2023.

Returning to Australia in 2013, Gemma was pleasantly surprised to be invited by the WA Youth Jazz Orchestra (WAYJO) to run a pilot version of the Young Women in Jazz (YWiJ) program in Perth (recently renamed as Progressions Program to better reflect its inclusivity

G E M M A FA R R E L L P H OTO BY J O S H W E L LS

I T H INK FO R M E , AT THE E ND O F T H E DAY, [SUC CES S IS] IF SO MEO N E LIK ES MY MUS I C.

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of trans and non-binary students also). Originally developed by Sydney Improvised Music Association (SIMA) and Sandy Evans, the YWiJ workshops aim to inspire young women and gender non-conforming people to play jazz and support them towards a career in music. Gemma’s involvement in the program quickly became one of the cornerstones of her career in Perth. “It was the highlight of my year,” she smiles. “I loved working with the other tutors.” With YWiJ and WAYJO filling a yawning gap in the education system, Gemma turned her attention to the representation of women on the stage, founding the Artemis Orchestra in 2017.

Artemis is a predominantly female big band which performs the original music of Australian women, non-binary and transgender people. Under Gemma’s direction, the band’s debut album, Elephant in the Room, was released in 2021. Gemma speaks about Artemis with a sense of unwavering purpose.

In the five years since founding the project, she has had people come out to her as non-binary or transgender. This is important work, says Gemma, because “if it’s that hard for women, it’s even

harder for gender non-binary/transgender people.”

Earlier this year, Gemma’s work in advocacy with YWiJ and Artemis Orchestra was recognised with a nomination for the Humanitarian Award in the Australia Women in Music Awards. Smiling, she says, “I certainly didn’t expect to become one of the three finalists – that kind of blew my mind a bit.”

One of the things that strikes me as I speak with Gemma about the issue of gender in jazz is her grounded, steady way of navigating these conversations. For example, arranging the personnel lists for each Artemis performance often means filling gaps in the band with cis male players when there are not enough female or gender non-binary players for each instrument. “We do have (transgender) males in the band,” she explains. “If we have a cisgender male in the band, they know that they are there because an opportunity couldn’t be given to a woman or gender non-binary person.” Men who play with Artemis are well aware of the band’s intrinsic purpose and are supportive of its cause. “It’s just a matter of having conversations,” says Gemma.

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Part and parcel of these very conversations is the often-controversial topic of quotas. In a previous role as president of the Perth Jazz Society, Gemma was tasked with putting together a band in which she wanted to see more women. Her suggestion of a gender quota to boost female numbers was met with resistance from some individuals on the project, namely “people wanting to keep their mates in the band,” Gemma concedes. She sounds vaguely surprised when I mention the debate around quotas as a mechanism to boost diversity in bands. In most pockets of the Australian jazz scene, Gemma says, “there are definitely enough women who play well enough to be hired. If you have a quota in place, and there aren’t multiple women who can play at that level, then perhaps quotas aren’t reasonable.” But in most places around the country, she says, “there are easily enough women who play well enough to fill those quotas.”

Our conversation moves now to a niche within a niche: mothers in jazz.

As mother of three children, Gemma is no stranger to the demands of balancing work and family – her eldest daughter was born halfway through her master’s in Amsterdam and was still a baby when the family relocated back to Perth. Reflecting on the decision to start a family whilst her career was still also in its infancy, Gemma recalls, once again, a distinct lack of available female role models for this process. Shortly after getting married to her husband, during a conversation with Sandy Evans, Gemma wondered aloud if having children was even possible as a female jazz musician. Sandy replied, “Andrea Keller has kids, and if she can do it, you can do it.” Combining a music career with family is “hugely challenging in a lot of ways,” muses Gemma, and a game of constantly juggling and re-prioritising what is most important.

While many professional jazz musicians “shed” throughout their 20s and fall back on these years of intensive practice as a baseline once family starts to take up more time, Gemma identifies that she was very much still developing as an instrumentalist when she became a mother in her mid-20s.

She credits the ability to avoid comparison to others as a sanitypreserving tool for a musician mother, as well as being upfront with colleagues and other bandleaders about what she can realistically commit to in terms of new projects, rehearsals and performances.

Nowadays, Gemma continues to utilise these skills in setting boundaries as she balances a full-time teaching load with her own creative projects, including the Gemma Farrell Quintet. Formed in 2015 and featuring long-time collaborators Sam Hadlow (trombone), Dan Garner (guitar), Kate Pass (bass) and Ryan Daunt (drums), the quintet released their sophomore album, The View From The Top, in early 2022. Speaking of her bandmates, Gemma’s sense of place and purpose as a leader in the Perth jazz community is unmistakable. “A lot of the people I work with are very driven people, and it’s very inspiring,” she says, emphasising her admiration for artists who have continued to initiate new projects and outcomes throughout the challenges of the pandemic. Admitting a sense of overall gratitude for where she lives, Gemma feels “lucky” to live in a place with relatively good state arts funding. She uses the same word to describe her sense of good fortune to genuinely enjoy the teaching work that forms the basis of her income as a working musician, comparing the Australian jazz industry favourably against the European alternative.

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“. . . A N D IF SH E CA N D O IT, YOU CA N D O IT.”

Keen to challenge her writing within the format of the ensemble, Gemma is currently working on a new album that will integrate her PhD studies in EWI with the goal “to incorporate the EWI into the quintet, whilst still being a saxophone player”. The possibilities presented by an electronic instrument are endless, she enthuses, and include using loops, a harmoniser (which lets a computer pick the harmony, resulting in more dissonant choices), an extended range, and the ability to play bass and harmony lines. “Michael Brecker did a lot of stuff where he would play a soli for the tenor, like a shout chorus, and then use the EWI and the harmoniser to create harmony,” Gemma explains. The ever-present desire to push herself has taken the form of a list of projects for “After PhD”, Gemma laughs, explaining that much of what she has planned for her various ensembles will sit on the backburner for another 12-24 months until she has waded through the quagmire of academic submission.

Reflecting on her career thus far and the way that the Australian jazz sector has changed, Gemma is full of praise for those who are working to make the industry a more accessible and diverse place to work and create. It has been a gradual turning of the tide, she muses, crediting Perth figureheads such as Mace Francis (Artistic Director of WAYJO and Perth International Jazz Festival) and Jamie Oehlers (head of music at WAAPA) as key contributors to this shift on the home front in Perth. When I ask Gemma what she considers success in the industry to look like, she pauses, before replying, “It’s a hard question. I think for me, at the end of the day, [success is] if someone likes my music.” On a recent outing to a video game arcade with her husband, Gemma had booked a table and her name had been written on the table.

When a stranger approached her, she assumed it was to “kick (her) off the table”, she laughs. But instead, the person said, “Are you Gemma Farrell? Because I love your music!” – so unexpected, she recalls, and so wonderful to hear. Success in music doesn’t mean being at any particular “level”, Gemma shrugs, concluding: “If I enjoy working with people, and they enjoy working with me, and we play gigs that people come to, and seem to enjoy … then that makes me very happy.”

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Be flexible With dress codes

ARE YOU READY? Every family’s journey is different

Keep of fering the job

WO RDS MAD I SON FOLEY I L LUST RAT ION MEG KOL AC

Let them make the call Trust their judgement

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T I P S T O H E L P N E W PA R E N T S R E T U R N

TO GIGGING

Ask them How you can support them

PRIVATE

Hold their spot And offer it back upon their return

Make accommodations For private breastfeeding spaces

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ACID ON TAP:

E X P LO R I N G J A Z Z T H R O U G H NEURODIVERSITY WO RDS BI LLY EXTON

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I F T H AT ’S H OW W E D E F I N E I T, TH E N WH E N I WAS A N AUTI STI C SIX-YEAR- O L D, EV E RY M O M E N T OF MY L IFE WAS M US I C.

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When I was an Autistic six-year- old, I lived in a spellbinding cataclysm of borderless, unclassifiable experience. I’m told there were days and nights; snow, sunshine and falling leaves; and I ’m prett y sure I remember crucial themes like “home”, “love”, and “ family ” that fought their way to conceptual independence. But largely, I swam wide - eyed and enchanted, through a deluge of spectacularly vivid and hopelessly intertwined “is-ness”.

Somewhere in amongst this torrent was music. I know that because we lived off Dad’s career as a violinist, and much of his time at home was spent making mellifluous arpeggi pinwheel off the ceiling, walls and floorboards.

But do I remember music itself? Well, that depends what music is. If music is organised sound and sound is nothing but the scrupulous arrangement of dots on a page, the knocking about of oscillators and the collisions of nerve endings in our cochleas, then I hardly remember any music at all.

But maybe music is a different order of things; a whisper of magic that happens when our minds detect a pattern in the chaotic creaks, bumps and groans of the seemingly solid physical world. If that’s how we define it, then when I was an Autistic six-year-old, every moment of my life was music.

Magic in Music We’re all here because we know this magic. I suspect you’re reading this magazine because you love music too and you’ve found that magic before. Most likely, you’re deeply familiar with the extraordinary moment where our perceptions of order and disruption coalesce into a mutual support which transcends their apparent resistance.

All musical genres form some successful collaboration between tension and resolution; discord and coherence; call and response; stimulation and satisfaction; or questions and answers. Classical music builds vast odysseys, returning to the safety of the home key from distant, menacing harmonic territories; the lyrics in country songs sweeten the familiarity of the good old days with the bitter sting of their passing; RnB embodies this dichotomy, with infectious grooves that incur a paradox of stability in motion which regulates the ancient areas of our brain; and electronic music and metal may anchor us in even more primal ways, with bass so heavy that the physical movement of our rattling rib cage provides a feeling of embodiment, wholeness and peace.

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Outside-in and Inside-out In our culture, it’s very common to assume that the ideal way to connect with this magic is primarily from the outside in. In the years since jazz was born, we have invested extraordinary time and resources inventing external tools, processes, conventions and canons to manipulate our external surroundings and access this feeling more often. We seem to imagine that if these external conditions are just right, everyone’s imagination will converge around the exact same perception of magic; but if you’ve spent any amount of time in this pursuit, you’ll know that there’s no physical gizmo or secret set of chord changes that will guarantee that experience of magic for every listener, every time.

Instead of aiming to converge around one experience of magic, we’re going to examine the ways in which every individual’s perception of music diverges from everyone else’s.

The Neurodiversity Paradigm How do we start to notice the differences in our perspectives? For most of us, trying to examine our cognition is a bit like a fish trying to examine water – it’s so familiar and omnipresent that it’s hard to imagine a world where our cognition operates differently, or even remember it’s happening at all.

This is where diversity is helpful. For generations, our cultural assumptions about “normal” cognition have been teaching Neurodivergent people like me to notice our neurocognitive profiles (sometimes the hard way).

In response, Neurodivergent communities have built on the traditions of courageous and brilliant scholars from fields including Critical Race Studies, Feminism, and Queer Theory to develop a perspective called the Neurodiversity Paradigm. Like the advocates before us in other fields, the Neurodivergent community has created language to recognise and name underlying assumptions which shape our world, because when we recognise these assumptions, we have the power to change them.

This global movement – rapidly gaining traction from classrooms to boardrooms – has an unsung Australian to thank for its inception. The term “Neurodiversity” was coined by Judy Singer in 1998, and, like many landmarks of minority emancipation, this achievement was not met with the recognition and celebration that one might now expect.

The Neurodiversity Paradigm posits that differences in our neurocognitive profiles are a natural expression of variety in the human genome, and that throughout our history, variation in how we think and experience the world has been essential for the survival and success of all communities and cultures. It refutes the deficit-focused views of Autism, Dys-lexia, -graphia, -calculia, -praxia and so-called Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), viewing the concept of “optimal” human functioning not as a scientific absolute, but a cultural norm which comes from power structures like patriarchy, white supremacy, heteronormativity and capitalism.

This view provides the tools to liberate everyone from assumptions about how we think. When people of different neurotypes listen deeply to each other’s experiences, it can lead us to the extraordinary realisation that there is no such thing as “standard” cognition or sensory experience.

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… WI TH BAS S SO HEAV Y T H AT THE PHYS I CA L M OVE M E N T O F OU R RAT T L I N G RI B CAGE PROVI D ES A FEELING OF E MBOD I M E N T, WHOL E N ES S A ND P EAC E .

This realisation can be a little unsettling at first, but opens a new world of possibility. When we understand this paradigm, we can embrace these differences and recognise the ways in which we may feel pressure to twist our instincts to fit an imagined cognitive norm. We can then start to imagine a future where we respond to our cognition on our own terms.

In music, the Neurodiversity Paradigm allows us to explore our personal relationships to the experience of pattern in sound, and question conventional assumptions about what sounds “right”. When we understand our own unique ways of experiencing music, we can abandon the need to observe conventions for their own sake and start to develop our proclivities into special opportunities for magic.

Convergent & Divergent Neurobiology For an example of this, let’s stop by the neuroscience lab. Science has a million ways to talk about Autism, and endless potential for speculation, so today I’ll discuss just one theory called “reduced neural pruning” and interpret it from my own Autistic experience.

All humans are born into a chaotic jumble of experience. Early in life, we seek a conceptual framework to make sense of it and optimise our brains for exploring. In the sensory brain areas, we create thick bursts of neurons designed to take in as much raw data as possible; and at a cognitive level, we develop a network of broad, diffuse pathways which prioritises our capacity to wonder, speculate and imagine new angles of interpretation. We call these kinds of connections “divergent thinking” because they branch outwards from existing conceptual structures towards new possibilities.

Most of us remember this state of neurocognitive exploration as childlike wonder. In this period, we are incredibly receptive to input and primed to perceive the kind of fresh experience that is an essential component of magic. We mostly experience life from the “bottom-up” through this direct sensory experience and we’re less likely to interpret our world as a set of pre-established labels.

In this state, our senses are saturated with vibrant colour and detail, so we experience the physical sensations of hearing sounds and producing them with instruments as incredibly vivid and compelling. In our cognitive faculties, our minds are optimised to find new interpretations for this sensory data, so our imaginations become charged with possibility and we’re often fascinated by everything we meet. In music, this can make every note feel brand new and help us see new types of patterns in sound.

Later, as we develop the core frameworks we need to navigate the world, most brains start to prioritise efficiency over exploration, and “neural pruning” begins. Our cognitive pathways themselves remain plastic throughout our lives and everyone retains their capacity to observe and influence their ongoing development; but we start to cut back the rich clusters of connectivity between our most common thought patterns, leaving a framework

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of narrow, efficient neural pathways around the fundamental concepts which shape our experience of life. The result is a “top-down” experience of life, where new experiences are interpreted primarily in terms of preestablished concepts. This is ideal for what we call “convergent thinking”.

Convergent thinking provides most adults with impressive cognitive speed and clarity. It gives us access to more structure and helps us feel we live in a familiar, coherent and predictable world. In music, it is the foundation for the structure and stability which is half of the recipe for magic. Convergent thinking allows us to filter disorganised sound information, sift through the relevant parts and quickly interpret them with reference to familiar concepts such as accurate tuning, catchy melodies, groovy rhythms and emotive chord progressions; but the trade-off is that it might start to feel formulaic. With narrow cognitive pathways, it takes more effort to disengage from labels and connect directly to our immediate experiences, so it’s not as common to see things in a completely new light.

Research shows that as Autistic people develop, we tend to undergo far less neural pruning than most others. In my experience, this means we often have access to plenty of stimulation, and when we are safe and comfortable, we are more likely to experience life as fresh, immediate and fascinating, and perceive new possibilities. On the other hand, though, it requires more energy to organise the swirling tide of sensory input and imaginative possibility, so in conditions which are accessible for others, we can experience much more noise and chaos, and quickly be overwhelmed.

From this perspective, we could draw up a continuum from “convergent” to “divergent” thinkers and posit that people with a lot of neural pruning in their brains fall closer to the convergent side, while Autistic people are more likely to fall towards the divergent end. When we consider the essential recipe for magic in music, this means that some of us have unique talents for creating the stability, cohesion and familiarity that are essential for magic to happen, while others have unique abilities to tune into the excitement of sound and think outside the box. As we’ve already discussed, this kind of collaboration is helpful in all kinds of music making, from classical to metal, but it has a particularly exciting implication for jazz.

Magic in Jazz: Convergent/Divergent Interplay in Time As an improvisational and highly context-specific art form, jazz is unique among Western genres in its capacity to play off one of the most powerful sources of convergence and divergence in our experience: time. In this way, jazz dynamically builds a magic interplay between tension and resolution, which, on a good night, can combine with the energy of the crowd and the culture to reach truly spellbinding heights of magical experience.

In improvised music, convergent experience comes from the past. While most genres provide the structure for us with notes on a page, jazz insists that its musicians and listeners internalise a deeper structural architecture underlying the notes themselves. Learning jazz is not just a matter of memorising musical phrases, but a process of building vast reservoirs of deep structural knowledge. This is an extremely powerful case of convergent thinking, where our capacity to organise and configure our knowledge takes the form of mathematically exquisite kaleidoscopes of rhythmic, harmonic and melodic possibilities in our minds.

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In the same way, improvisation creates new and powerful possibilities to engage with the immediacy of divergent experience. When we improvise, the tension doesn’t just come from sad lyrics or dominant sevenths but from the ultimate source of possibility: a vivid awareness of the present moment itself. When we hit the jazz club or bandstand, we plunge into the present moment, tuning into the vivid stimulation of direct experience and drawing instinctively from the vast compendium of knowledge that we’ve assembled in our brains to make new meaning in real time out of the relentless unfolding of sound.

Transcending difference As jazz fans, we’re part of a tradition which has explored the highest peaks of transcendence between convergence and divergence; and therefore, we’re able to create some of the most powerful and dynamic mutual understandings between these two apparent opposites. The meeting of structure and spontaneity in jazz improvisation is no different to the connection between convergent and divergent thinkers. In both cases, we’re transcending apparent difference to create a shared experience which is both deeper and more exciting. If we’re to continue this tradition as far as we can, let’s embrace our differences and start exploring together from the inside out.

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REVIVE ‘A L L I N T H E M I X’ © J O H N P RI N C E S I D D O N I M AG E S U P P L I E D BY M A N G K AJA A RTS

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C O NS I DERI NG THE NATIONAL CULTURAL PO LICY WO RDS ADAM SI MMON S A RT WO RK J OH N P RI N CE SI D D O N

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“ I N BEC O MING CREATIVE AUSTRAL IA, TH E AUSTRA L IA C OUNCIL WIL L BE A BIGG ER A N D BOL DER CH A MP IO N AND I N VESTO R IN AUSTRAL IA N ARTS A ND CREATIVIT Y.” – AD RIAN C OLLET TE

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On Januar y 30, 2023, the Australian National Cultural Policy, Revive , was launched by the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Minister for the Arts Tony Burke M P, marking only the third time since Federation that such a document outlining a cultural vision has been set out for the nation .

In his foreword, Burke lays out the Federal Government’s admirable vision: “Cultural policy goes to the place of culture within government and in turn within the nation. At its best it affects the whole of government, from how our youngest Australians first engage with music, through to the role of art in helping those with dementia or trauma, and ultimately in complementing Australia’s diplomatic and trade work around the globe.”

This is a long-awaited initiative, after many years of disregard of the arts by the Liberal Government and previous Arts Ministers, from the appropriation of Australia Council funds by George Brandis, to the policy vacuum under Mitch Fifield and Paul Fletcher.

Though, what exactly is the National Cultural Policy (NCP), what does it mean for music and more specifically, how might it impact the Australian jazz community? We’ll focus on the more relevant aspects for music and get a few different perspectives on these questions. Don’t get too excited though, there may yet be work to do.

Revive – Overview Revive is Australia’s cultural policy for the next five years. It outlines a plan for renewal and revival of the arts sector, after a long period of neglect and the more recent and severe impact over the past few years by COVID-19. The aim is for a broad policy that can potentially affect and inform a whole-of-government response.

A key feature of the policy will be the establishment of Creative Australia, a recasting of sorts of the Australia Council, though it will remain as governing board of the new investment and advisory body.

Additional bodies to be established within Creative Australia will be: a new First Nations First body, Music Australia, Writers Australia and the Centre for Arts and Entertainment Workplaces.

In a statement to Dingo by Australia Council for the Arts CEO Adrian Collette, he outlined the vision for the new bodies: “In becoming Creative Australia, the Australia Council will be a bigger and bolder champion and investor in Australian arts and creativity.

“Under the National Cultural Policy, the establishment of Music Australia will help support the Australian music industry to grow, including through strategic initiatives and industry partnerships, research, skills development and export promotion.”

During an industry briefing webinar held by the Australia Council, Music Australia, in conversation with The Music Network, the major industry submission – developed by 20 key music industry organisations* – was acknowledged as a critical driver of the music-related initiatives in Revive.

According to a statement from APRA AMCOS, Australia’s largest music industry body representing rights of Australasian songwriters, composers and publishers, and key to the development of the industry submission, the new Music Australia will be charged with: “industry and market development for contemporary music; investment in the creation of original music, songwriting and recording initiatives in schools; new strategic partnerships; research; funding for the export program Sounds Australia; and new co-investment agreements with states and territories.”

APRA AMCOS Chief Executive Dean Ormston declared in the statement: “This is a profound vote of confidence in the cultural, economic and social potential of Australian music. The Albanese Government has clearly listened to the proposals that have been put forward by the [20] music industry bodies as part of the national cultural policy consultation.” *The full music industry submission was developed by: Association of Artist Managers, Australian Festival Association, Australian Guild of Screen Composers, Australian Independent Record Labels Association, Australian Live Music Business Council, Australian Music Centre, Australian Music Industry Network, Australasian Music Publishers Association, APRA AMCOS, ARIA, PPCA, Crew Care, Live Music Office, Live Performance Australia, Music Producer and Engineers’ Guild, National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Music Office, OneMusic, Sounds Australia, Support Act and The Push.

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Revive – Details The policy gives an outline of the planned objectives for Music Australia as per this excerpt from Revive (page 69): The Government will increase support for the music industry through the creation of Music Australia (located within Creative Australia) that will: grow the market for contemporary Australian music increase development of original music through investment in artistic creation deliver song writing and recording initiatives in schools develop new strategic partnerships within and beyond the music sector, including to undertake research and data collection around key issues, including festivals and venues provide ongoing support for Sounds Australia – Australia’s export music market development initiative support industry professionals to learn business and management skills provide central coordination around access to live music venues for bands and solo artists develop new co-investment agreements with states, territories and industry to deliver national sector-wide priorities, and create Community Music Hubs in high density living areas.

A Music Australia body, with representation from artists and industry, will be established to support contemporary music activity and programs and run Music Australia.

Feedback is currently being sought on the NCP from artists and industry, with particular reference to these details – more on this below.

Revive – Response Upon the launch of the NCP, Ormston’s statement proclaimed: “The creation of Music Australia with recurrent annual funding will, for the first time in the nation’s history, provide an opportunity for a wholeof-government, cross-portfolio, strategic and long-term relationship with the breadth of the Australian contemporary music industry.”

During the information webinar, Ormston noted that in relation to formulating Music Australia’s priorities, policies and actions, consultation will be key for people to be “comfortable with what the definition of Music Australia is and what we mean by contemporary music and I don’t think we need to leave anybody behind, certainly in terms of the breadth of APRA AMCOS’s membership it is genre agnostic and I think that is the opportunity of Music Australia”.

Martin Jackson, Melbourne Jazz Co-operative’s (MJC) Artistic Director/ CEO and jazz advocate, wrote in a recent MJC newsletter of the potential positives of the NCP announcement: “Of course, this is a most welcome and extremely positive initiative from Labor, with much to be pleased about … Labor and Minister Burke should be congratulated on developing this policy in such a relatively short period.”

“But, as the saying goes, the devil is in the detail, and it remains to be seen to what degree (if any) that the needs of the dramatically under-resourced jazz scene will be recognised (and addressed) by this new strategy.”

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A similar, optimistically cautious view is expressed

by Paul Davies, Director of Musicians Australia (MA), the union for working musicians: “MA, as part of MEAA [Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance], is greatly encouraged by the National Cultural Policy initiatives. Recognition and action to support and develop artists, with a strong emphasis on musicians in particular, is long overdue and promises to reform our industry. Music Australia is also a great opportunity for musicians and MA is currently in consultation with the Government on how it will work. We are particularly concerned to see that any industry development investment is supported by efforts to strengthen the sector at large.”

Revive – Opportunities The NCP broad scope has the potential for transformational change, such as in education as Collette expresses: “One of the cornerstones of the National Cultural Policy is the cross-departmental work to be done to deliver all aspects of the Policy – and one of those is education. We look forward to working with other departments to ensure creative opportunities are maximised for young Australians.”

Indeed, one of the main activities detailed for Music Australia is to “deliver song writing and recording initiatives in schools”, aligning with APRA AMCOS’s advocacy over the past couple of years. As Davies explains, in addition to performing, musicians “also support and build the sector through working with their communities, and by teaching and tutoring.”

Another worthy and timely initiative is the Centre for Arts and Entertainment Workplaces, which as Davies hopes, “should wind back the appalling situation as reported in the Raising Their Voices report from last year, where 72% of women in the sector suffer abuse and anti-social behaviour but only 3% are confident enough to report it.”

In terms of financial sustainability, while Revive notes that many submissions “raised remuneration, including a basic income” (such has been piloted in Ireland, for example), there is only a recognition of the principle that fair pay and conditions are essential.

The Government will mandate minimum rates for performers at Australian Government events.

Davies acknowledges this positively: “Recognition of this principle in Revive is a great first step and MA will be continuing to campaign to see the $250 [as a minimum floor] implemented, first in publicly funded events and next, through partnerships with

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industry, across the sector … The music industry is hugely profitable, but too much of the commercial activity of the industry is off the backs of musicians who are simply not paid what they should be.”

In response to questions on whether Music Australia will offer additional or different opportunities for jazz organisations that currently receive ongoing or project funding from Australia Council, Collette explained: “We do not anticipate that Music Australia activities will impact the existing fouryear funding arrangements of the Australia Council.

“We recognise the significant importance and value of the jazz sector to the Australian music landscape, with recent investment in jazz projects and artists including the SoundOut Festival and the Eishan Ensemble.

“Further, the 2022 Australia Council Don Banks Music Award recipient is the legendary jazz pianist and composer Dr Judy Bailey OAM – in recognition of her outstanding work.”

Outlining Musicians Australia’s support for the jazz sector, Davies stated: “We value and advance music, through the work of our members, in all forms and in all settings. However, where particular segments of the industry are excluded or marginalised by policy or industry, whether intentionally or otherwise, we will work with our members to make the case for them. MA has a strong footing in the jazz and improvised music worlds, and we understand the particular contribution this practice makes to our communities and to industry.”

Revive – Challenges There is much to be lauded about the aspirations of a government that has delivered on its commitment to the arts with the announcement of this policy. Though, I agree with Jackson that the “devil is in the detail”.

Definitions will be key to determining who is allowed in and who misses out. The three critical terms here will be “contemporary”, “commercial” and “industry”, with “music” itself being a possible casualty of misunderstanding.

When questioned during the briefing webinar on how he would define “contemporary music”, Collette replied: “I am not going to get too hung up on definitions here … rather than what is contemporary or not, I just would emphasise, one of the points I made in my opening remarks, that here the opportunity is to really invest in the commercial sector in a way we haven’t been able to do before … the real switch here is the invitation, in fact the necessity, to work within the industry, to work with industry experts to say, ‘How do we invest this to build the Australian industry and the Australia sector?’”

In response to my subsequent request for clarification of these terms and how “art music” genres relate, Collette provided no comment.

The reality is that definitions are crucial. Look at how people fell through the JobKeeper cracks or those non-GST-registered artists

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that missed out on some Victorian COVID-related relief. Of particular relevance is how Creative Victoria’s interpretation of “contemporary music” since the Music Works program was introduced has led to contradictory advice on program eligibility and that Music Victoria is not representative of all music genres of a contemporary nature. Might these divides be replicated at a federal level?

My research and questioning have left me with many other questions, wondering whether jazz has been properly considered or been left out to dry – again. We should not expect our major festivals and organisations to benefit as they are generally nonprofit by legal definition, thereby non-commercial. Our venues, labels (generally artist-run), artists operating as sole-traders/ small businesses, and even Dingo, should be able to engage with Music Australia, but will we be “commercial” enough?

Are we considered as “industry”? Will we be consulted?

Revive – Survive or Thrive Overall, the fact we finally have a visionary blueprint to develop Australian arts and culture is a small miracle, let alone one that does seem to be supported by political will and increased funding promised.

This does not put it beyond scrutiny, though. For a policy claiming an expansive cultural agenda, naming a new body as “Music Australia” that is not encompassing of all Australian music is disappointing, to say the least.

There is still work to be done for those who are interested and have the energy. Australia Council’s ongoing consultation process is calling for feedback from musicians and organisations, on the questions of what are the two top priorities that Music Australia should focus on, and what measures of success should be in place for evaluation of the new body.

Though, for real impact, I believe it will require our major jazz organisations to unite and act together to leverage the true potential of Revive in benefitting Australia’s jazz sector. Is this possible? Some would say not. But the underground, widespread yet interconnected nature of the jazz community in this country can work to our advantage – passion for the music, not money, is generally what drives us, and we’re usually only one or two degrees of separation from anyone in the scene. Concerted and collective action on a national scale by artists, audiences, students, teachers, venues, labels, festivals, presenters, radio, journalists, record stores and the like, would send a loud and clear message to our leaders, be they political or industry representatives.

Just imagine … what if instead of settling for Revive, we pushed together for Thrive?

Further information on Revive and to provide feedback: australiacouncil.gov.au/creative-australia

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J O E L M O O RE - M U LG A

JAZZ IN SY D N EY

WORDS DAN BARNET T A RT WORK MU LGA & CL ARE CAULFI ELD

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… L IT T LE G I GS S EEM TO PO P U P EVERYWH ERE ; YOU J UST HAVE TO KEEP YOU R EAR TO T HE G ROU N D.

C L A RE CAU L F I E L D ' SYD N EY H A R B O U R'

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When I grew up, S ydney was the cit y that never slept – you could hear music any night of the week till late. M usicians still reminisce about the golden days when S ydney had a thriving jazz club scene with venues such as The Basement, Side - On Cafe, Strawberr y Hills Hotel, Venue 505, The Real Ale, Round Midnight, The Blue Note and the legendar y Soup Plus running gigs ever y night. Whilst things have changed somewhat in Australia’s big gest cit y there is certainly still some great music on of fer. S ydney has never lacked for talent, boasting some of the best in the land performing on a regular basis, along with loads of interstate and overseas artists blowing through .

I will start by mentioning three mainstays of the Sydney scene: Foundry 616, the city’s only full-time jazz venue, hosts a raft of great local and overseas artists such as The Catholics, James Morrison, Mike Nock, Andrew Dickeson, Tessie Overmeyer, Sandy Evans and Adrian Mears.

SIMA (Sydney Improvised Music Association) presents regular programmes at various venues throughout the year with big name Australian and international artists performing.

Manly Jazz, Australia’s longest running jazz festival, draws big crowds for its annual three-day event to kick off the warm Sydney weather around October.

What I love about Sydney is that little gigs seem to pop up everywhere; you just have to keep your ear to the ground.

There are a couple of ways I’ve found really helpful. One is to listen to Eastside Radio (89.7FM). Celebrating 40 years on air, the station has a plethora of great jazz and specialist music shows, many of which are hosted by professional musicians such as George Washingmachine, Jim Pennell, Matt McMahon, Peter Dasent and Sally London, featuring regular interviews with local and international artists, and updates on gigs around the traps. The other thing I find extremely helpful is a succinct gig guide. With the demise of printed guides, 2RDJ announcer Hugo Swing Masters’s gig guide has filled the void in this department with a great weekly update – email Hugo at gigs.sydneyblues@gmail.com to get on his mailing list.

DA N BA RN E T T B I G BA N D

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I’ve had my musical hat in a few rings over the years and was lucky enough to be in the band of the great New Orleans–style trumpeter Geoff Bull for many years. Geoff has a habit of getting some of the younger generation interested in playing older styles in his outfits, and his latest, wonderful incarnation, Geoff Bull and the Finer Cuts, perform Sunday evenings at Newtown’s Botany View Hotel. The pub also has a wonderful Thursday-night residency hosted by crack pianist Aaron Blakey, with a sterling band featuring award-winning drummer Tim Firth, saxophonist Andrew Crago and bassist Tom Botting. On occasion, I’ve also heard the great UK saxophonist Will Vinson perform with that band.

The birthplace of the Labor movement in Australia, the Unity Hall Hotel in Balmain has a long running jazz policy on a Sunday, with the Unity Hall Jazz Band having just celebrated 50 years at the venue.

Names such as Leroy Jones, Wycliffe Gordon, Paul Furniss, Brad Child, Bob Henderson, Al Davey, Gary Walford, Lyn Wallace, Don Heap, Monica Trapaga, Bob Barnard, Andrew Robertson, Peter Locke, Nicki Parrott, James Greening and many more have graced the stage there. Local saxophonist and educator David Theak describes the Unity as “a unique Sydney experience where listeners and dancers alike soak up amazing music in a party atmosphere”. The Dan Barnett Big Band performs there every first Sunday of the month.

LOW D OW N RI D E RS

The inner west of Sydney is thriving with venues these days. Lazybones Lounge in Marrickville, whilst not strictly speaking a jazz venue, hosts regular nights of jazz, particularly earlier in the week and sometimes in the downstairs bar on weekends. You can hear people such as Steve Hunter, Hammerhead, Pat Powell, Clayton Doley, The Vampires and award-winning Sydney saxophonist James Ryan, a regular fixture at the club from the early days, who describes Lazybones “as a beacon of hope in Sydney’s inner west for creative original musicians and bands”.

Close by are venues such as Camelot Lounge, Gasoline Pony and Butchers Brew Bar, where you can hear some of the young guns cutting their teeth as well as established artists strutting their stuff most nights of the week.

Not too far away in Ashfield, a new kid on the block is Miss Celie’s which hosts a weekly jam session and regular jazz gigs including people such as Eric Alexander, Dale Barlow, Cyril Bevan, John Harkins, Darren Heinrich and Sam Rollings. Owner Paul Blasi used to work at the Soup Plus many years ago, so he knows what it takes to make a venue work. Paul also curates the programme at the nearby Pratten Park Bowling Club. I met with Paul recently and he explained that “Miss Celie’s was never intended as a music venue. However, three years down the track … I have to say it’s what brought it to life … bit by bit, slowly but surely, it evolves, in a lovely feedback loop between the community, musicians, kids, jammers and all walks of life.”

Still in the inner west, Johnston Street Jazz in leafy Annandale runs a weekly program where musicians can blood new projects in a beautiful, relaxed environment. You can hear experimental music and straight-ahead things there, they don’t take sides. The shoeless Artistic Director, Andrew Lorien says “with my volunteer community of music lovers we’ve, for 20 years, been hosting the finest players your listening ears could hope for.”

M A N LY JA Z Z A L L STA RS

M A N LY JA Z Z P H OTO BY SA LT Y D I N G O

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SYD N EY FEELS L I KE IT’S I N A VERY P RO D UCTIVE P L ACE AT PRESE N T AN D … P EO P LE I N T H I S G REAT C ITY ARE NOT TAKING T HI N GS SO MUCH FO R G RANT ED NOW ...

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A great new initiative coming from Guy Gross’s Church Street Studios in Camperdown is Monday Night Confessions, which will have a programme curated by the new breed of stars Ben Lerner, Chloe Kim, Tom Avgenicos and Lachy Hamilton. Guy explained to me that he “watched his musician friends suffer through the lockdowns and realised he had a great lounge style space perfect for intimate concerts”. Guy is currently seeking necessary permissions to continue offering Sydney musicians of all flavours an exciting new performance space.

Legendary 90-something-year-old trumpeter Billy Burton, who MD’d for acts such as Stevie Wonder and Tom Jones back in the day, hosts a wonderful gig at Avalon Bowling Club in Sydney’s Northern Beaches on a Wednesday night. With a different guest singer each week, it’s always packed and feels like an old school gig, where the club supports the music and musicians and people really listen and soak up some swingin’ tunes. Bill describes it as a dream gig, with a beautiful band consisting of bassist Craig Scott, pianist Ray Alldridge on piano and drummer Ron Lemke. Some of Sydney’s great voices can be heard including Virna Sanzone, Lauren Dawes, Joy Yates, Gregg Arthur, Johnny Nicole and Sandie White.

Whilst it’s hard to include everyone, I could not forget The Starfish Club at Clovelly Bowling Club. Possibly the best located venue in Sydney, perched on the cliffs with incredible ocean views, the club does a monthly gig (sometimes more) with a dedicated, if not fanatical, fan base.

Starfish has been a mainstay for 25-odd years and is hosted

by Australian music legends Jonathan Zwartz, Hamish Stuart and Jane Lindsay. The varied programme throughout the year is where you often hear touring artists that are briefly in town from interstate or overseas such as John Cleary, Julian Wilson, Mike Nock, Barney McAll, Jade MacRae, Darren Percival and Tina Harrod, to name just a few.

Sydney is also the home of Earshift Music, a label started by Sydney reed man, bandleader and composer Jeremy Rose.

Rose has pumped out more than 60 high-quality creative projects by artists such as Cameron Undy, Rafael Karlen, Paul Cutlan and the Avgenicos Brothers. Rose describes his label as “pushing the boundaries of what jazz is and can achieve, representing the fresh future of Australian jazz”.

Sydney feels like it’s in a very productive place at present and if I could pinpoint the most positive outcome of the last few years, it is that people in this great city are not taking things so much for granted now and are making the most of these listening opportunities. Long may it continue.

Dan Barnett is a singer, trombonist, composer, shellman and radio presenter living in Sydney.

J O E L M O O RE - M U LG A

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RELEASING MUSIC

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Support & resources for gigging jazz musicians around the world. jazzfuel.com

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reviews

TO BEG IN AT TH E BEG IN N IN G Tony Gould & Carl Mackey ABC Jazz

While recording any music brings its own challenges, perhaps nothing matches up to that of two musicians alone, with just their compositions and improvisational wits. This one is an absolute delight to the ear. With the chemistry between these two never dissipating in any way right through to the final track, it immediately touches the heart. Tony Gould has written some brilliant original pieces with melodic lines that are timeless, perfectly showcasing them alongside William Walton’s composition “Touch Her Soft Lips and Part”. Every note that the duo plays engages the listener’s emotions. Gould is a composer and a musician at the top of his game. With Gould is Carl Mackey on alto and soprano saxophones, another musician who is truly top class. He plays with an astonishing technical assuredness and a kind of ever-present intensity that is rare. Their empathetic connected communication is evident, throughout contributing equally to the overall result and mesmerising the listener into a continually awed state. The titles “The Italian”, “The French”, and “The Irish” conjure up moods and abstract climates, allowing these pieces to flourish freely and effortlessly. They are the standout musical gems.

Gould and Mackey are idiosyncratic musicians who bring out the best in one another. Their collaboration on this recording is a high point in both of their careers and the resulting output is music that is accessible and thought-provoking.

Barry O’Sullivan

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K E EP IT SIMPLE The What Ifs

EA RTH MAT TE RS

Independent

Number Junky

For over 20 years now, Melbourne trumpeter Paul Williamson has been cranking out a steady flow of albums, so much so it is easy to become complacent about how good his oeuvre really is. Keep It Simple represents his 13th release since 2001’s debut non-consensual head impression. During that time, he has drawn upon an ever-rotating cast of musicians – Paul Grabowsky, Andrea Keller, the late Allan Browne, Marc Hannaford, Christopher Hale, Theo Carbo and numerous others – to perform his music. Increasingly of late, he’s shown a proclivity for surrounding himself with adventurous – and often younger – musicians, on this occasion firebrand saxophonist Scott McConnachie, double bass virtuoso Helen Svoboda, Canadian improvising drummer Dylan van der Schyff and up-and-coming vibist Miro Lauritz, whose lush percussive sound acts as the perfect foil to the spiky and moody horns.

Williamson’s compositions, many hitting the tenminute mark, are fuelled by a brooding tension, reflecting an exploratory approach that juggles dissonant, angular themes (think Ornette Coleman) with extended ruminative passages (think Miles).

Opener “Northside Homegrown” exemplifies these strengths, switching as it does between gentle, rhythmic beats and sustained subliminal urgency.

Williamson’s trumpet, ringed with darkness, darts in and about Lauritz’s vibes, while McConnachie’s searing alto, pitched way outside the melody line – Dolphy-like – appears intent on shredding the natural order. Keep It Simple is rich in bold themes, bravura solos and complex rhythms. Added to which, it furnishes a rare opportunity to laud the brilliance of the woefully under-recorded McConnachie, a frightening talent whose work demands wider notice.

Des Cowley

Cool It! Records

Inventive and unyielding, Earth Matters by trio Number Junky is an enthralling listen for the full 60+ minute album duration; led by Danish expat guitarist Kristian Borring, joined

by Perth natives Zac Grafton on double bass and Peter Evans on drums, with Cuban pianist Fabian Almazan guesting for three tracks.

You could be forgiven for feeling wary about the listenability of a record steeped in Kristian’s doctoral research on non-isochronous meter in jazz composition and improvisation. However, I can assure you that Earth Matters is exciting, satisfying, digestible and – above all – sounds incredible. Frolicking amongst alternative time signatures, the group earn their name through making switches of groove and time-feel sound easy.

Kristian plays with emotion and depth, speaking through the strings of his guitar. Fabian’s pianistic contributions are seamless and leave you questioning whether he was not in fact present the whole time. Zac and Peter serve the project stunningly and keep the rhythm boiler room well stoked. Indeed, all the musicians have approached their instruments with a conscious attention to tone and texture of the musical vibrations they are creating. The result is a cohesive album that takes you on a journey from track one to track ten.

Kristian named Earth Matters as a way to present music as a vehicle to discuss environmental care, putting forward the group’s contribution, as artists, towards the large issues at hand. It’s a cue we could all benefit from responding to, and an album we could all benefit from listening to.

Josh Underhill

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PLAYS ER @ SURE DESCRIPTIO N VO L. II Max Grynchuk Big Band Independent

Take your entrenched, long-held understanding of big band music – give it a loving look – and then throw it out the window. Max Grynchuk Big Band’s Plays Er@ser Description Vol. II is a forward-thinking, future-sounding take on brass and woodwinds over a rhythm section.

Building on a legacy already well-established with the first volume, Vol II opens with a track that grooves harder than an “intro to the band” has any right to. The album immediately commands your attention, with quality writing and arranging as well as unconventional artistic choices. An example of this is how the sound of a carbonated beverage is used to perfectly fit the breaks through the back third of “Waves”. It’s something that could sound gimmicky but is pulled off in such a way to be satisfying and fun.

All soloists across the record approach their moments in the spotlight with style and chops. Not overplaying the rest of the band, yet still saying “check this out”. Composed

by David Goodwin, Jack Strempel and Alexander Flood, and arranged by Max Grynchuk, the tracks are pulsing, big jams that play with tempo and dynamics to etch an intricate sound that never once becomes boring or repetitive.

Max, based in Adelaide SA, has done a fabulous job assembling eighteen talented musicians to surround his trumpet sound, making music that has this listener completely obsessed.

Do yourself a favour, get this record and follow the first track’s instructions to “put your volume to max output”.

Josh Underhill

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F U L L CIRC LE Nadje Noordhuis Newvelle Records

The first thing that strikes you when listening to this wonderful album is the gorgeous tone that Nadje extracts from her trumpet and flugelhorn: warm, rich and inviting. Second comes with the realisation that she is backed by no ordinary band: Fred Hersch on piano, Rudy Royston, drums and Thomas Morgan providing the bottom.

Sublime. Finally, Nadje’s compositions, filled with melody and lines that catch the ear and demand to be heard again.

STA RS Anita Wardell & Dave McEvoy Independent

An excellent album that commands to be heard.

Anita Wardell has become an even better jazz singer on this latest release by expanding and perfecting her songwriting and vocalese skills. With the addition of Dave McEvoy on piano, displaying an overall warmth and depth to the arrangements, her newest recording showcases four judiciously selected standards and three originals written by the pianist and herself, alongside an ameliorated slow-tempo version of the Fred Hersch/ Norma Winstone tune “Stars”, as well as a bouncy up-tempo scatted version of Clark Terry’s 1957 classic track “Digits” to open with. The four chestnuts from the Great American Songbook – “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?”, “Where Is Love?”, “I’ll String Along With You” and “Can’t Help Loving Dat Man” – have beautifully crafted arrangements and when complimented by the vocal interpretations expertly delivered by Wardell, they shimmer like the precious masterpieces they are. Her soothing vocal lines, in duet with McEvoy on backing vocals on her original composition “Rewind”, reminded me of a Jobim standard and is a treat for the ears. Wardell’s voice cries out, “Listen to me”, on this album which is undoubtedly one of her finest to date.

McEvoy plays with a wonderfully joyous touch and slots in perfectly beside the vocalist with his exhilarating solos and perfect intuitive gentle support for Wardell, who delivers some of the best jazz vocals you can hear today.

Michael Prescott

Barry O’Sullivan

Nadje was brought up in Sydney. Briefly studying sound engineering prior to moving for study at Melbourne's Victorian College of the Arts, Nadje then moved to New York where she completed her master’s at the Manhattan School of Music, where she now teaches. She has become a valued member of ensembles such as the Maria Schneider Orchestra and Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society.

Recorded in New York for audiophile label Newvelle Records, Full Circle is a thing of beauty. Throughout Hersch’s lyrical piano is evident providing restrained but perfect support to the leader, punctuated with the inventive solos that we have come to expect from such a master.

Added to the mix are Royston’s percussive splashes and Morgan’s rumbling bass lines, perfectly rounding out the music.

The nine tunes were all composed by Nadje, most with this band in mind.

Tellingly, all hover between four and six minutes; plenty of time to develop the themes and improvise, without being too long and outstaying their welcome.

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25 : 03 : 22 Polymorphic Orkestra Bamboozle Music

Imagine a different version of Google Earth: like the one we know, you can zoom out to the massive abstractions of mountain ranges, deserts, river networks, oceans and ice caps, with their particular geographical colour schemes. And you can zoom in to explore the houses, paths and point-in-time patches of snow, foliage or burnt grass.

Now imagine you can also scroll back through time and watch the surface revert to its liquid state where the first tiny forms of life bloomed. Imagine you could zoom down to see the translucent creatures and light flowing in seaweed forests under the sea. Imagine you could scroll into suburbs, factories, highways and watch the endless trails of traffic and trains, endless rhythmic movement of machines, endless ebb and flow of people on so many little feet doing the things that humans do – thinking, making, moving.

25:03:22 reminds of this version of Google Earth. It’s huge and minute – large spaces and many notes.

It’s a little bit electric and a lot organic in a live, chaotic, deliberate, free and controlled kind of way.

Ed Rodrigues delivers solid and textured percussion and drums; Ed Goyer’s vibraphone sits somewhere between earth and sky; and Lee McIver’s crisp trumpet and flugel horn combined with Rob Vincs’s saxello spin beautiful tales between them. It’s open-ended. It’s full of world. I could spend a long time here.

Isabelle Skaburskis

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RITUAL DIAMO NDS Christopher Hale Earshift Music

Over the years bassist Christopher Hale has produced an excellent and underrated body of work. Now comes this new release where he spreads his influences still wider. Seeming far from, although including, his flamenco influences, Hale has teamed up with South Korean percussionist Woo Minyoung to produce this exhilarating blend of superb songs and truly imaginative percussion. This joining of traditional Korean percussion and jazz is both original and uplifting, the added rhythmic complexity lifts the music to another level. At just over 35 minutes it is not the longest album, but just right.

Supporting Hale and Minyoung is pianist Andrea Keller, saxophonist Jamie Oehlers, Simon Barker on drums and Theo Carbo adding some wonderful guitar. It is clearly a fine band. But it is the combination of these musicians, the concept of fusing Korean percussion with jazz and finally Hale’s excellent tunes that ensures that this is a cut above. Keller’s restrained keyboards, Oehlers’s gorgeous and very distinctive tone plus the leader’s fabulous bass guitar, not to mention Minyoung’s complex percussion, all contribute to the overall sound, which is both compelling and immersive.

Minyoung’s contribution should not be underestimated. Her percussion is the ingredient that brings it all together by adding tonal colour and a percussive complexity, working in perfectly with Barker’s excellent drumming.

The last and title track is the exception, as it is a dazzling percussion-only work featuring both Minyoung and Hale on percussion. A fitting finale for an original and rare album.

Michael Prescott

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I N THE BLOOD David Galea Independent

Versatile bassist and composer David Galea brings his own first-hand experience of the Australian Outback into his latest release In the Blood. It’s also a deeply personal homage to those closest to him in his life.

This primarily vocal album, features the smooth and dreamy vocals of Elly Hoyt and Briana Cowlishaw, contrasting powerful and emotive vocals of Simon Watson. Galea himself sings on “Stepping Back” with a touching and heartfelt ballad to his wife.

Galea’s first vocal tune “Red Earth Red Sky” is a powerful promise of the ensuing connection between the land and compositions to come. “Changing textures, as rock and sky collide” are apt lyrics to describe the music itself. The doubled melody by Elly Hoyt and Ash Ides on piano, and often Ben Bryne on saxophone, interweave, dance and play between hope, beauty and danger. Drummer Adam Donaldson and Galea shape a depth of sonic flow. A tasteful David Gooey supports on guitar.

Three instrumental “Fragments” feel like short exotic movements, flourishes of sounds purposefully different to the rest of the album, comprising only double bass, saxophone and guest Lachlan Hawkins on hand pan. There’s a sparseness to “Dust”, coupled with a yearning saxophone – reflecting the pain and beauty of a rugged and solitary land. In “Light”, bass and hand pan capture in their wistful synergy a flickering of brilliance, while “Rain” feels a celebration.

Overall, Galea has created something truly special here; something new for him and something that the Australian jazz landscape can be proud of.

Julia Messenger

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O LD IDEA/N EW IDEA Fran Swinn Lionsharecords

It’s been a long time between drinks. Old Idea/New Idea represents Melbourne guitarist Fran Swinn’s first album since 2011’s Every Dog. Not that she’s been resting on her laurels. In recent years, she’s been holding down the guitar chair in Tamara Murphy’s outfit Spirograph Studies, while teaching guitar at Victoria University.

For her new album, she’s gathered together a quartet featuring pianist Sam Keevers, bassist Sam Anning and drummer Rajiv Jayaweera, with vocalist Josh Kyle guesting on three tracks. Swinn is an understated guitarist – think Jim Hall – who adopts a less-is-more approach, her notes, delicate and fluid, gently prodding and dancing around the melody. Opening track “Lyle St” features Kyle’s wordless vocalising, a scenesetter for Swinn’s drifting and luminous solo, which hums above Keever’s Latin-inflected piano, recalling something of the shimmering quality of Pat Metheny’s 80s workouts with Lyle Mays. On “When We’re Old”, Keevers trots out a stride motif, underpinned by Anning’s walking bass. Swinn’s guitar, when it enters, is pointillist in manner, a palette of fine markings gently applied to a light-filled surface. The title track conjures wide-open vistas, its slow-moving Frisell-ian refrain brimming with emotion. Throughout, Keevers – a glaringly underrated musician – is a standout, his elegant touch generating magical figures, teasing melody out of air. But the credit sits with Swinn, who composed these eight tracks, and who displays a growing artistry at every turn, forging an idiosyncratic style that elevates restraint over ostentation, her sound rich in colour, saturated with warm beauty.

Des Cowley

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ON TRACKS RO GER M ITCHELL SELECTS T HREE D ISPARAT E T RACKS FRO M A FAVOU RIT E ALBU M FOR A CLOSER LIST E N.

SLIP SLIDIN G Burke, Monder, Rainey with Grayson FMR 2016

Rob Burke tenor, alto and soprano saxophones plus bass clarinet; Ben Monder guitar; Tom Rainey drums; Ben Grayson electronics and editing in post.

Recorded in Brooklyn, New York with the aim to “evoke emotions and discussion about what is good, bad, different, indifferent, familiar, beauty and the unexplainable”, this project slides between composition and improvisation – featuring seven pieces by Burke and four group improvisations – while also investigating the effects of distortion. There’s so much here to challenge us and to love. Hence three tracks: Slip Sliding 5:18 The regular strum of guitar strings creates a subdued landscape that could evoke misty rain, against which the reed notes muse and drift plaintively, given detail by interventions from the drum kit.

Eventually guitar chords take over the narrative. What’s to like? This, the epitome of a drifting song – we go where it flows, with ease.

Divergently 8:56 So much happens in this longer piece – playful noodlings from Burke and Monder turn into faster runs before well-spaced, minimal reed peeps. A brief, but delightful dance ensues, becoming faster and a little chaotic, with rapid runs of notes. Monder creates patterns that gain viscosity from distortion as they build in intensity and intricacy. Burke enters the fray with an insistent monologue that digs deeper, dipping into gravel, before drums punctuate soaring reed notes. There is a tiny pause before a final energy-filled flourish. What’s the overall appeal? Change is imminent, around every corner, so there is no alternative but to revel in it and join the ride, throwing away caution – always the best way to listen.

Discordat 2 3:37 Musicians accustomed to the deep listening required for improvisation may be able to easily identify when what’s played is on or off the charts, so to speak. I don’t claim to know, yet this group improvisation (now that I’m aware of that, of course) has that feel of creation on the run and ready reaction. Yet there is no need to hurry. The piece evolves from a sombre, slow beginning to an uplifting end.

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FILM REVIEW ROG E R FRA MPTO N C O MES A LIVE! 2022

This beautiful film, which I found very moving, is an important work. The story of Roger Frampton, since his arrival in Sydney in 1968, is a large part of the history of jazz in the country’s then most significant jazz community, up to the end of the 20 th century. Frampton, a multi-instrumentalist of rare distinction, was a central figure in that history and this absorbing documentary is enormously revealing.

Emily Rytmeister, Roger’s daughter, was 25 when he died on January 4, 2000, at 51. She acknowledged then that he had profoundly influenced her life. This “student film”, however, part of the PhD she completed at Western Sydney University in 2021, has enhanced her appreciation of her father. “The film represents my journey of ‘coming to know’ Roger,” she said at the film’s premiere on November 3, 2022. “He was my father, friend and confidante, yet none of these relationships allowed as much insight into who he was, as the process of making this film allowed me.”

The film knits together what is known of Frampton’s life from media footage and radio interviews. The clever use of still photographs, in the style of US documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, is a plus. The heart of the film, however, rests in astute comments made about him in interviews conducted by Emily and her husband, drummer Gordon Rytmeister, principally with jazz musicians who worked with Roger and knew him best.

Add footage of him in performance with groups such as Jazz Co/op, Intersection, Ten Part Invention and The Engine Room, and there is abundant evidence of a musical talent so wideranging that many considered him a genius.

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Frampton arrived in Sydney in time to ride the wave of jazz development that was commencing and would sustain the scene until the end of the century. The American saxophonist/educator Howie Smith arrived in early 1973 to set up the first jazz studies course at a tertiary level in Australia at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. The Basement also opened in 1973, where the leaderless quartet Jazz Co/op, including Smith and Frampton, Jack Thorncraft and Phil Treloar, presented the most adventurous modern jazz hitherto heard in Sydney, thereby encouraging a whole generation of musicians and listeners to expand their musical horizons.

Comments from musicians who encountered Frampton at the Conservatorium are highly complimentary. James Morrison, for example, says that his musical concepts changed for the better under Frampton. Before Roger there was, on the one hand, “out” or modern playing, while on the other, there was traditional jazz or swing.

“They were different things”, he says, but “Roger so embraced both, and so brought them together in such a beautiful way, he took that line away.”

While the film well documents how much Roger was admired, this is no hagiography. At a certain point the film merges into critique, as several interviewees reflect on Frampton’s more negative qualities, indeed his penchant for self-destruction. On occasions he could be difficult to get on with, and often lacked common sense. In this respect Mike Nock says that Roger was his own worst enemy. The American trumpeter Don Rader, with whom Frampton performed in the Modern Jazz Duo from 1993, says that Roger would have gone much further had he had more self-discipline.

1995 was a milestone for Frampton, when a catastrophic downslide in his fortunes began: the loss of his job at the Conservatorium; lack of work and diminishing teaching opportunities; financial hardship; eviction from his Malabar house in 1998, and relocation to Wollongong; the diagnosis of an inoperable brain tumour in August 1999; and the coup de grâce, his death in early 2000.

The film starkly documents a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.

In 1995 Frampton was asked to re-apply for his lecturer position at the Conservatorium, which he had held for over 20 years. His application was unsuccessful. He stayed on as a casual lecturer, but soon resigned. How could this have happened?

Sandy Evans says that Roger “wasn’t given the credit he should have been given for his artistic practice within the Conservatorium context.

Definitely, there’s no doubt in my mind about that.

And that was a huge source of difficulty for him.”

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Who did not appreciate Frampton’s “artistic practice” at the Con? Mike Nock says that Roger failed to adapt to “new circumstances”. Could the new circumstances have been a head of jazz studies who was not on Frampton’s wavelength?

Roger’s close friend John Pochée says that jazz studies chairman Dick Montz told Frampton, “Roger, don’t worry about it, the gig’s as good as yours … and it wasn’t at all.” A high-note trumpet specialist, Montz was, according to his own testimony, a non-improvising musician. It’s not difficult to imagine that he and Frampton, an improviser and a free spirit were, as personalities, poles apart.

Despite his flagging fortunes, Frampton set out to achieve academic qualifications, the lack of which may have hindered his job prospects at the Con. Commencing study in 1997, he received a Doctorate of Creative Arts from Wollongong University for his thesis The View From Within: Correlations Between My Composition and Improvisation on December 17, 1999.

The film includes footage of Frampton on that day in full cap-and-gown academic regalia. The images of him in a wheelchair are unutterably sad.

A mere two weeks before he died, Roger no doubt had the satisfaction of proving a point to his detractors at the Con. He had achieved the very qualification which might have saved his position in 1995. Houston Dunleavy, his doctoral supervisor, says that Roger could have staked his reputation as an academic on his thesis anywhere in the world.

But it was too late – a pyrrhic victory in a sense, soon to be cruelly undercut by an unforgiving illness.

After the cancer diagnosis, Frampton continued to play professionally and participated in several benefit concerts. Many believe he never played better than in the months immediately before his death. This was certainly so in two brilliant performances I heard, one with US soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy at The Basement in October 1999, and in the memorable performance by Ten Part Invention at the 1999 Wangaratta Festival of Jazz & Blues in a program devoted to Frampton’s compositions and later released by ABC Jazz.

The film refers to Frampton’s frustration that listeners in Australia were culturally bereft and did not appreciate art. In the light of this sentiment, I believe the Engine Room tour of the Soviet Union in 1989, largely unknown to those who did not witness it, is crucial to the Roger Frampton story. Along with Steve Elphick and John Pochée, Roger was at last in his element, performing night after night for appreciative audiences highly educated in jazz music, and basking in being celebrated as a supremely talented musician.

I do not believe Roger was ever received more warmly anywhere in the world than in Russia during those extraordinary three weeks. This came about through the National Jazz Co-ordination program, so I felt personally gratified that the positive experience of this unprecedented tour to some degree compensated Roger for the relative under-appreciation of his musical talents in Australia.

The last ten minutes of Emily’s film are a tour de force, with images, music and storyline all contributing to a moving finale, ending on a positive note with the lovely sounds of Roger’s playing, thus underlining his friend Phil Treloar’s comment a few minutes earlier: “I think he’s still playing … He’s still playing for me!”

Eric Myers Further Reading at www.ericmyersjazz.com Ted Nettelbeck, “Roger Frampton: An Outstanding Jazz Musician in his time” Eric Myers, “The Engine Room in Russia”

JA N E T SAU N D E RS

T E N PA RT I N V E N T I O N

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L AC HY H A M I LTO N

artist

L ACHY HAMILTON

SAXO PHO NI ST LACHY HAMI LTO N I S FAST BEC O MI NG A LEADI NG VO I CE I N THE AUSTRALIAN I MPROVI SED AND C O NTEMPO RARY MUSIC SCENE, HAVI NG BEEN REC O GNI SED AS O NE OF S I MA’S SO NI C FUTURE ARTI STS. “DARK EMU” I S THE BO NUS TRACK AVAI LABLE WITH THI S C O PY O F DI NGO, FROM JAHL HESHI, HI S RECE NT C O LLABO RATIVE ALBU M WITH PIANI ST HARRY SUTHERLAND.

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What’s your musical background?

I grew up in a nurturing, creative community on Scotland Island in Sydney’s north and was introduced to most of the music I listen to by my parents. I was lucky enough to have friends throughout my schooling who were as passionate about music as I was, fuelling my love for playing. At age 16, I formed my first band Flip and have been putting bands together ever since.

What is jazz?

I just really enjoy making music with my friends. I play music of all genres and play in bands that would be categorised as rockabilly, pop, blues, funk and jazz. Reading the biographies of many of my heroes, most say, in one way or another, that being labeled as a “jazz musician” is/was limiting and detrimental to their careers. The spontaneous way of playing that music is ever evolving, so I don’t think it can really be defined, but only experienced. I love this quote from Louis Armstrong: “If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.”

What excites you about composing?

When I’m composing, I’m generally thinking of the instrumentation and specific musicians who I’d like to play that music with. I’ve always loved learning songs of all genres, often finding little bits to steal here and there to develop into something of my own creation. The end result of performing the compositions is definitely the most exciting part for me.

Tell us something about the track “Dark Emu”.

I wrote “Dark Emu” at the beginning of the first lockdown in Sydney, whilst reading Bruce Pascoe’s book of the same name. I was also transcribing some songs from [guitarist] James Muller’s Neurotica, which I think permeated into the songs I was trying to write at the time. The first chord/riff is also inspired by Bud Powell’s “Un Poco Loco”. I wrote the riff just from sitting at the piano messing around for hours and the rest developed over time playing it in different groups. I’m interested in learning more about the history of Australia’s First Nations peoples, and hope that by giving it the title I did, it will influence others to do their own research to better understand this beautiful country we call home.

What else are you working on?

I’m currently working on music for my new group Corkscrew, a Wayne Krantz–influenced trio with bass, drums and saxophone. I’m taking a trio over to New Zealand in March 2023 and will be playing music from JAHL HESHI and Corkscrew’s repertoire. I’m hoping to start touring more internationally and I’m always working on short national tours. I want to do a long stint overseas soon, potentially to do a master’s degree, but always see myself returning here. I really love the scene in Sydney and Australia!

FREE D OW N LOA D w w w.dingojazz .com/hamilton Passcode: 23DINGOEMU

“Dark Emu” is from the album, JAH L H ESH I, featuring Lachy Hamilton (tenor saxophone), Harry Sutherland (piano), Jacques Emery (double bass) and Alexander Inman- Hislop (drums).

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EDUCATION

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G RA E M E N O R RI S , JA N N RU T H E RFO R D, A L A N T U RN B U L L & N I K K I PA R ROT T

H I STO RY L ES S O N : S I M A As we explore the S ydney jazz scene in this edition it seemed fitting to have a chat with Amy Curl, executive producer and CEO of SIMA (S ydney Improvised M usic Association), to understand a little of its histor y.

When and how did SIMA form?

SIMA was established in 1984 as a non-profit association with a view to addressing the lack of performance opportunities for contemporary jazz and improvised music artists in Sydney by a group of enthusiastic jazz lovers including Peter Rechniewski and Peter Jordan.

SIMA has curated many performance spaces over the years, including Strawberry Hills Hotel, Side-On Café, The Sound Lounge (the basement club of the Seymour Centre) until becoming a resident company at the City of Sydney’s Joynton Ave Creative Centre in Zetland in 2019. From here SIMA launched an outdoor park-side pop-up music club for fun and extending its programming reach to concert halls, theatres and clubs across Sydney and beyond.

What is the driving purpose of SIMA? SIMA has attained a unique place in the Australian jazz scene where music is developed and artists can find their own voice. SIMA assists artists and curators to grow their careers through further opportunities which include presentation, commissioning, touring and project development. This has helped artists to work at scale. Some have gained worldwide recognition. The Necks had their first show at SIMA! What has been a highlight for you?

Much of SIMA’s artist development work is little known. However, its composer mentorships, recording programs, secondary school education workshops and more recently the provision of producing services are critical to the ongoing evolution of the artform in Australia.

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It’s been hugely exciting establishing and growing the Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival over ten years. Seeing the festival through into this next phase of its life has been a humbling experience. I’m equally excited by the newly formed Orange Winter Jazz Festival with JAM Orange. 2022 was an absolute cracker on all fronts.

Running eight venues and seven stages concurrently without a major disaster was a fairly big achievement! The Orange Winter Jazz Festival took place in June last year. For many of us, it was the first time we’d all been together as a community since COVID. The love and energy experienced across the festival was profound.

How do you view SIMA’s role within the wider jazz community?

SIMA works with jazz and arts groups, venues, festivals, organisations, tertiary institutions and industry around Australia, often as a conduit for collaboration.

SIMA has always been outward looking and responded to the needs within the sector. This has been the foundation in which all its programs and activities have been devised. The Young Women’s Jazz Workshops were developed in partnership with Sandy Evans in 2002 to address gender equity in jazz. We’re proud to see the impact of this program on the Australian scene 20 years on from our first workshop.

What’s on the cards this year?

We are trying to build philanthropy and sponsorship within the jazz sector to support more opportunities for artist development and establish new programming opportunities for emerging curators. The Women’s Festival (Oct/Nov) and Orange Winter Jazz Festival (King’s Birthday weekend in June) will be big events for us. Our regional touring program is really ramping up. We have eight tours scheduled for 2023 which will be hitting six states and territories across the year. We celebrate 20 years of the Young Women’s Jazz Workshops which happen in WA with WAYJO and NSW with SIMA. The forwardthinking Tom Avgenicos, a Sonic Futures alumni and 2022 Freedman Jazz Fellow, will present a cross-genre dance collaboration in June for our Jazz NOW program.

SIMA turns 40 in 2024 so we’ll be doing lots of planning for a big year of celebrations and will be announcing a special new commission towards the end of the year, so stay tuned for that!

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STEVLAND

MUSIC DEEP DIVE WORDS D R TI M NI KO LSKY

HE IS T H E S E L FPROCLAIMED “ L U N AT I C SCIENTIST” OF EXTRA CELESTIAL ARTS.

We’re lucky to have Barney McAll in Australia. Fearlessly creative, his incredible output is steering contemporary music in much more adventurous directions. Clearly acknowledging his inspirations, influences and those who have come before, Barney McAll has taken the flag and gone forth boldly, challenging the established parameters to continue forging the path ahead in difficult terrain. Recognition of creative output such as awards and glowing international reviews for the latest album Precious Energy is always welcome, but really the lasting effect is to be considered in how it managed to make us think new thoughts.

It opened our ears, changed our perspective of what we thought was possible.

Jazz is a difficult word – it means different things to different people, and depending on when, where, how and the circumstances/ context that you first encountered it; the parameters, your personal preferences/prejudices inform what you think it is and what it is not.

In an Australian context, I see Barney embodying diverse practice without restriction, drawing upon wide inspirations; as well as contributing to the inspiration of others. Barney also frequently cites his mentors, teachers and the myriad of performance experiences in his teaching – distilling his learnings for the next generation of creative practitioners via his Patreon page. It is clear Barney’s output influences the continuum and is an integral part of Australia’s musical landscape – ever learning and ever expanding.

Described by AllMusic’s Thom Jurek as “kaleidoscopic 21st century jazz-inspired sounds”, Barney wanted to make an album “that spoke to positivity, sun rays and love … when all these things seemed to be on some kind of cosmic precipice”. The Precious Energy Album is a salve to the sunburn of lockdown; it is a positive and joyous expression of spirit – often uncommon in music of today.

He is the self-proclaimed “Lunatic Scientist” of Extra Celestial Arts.

“Stevland – Homage to Stevie Wonder” is track 6 on Precious Energy.

An homage it is: Stevland Hardaway Morris is Stevie Wonder’s birth name. He is credited as a pioneer and influence by musicians across a range of genres that include rhythm and blues, pop, soul, gospel, funk and jazz. Wait, couldn’t we be crediting Barney McAll with this too?

Homage yes, but it’s more of a “thank you” to Stevie Wonder: acknowledging his vision, commitment to realising creative intention, as well as keeping it fun. “Children’s Laughter”, and “The Happiest Ever After” is recognised.

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Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

BA RN EY M CA L L ( BA N D)

Figure 4

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“The Song shapes the theatre that it wants to play” Verse 1: Now I see it clearly your eternal gift to us The greatest music master Stevland “Stevland” begins with a drum fill into a swagger at 78bpm. The wide, deep, clamped-down and long snare holding it down very simply. It’s a “less is more” approach from drummer Ben Vanderwal.

The thick, spacey harmony created by a collection of synths (Prophet Rev2 and Kawai DX900; Clavinet and Mellotron later on – provided by Simon Mavin and Barney McAll) is the velvety bed we’re cruising along on.

Gary Bartz’s saxophone solo on the intro is a masterful lesson on restraint, thematic development, sequences and very tasty playing (Fig. 1).

Subtly also, a tape delay adds analog thickness, airy space (“trippiest adventure”) to a selection of these phrases and vocal lines, with a juicy lo-fi crunchiness.

The melodic bassline by Paul Bender is Paul McCartney-esque in approach – it has the freedom to dance and play in the holes with a repetitive rhythmic motif as the drums are solidly laying time foundation, as the synths are building harmonic stability (Fig. 2).

Percussive-like muted guitar and clavinet in unison percolate around the repeated major pentatonic riff at 0:50 (Fig. 3).

Perhaps the greatest hook of the song is the interlude; a harmonically rich chromatic departure from the relative diatonic safety of the verse in F major.

Whilst the verse simmers, this interlude is “all in” and has a soaring intensity. The vocal trio of Jace XL, Bell Bangard and Rita Satch bring the soulful vibes to this slippery chromatic passage (Fig. 4).

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The descending chromatic movement beginning on Dbmaj7 sung on “la’s” is more than reminiscent of Stevie Wonder’s own iconic interlude on “Living for the City”. Although it differs significantly – “Stevland” starts on Dbmaj7, the bVI of the tonal centre, while “Living for the City” starts on the bVII of the tonal centre – the architecture of the section is a further development of the sophisticated harmonic language that Stevie Wonder forged (Fig. 5 - transposed from original key of G major to F major for comparison).

In Stevie Wonder’s interlude; our ears immediately suspect that we’re heading off towards the IV chord after hearing the F7/Eb; but when the Bb7/D appears in the next bar you could be mistaken for hearing a II–V–I in Eb. Instead, we are taken further down the chromatic scenic route to the unexpected Db. Can we expect to hit the dominant of F major in the next bar (C7)? No, Wonder further surprises us with a remote B chord. Our ears by this time confirm we’re up the Spencer St end of the tonal centre; whilst further descending chromatically from B7/A to Ab. The Ab to Gb movement would suggest that we’re heading for a V–IV–I in Db; but no. Arriving at the original key of F via this chromatic mediant/modal Interchange is super hip. Our ears have been on a journey through time changes as well as harmonic space, but we’re in safe hands. “On the trippiest adventure” is sung in Stevland’s first verse. Resolution is never that far away, but we’re on the scenic route getting there.

The second interlude of “Stevland” finds an extra gear and develops even more layers to the complexity; this time adding the bluesy backing vocal figures with all the bent notes and dripping with attitude; as if it was F blues tonality for the entire section. Each phrase is complete with a call and response from Jace XL. Those harmonies are now soaring high and wide (Fig. 6).

The outro takes a sledgehammer to the established foundations thus far and breaks harmony and time apart.

We can look at this cycle as four lots of two bars, with key centres roughly in Fm, Bbm, Fm and Bbmaj for each.

Leading us into the deconstruction is the simultaneous drum disintegration and alto sax soloing in 3/4. Implying two against three; meter is being wrestled with. Who will emerge victorious? With the singers ooh-ing these tense harmonies in a high register, this section feels immediately unsettled. With the wiggly modulated mellotron, texture is getting ever dense, intensity is ever rising. Minoring “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” makes an unexpected entrance, but further reaffirms the child-like approach to unrestricted play in Stevie Wonder and Barney McAll’s music. He even manages to turn “how I WONDER what you are” into a verb, asking the proverbial “How Would Stevie Do It?”. Dorothy Ashby–esque harp sounds played on nylon string guitar are subliminally implying Wonder’s “If It’s Magic” (Fig. 7).

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Figure 5

Figure 6

Figure 7

In the coda breakdown, the harp-like guitar with Mellotron and whistling sound from the DX900 is expansive and falling-like. Low frequencies are completely removed as we fall off the cliff and the cascading chromatic harmony is a springboard for Gary Bartz’s free soloing to guide us through the wormhole.

Dr Tim Nikolsky is the digital curator of www.australianjazzrealbook.com, music teacher at Virtual School Victoria, and is a performing and composing musician based in Melbourne.

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I M P R O V I S AT I O N A N D C R E AT I V I T Y: P R I M A RY S C H O O L J A Z Z P E D A G O GY WITH GENDER IN MIND NATAL I E MO RG ENST ERN

Teaching music at an independent school with Years 5 to 9 in a parallel model (boys and girls in separate classes) allows me a certain obser vational perspective.

It is beyond the scope of this article to question the binar y approach of this model. I believe musical improvisation is the key to embedding a love of playing music whilst simultaneously developing musical skills .

The questions that fuel my curiosit y, my entr y into doctoral studies and my teaching practice are:

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What are the students’ perceptions of themselves as musicians and as improvisers?

Do girls and boys have differing levels of self-efficacy in music, and does this affect their ability to improvise?

When improvising in a group setting, do girls relate to each other differently than boys do?

Does gender influence the way girls are empowered or limited as musicians in the beginner music classroom, and if so, how?

With separate classes of girls and boys, I have a unique opportunity to observe and reflect on ways in which the students create and engage with music differently. Each aspect of their learning is improvised: warm-ups, experimenting with techniques, learning new notes, creating variations on repertoire, manipulating rhythmic units and working on blend and balance.

Parameters are set on the improvisations that either guarantee “success” or that simply allow failure to happen, to pass by quickly, with builtin immediate opportunities to try again.

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My observations are that girls prefer not to fail at all. The boys are far less judgemental of themselves (but more critical of each other). Preparedness to fail is a resilience that we consciously need to build up in our girls by interspersing experiences of success with incidental mini moments of low-stakes failure (in safe, ungraded classroom playing opportunities). Creativity fuels improvisation and, in order to engage creatively, the students must start from a point of confidence with a willingness to take risks. Without self-belief, which is inextricably constructed around gender, it is hard for students to mobilise their creative potential. I never grade improvisation – I use it as a process rather than a product: a learning tool.

Week 8: Year 5 beginner Woodwinds Class: Me: “You remember your 6 notes, right? You are going to play your own little melody, one at a time. I want you to move up and down in stepwise motion.

No jumps or leaps. You can play for as long or as short as you want.”

I point to a random boy “Go!” He plays Do, Re, Mi, Mi, Mi. The next boy plays Do, Re, Mi, Mi, Mi The next boy plays Do, Re, Mi, Mi, Mi I stop the class and ask the students if they can come up with an additional rule that will help them not to copy each other.

The same exercise in the girls’ class didn’t require any extra instruction for them to play their own melodies.

There is no shortage of literature examining creativity (see Sawyer and Csíkszentmihályi) but very little of it speaks to, or from, a gendered perspective.

This is a serious oversight as all of the creative capacities required for improvising music are inevitably experienced through a gendered lens. These include:

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Physical, emotional, social, and space-related attributes that impact the capacity to create in the act of playing (gathering and experimenting with knowledge); Balancing chaos and order (combining ideas in new ways); Cooperative learning (the dynamics of support and competition between students) and the comfort of taking musical risks (self-efficacy and resilience).

Improvisation requires an operational framework powered by creativity.

Still, it’s an uphill battle nurturing creativity in the classroom. Societal expectations of behaviour, the imperative of a school uniform, and standardised graded assessments: all of these exert a gravitational pull toward conformity. It is refreshing to see that the younger students are not yet fully conditioned by these limitations.

Homework Task 1: Video submission of two girls interviewing each other: Girl 1: “What is jazz?”

Girl 2: “It’s a kind of music that people play so that they can feel themselves.”

Girl 1: “You mean express themself?”

Girl 2: “Yeah.”

Girl 1: “Who plays jazz?”

Girl 2: “Anyone.”

Again, a position of open-mindedness. As educators, we need to be mindful of how anxiety over grades suffocates the potential for creativity in the learning process. Students often ask “will this be graded?”, narrowing their focus to what is valued and quantified in the report card. On the other hand, formative feedback (with progress in mind) in the guise of quick comments on posture, breathing, tone, hand position, rhythm, attitude, idea generation and contribution to communal sound is far more effective and motivating for students. It also sets up the possibility of group flow (shared on-task focus).

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Week 2. Year 5 beginner Woodwinds Class. Girls only: Student 1: “Wait. Can we play whatever we want?”

Me: “Here’s the groove.”

The YouTube funk drum track plays on the big speakers. The girls are up dancing. Each student gets one bar to play a rhythm of her choice. Rest one bar. Next student.

Student 2: “That was really bad. I stuffed it up.” She starts crying.

Student 3: “No, you were great! You did it!”

Girls are creative. They are supportive of each other and are keen to do well in any enterprise. Yet it has been observed over and over again that there are disproportionately fewer women playing jazz than men. Research demonstrates that girls get filtered out of the mix early on in high school. The blame can be squarely placed on three factors: not having enough role models, gender-influenced instrument selection and not feeling comfortable improvising. If jazz is to explore its full potential by accessing the expressive treasure trove of all genders, change needs to start from the beginning. We need to look at our primary school instrumental classroom practices to see how we can best offer students regardless of gender a positive experience improvising (on any instrument).

I am hoping that this study will uncover a clear narrative of how best to set up primary school classroom spaces that encourage students to pick up any instrument, interrupt and defy gendered assumptions around improvising and playing jazz, and allow for the possibility of affirming their own version of gender when improvising music.

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YOUNG

artists

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M axim illia n Topor (17 )

Teachers: Gavin Cornish, Natalie Morgenstern, Niran Dasika, Lidia Mancini

Trombone Edithvale / Boonwurrung land Mentone grammar, year 12

Inspiration: I am inspired by Alexander Varlamov, he had a unique style of improvisation.

I started playing music at 6 years old, with the violin and piano, then at year 5 I swapped to viola, for which I was awarded a certificate of AMus 3 years ago. In year 7, my grandfather introduced me to the brass family, more specifically the trombone. This meant that he taught me all the techniques to jazz that I know, plus he had a vinyl set of many inspirational artists ranging from Duke Ellington to Weather Project. My school allowed me to put my techniques to use by letting me join their big band, where I play first trombone.

Through that, I was able to participate in many competitions, like Generations in Jazz.

What I’m trying to do now is to try and go for jazz gigs, while for classical music I am attending Melbourne Youth Orchestra.

What I like about jazz? I like how flexible jazz tunes can be, where you can use so many chords in any way to play the same tune but however you want.

What will I be doing in 10 years?

Finishing up my studies as a doctor, while having a side job as a jazz artist.

Favourite pet animal: Dog Favourite jazz club/festival: Wangaratta Festival of Jazz & Blues I also like: Ice hockey, music composition.

Best practice tip: When playing a complex part of a piece, break it down and play slowly, having confidence is key to a great performance.

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Sa bine Ta pia (19) Double and electric bass Galston / Dharug land Second Year at Sydney Conservatorium of Music

I’m Filipino-Australian and started playing bass when I was around nine years old. My dad works as a session bass player, so I was always around music and musicians growing up, which has been a huge inspiration in my musical life. I originally studied classical double bass and really enjoyed playing in the Sydney Youth Orchestra program for a few years before deciding to focus on jazz.

I first got into jazz through listening to a lot of my dad’s favourites in the car, including Weather Report, Yellowjackets and Herbie Hancock. From there I became obsessed with learning more about jazz, both through listening and playing.

Teachers: Paul Laszlo (my classical bass teacher), Steve Hunter, Brett Hirst Inspiration: I’m inspired by all of my teachers who work as musicians and continue to work on their craft. I think it’s great knowing the people around me love what they do.

What I like about jazz? I love that there is always something new to learn. Knowing there are endless possibilities when playing jazz, just as long as you keep on hearing them, is incredibly exciting.

What will I be doing in 10 years? Hopefully playing all the time. I hope I’m able to travel, create my own bands and play a lot of original music.

Favourite pet animal: I have a dog (corgi beagle mix) named Koda who is the best dog ever, and a cat named Aiko who also loves jazz.

Favourite jazz club/festival: I haven’t been to a whole lot (yet), but some of my favourite albums right now were recorded at the Village Vanguard so I’ll have to go with that.

I also like: I’m also into writing singer-songwriter type music, birdwatching, being outdoors and crying at Phoebe Bridgers concerts.

Best practice tip: I like to start with something that “grounds” me and gets me focused - for me this can be just spending a bit of time playing open strings with a metronome and focusing on sound and time before anything else. I find this sort of exercise forces me to really listen to the sound I’m making on the instrument.

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Sofie Ke rr (21) Vocals Perth / Whadjuk land Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts

I grew up in the Perth jazz scene, following my Dad around (Gavin Kerr) who is a jazz musician and educator. When I was six, my parents finally gave in to my incessant begging for singing lessons, and I began learning from the incredible Libby Hammer; the obsession grew. I’ve been very lucky to perform with many amazing musicians and to deepen my understanding of the music at WAAPA. I’ve developed a keen interest in improvisation and vocalese. I’m also releasing a contemporary/ acid jazz album with my Dad, we have some songs already out under the band name: Tenspeed.

Teachers: Victoria Newton, Penny King, Libby Hammer, Jasmine Nelson Inspiration: Veronica Swift, Jessica Carlton, Harry Mitchell, Linda Oh and Annie Ross.

What I like about jazz? I think it challenges my perfectionism. With jazz, it’s never going to be perfect and that’s what creates excitement.

I also love how collaborative it is.

What will I be doing in 10 years? Hopefully using a platform to make the jazz industry more accessible, and educating lots of young people.

Ideally, I’ll also be singing and writing as much as possible. I would love to spend some time based in Berlin or London to write, collaborate and perform.

Hopefully I’ll have some trumpet chops too.

Favourite pet animal: My dogs Sonny (after Sonny Rollins) and Peggy (after Peggy Lee).

Favourite jazz club/festival: My middle name is Montreaux, in reference to the Montreux Jazz Festival. I would love the opportunity to experience it live one day.

I also like: Psychology, social justice.

Best practice tip: Know that everyone’s brains work differently and certain routines will suit others more than you. Don’t compare your practice too much with the people around you, we all work in different ways.

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G ully Thom pson (17 ) Piano / Guitar / Vocals Northcote / Wurundjeri land Year 12, Wurun Senior Campus

I am a Melbourne-based musician with an interest in creating music that is versatile, genre-bending and experimental. I have been playing the piano since I was about tall enough to reach it and experimenting with recording programs since the age of 9, which really established music as a means of selfexpression. Having perfect pitch helps me to blend synthesised and analogue sounds in a collagelike process, using piano, guitar and my voice.

Teachers: Martin Cox, Adam Simmons Inspiration: I’ve been listening to jazz musicians since a really young age – I couldn’t sleep without Benny Goodman playing all night. I like 60-70s rock – Beatles, Bowie, Simon and Garfunkel – and the methods they used to create original sound design. My recent album is mostly based around my grandmother and her life being sort of the way I was brought into music.

What I like about jazz? Jazz is a really pure form of music in that it defies categorisation – there is no real authority on what it is and isn’t and its musicality can be bent or structured to your will. It’s very conversational, interpretive, it really feels “free-form”.

What will I be doing in 10 years? I’m looking to take an interactive composition course, beyond that I want to keep with my practice of writing an album roughly every year and following my music as it evolves.

Favourite pet animal: Greyhounds and turtles.

Favourite jazz club/festival: The Ear Inn in New York and local venues such as Open Studio, JazzLab and Cafe Gummo.

I also like: Film, photography, leftist political theory, queer politics, soundscapes from unconventional objects like toy pianos, bike spokes, train sirens and wine glasses.

Best practice tip: If, like me, you mostly play by ear, record yourself playing, as rough as it stands, then listen back to gain fresh perspective – keep these recordings if you’re working on a particular piece. You get to see how you’ve improved and can hook onto little nuances that you’ve developed over time or want to incorporate into your playing.

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GEAR

REVIEWS

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H A M M ON D S K P RO KEYBOA RD

I’ve been looking for a new gigging keyboard for those occasions when a stage is too small to fit a full organ and Leslie. I usually gig with the Hammond XK5, which I love with all my heart, but sometimes you just want something lightweight and versatile. The SK PRO seemed to fit the bill, so I took one home to test out.

I plugged it in (nice to see the IEC connector), tossed the manual away to look at later and sat down to play. The chassis of the SK PRO has a solid feel and all the controllers seem very robust. But how does this thing play?

I started with the organ section and man, it feels and sounds good. Soundwise, I can’t tell the difference between this and the top model XK5. The SK PRO keyboard feels great – extremely playable for someone used to a vintage tone wheel. The controls are all in the right spots and the drawbars feel good.

Hammond have absolutely nailed the sound in their latest round of instruments, from the percussion and chorus/vibrato to the distortion, it’s all spot on.

I played it through my Leslie 3300 via 11-pin and through a Roland KC350 amp using the internal sim. The real Leslie did what a real Leslie does, but the sim stood up well; I’d happily plug into a PA and run this sim if it meant a little bit of wiggle room for the band on stage.

The other sounds are brilliant as well. I particularly liked some of the acoustic and electric piano sounds, and the mono synth is so much fun!

I’m really looking forward to taking this out to perform. It certainly weighs in as an organ and all the additional stuff is icing on top.

Felix Elliot-Dedman

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CA RBON IS S IMO CA RBO N F I BRE L I GATURE

Does a ligature make a difference? I am a firm believer that it does, even if it is only noticeable to the player through improved tone and control. The Carbonissimo saxophone and clarinet ligatures use a carbon fibre cradle to attach a reed to the mouthpiece. On their website they state that carbon fibre has a lower density to metal and “generates less resonance due to its low resistance to air”. The carbon fibre itself has a hard feel with some flexibility to it, fitting the reed and mouthpiece perfectly. It tightens with a single brass screw at the top, which I found a little small and light when tightening compared to other modern ligatures.

I tried the Carbonissimo on both alto and tenor saxophones side-by-side with my Saxxas ligature and JodyJazz ring ligature, both of which excel in opening up the resonance of a reed down to its base. In comparison, the Carbonissimo is a different style. It played very well, producing a consistent and even tone, but gave me less top-end dynamic range, articulation control and resonance. This ligature holds the reed very securely, preventing it from vibrating back to its base, succeeding in its aim of less resonance. The Carbonissimo reminds me more of a traditional or Rovner style ligature which also hold the reed tightly, but perhaps has less restriction than a leather Rovner. I use a Rovner on Clarinet to “restrain” some of the reedy sound and can see that this may be where the Carbonissimo excels. The Carbonissimo would be a good choice for someone who wants control and stability in their sound and is not looking for added resonance or extreme dynamics.

Jack Beeche

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From the first blow this flute is effortless to play. A large part of the credit for this can be attributed to the “Classic” headjoint featuring a hand-cut wide squarishshaped American-style embouchure hole. This headjoint is borrowed from the higher model range Q series and certainly helps boost this intermediate flute.

It produces a broad and responsive sound that doesn’t break up at volume.

Overall, tone and intonation are even and responsive across the range which is accompanied by a light and fast action. While there are a range of variations available, the flute I tried out was a B foot open hole with offset G and French point keywork – the standard configuration for the Australian market. There are the options of either the “Amadeus” or premium “Classic” headjoints, both in solid silver. The flute body and keywork are silver-plated with stainless steel springs. While I found it lacking some of the tonal depth found with a full silver flute – playing very quietly lacked tonal clarity and, while the overall broad and full sound can fill the room, it was missing depth and some of the rich, dark harmonics I like to hear – there is still plenty to work with.

Pitched as an advancing student instrument, this would also be a solid option for the doubling woodwind player, offering a good balance between a full tone that can fill a space while still being very free blowing and responsive.

Cal Barry

H AYN ES A MA DEUS A F 6 80 F LUTE W I TH C LAS SI C HEA DJO I N T

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F E S T I VA L S 2023

2024

April 28-30 Adelaide Jazz Festival Adelaide, SA

October 20-22 South Coast Jazz Festival Goolwa, SA

February 2-4 SoundOut Festival Canberra, ACT

www.adelaidejazzfestival.com

www.sajazzfestivalsinc.com

May 27-28 Big Band Blast Bathurst, NSW

October 20-29 Melbourne International Jazz Festival Melbourne, VIC

www.facebook.com/ SoundOutFestivalandEvents

www.bigbandblast.org

June 1-4 Cronulla Jazz and Blues Festival Cronulla, NSW www.cronullajazzandbluesfestival.com

June 9-11 Castlemaine Jazz Festival Castlemaine, VIC www.castlemainejazzfestival.com.au

June 9-12 Merimbula Jazz Festival Merimbula, NSW www.merimbulajazz.org.au

June 10-11 Orange Winter Jazz Festival Orange, NSW www.owjf.com.au

July 27-30 Devonport Jazz Festival Devonport, TAS www.devonportjazz.com.au

August 4-6 Inverloch Jazz Festival Inverloch, VIC www.inverlochjazzfestival.com

August 25-27 Newcastle Jazz Festival Newcastle, NSW www.newcastlejazz.com.au

September 23 – October 1 The York Festival York, WA yorkfestival.com.au

www.melbournejazz.com

November 3 Wangaratta Festival of Jazz & Blues Wangaratta, VIC www.wangarattajazz.com

October 27 - November 4 Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival Sydney, NSW www.sima.org.au/siwjf/

November 3-5 (Perth) & 11-12 (South West) Perth International Jazz Festival Perth & South West, WA www.perthjazzfest.com

December 3-10 Melbourne Women’s International Jazz Festival Melbourne, VIC www.mwijf.org

December 26-31 Australian Jazz Convention Longford, TAS www.australianjazzconvention.org.au

February TBC MONA FOMA Hobart/Launceston, TAS www.mofo.net.au

February (dates TBC) Clarence Jazz Festival Clarence, TAS www.clarenceartsandevents. net/clarence-jazz-festival

February (dates TBC) Port Fairy Jazz Festival Port Fairy, VIC www.portfairyjazz.com.au

February (dates TBC) Eltham Jazz, Food & Wine Festival Eltham, VIC http://www.elthamjazz.com.au

March (dates TBC) Kiama Jazz and Blues Festival Kiama, NSW www.kiamajazzandbluesfestival.com.au

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GIGS Loose Leaf – national tour Loose Leaf is saxophonist Andrew Saragossi’s latest project featuring bassist Helen Svoboda and Canadian drummer Dylan van der Schyff. Their debut album Why Not Beauty? on the Made Now Music label, will be launched on April 16 at Brisbane’s It’s Still a Secret, followed by gigs during May in Adelaide, Sydney, Hobart and Melbourne.

INSIGHT – koto and recorders The next in this occasional series will feature Tokyo-based koto player and improviser Miyama McQueen-Tokita in a rare visit back to Melbourne. Presenting her solo originals and improvisations to open, she will then be joined in the second set by regular collaborator Ryan Williams on recorders. This concert will be May 4 at Tempo Rubato in Brunswick.

The Necks – album and tour Described as “one of the great cult bands of Australia”, The Necks have recently released their 21st album, Travel, and will be touring Australia during May and June. One particular show to consider will be their first-ever performance at the Meeniyan Town Hall, an intimate concert venue in Victoria’s east on May 20.

LIVE

Wednesdays at The Count’s – King Koi Gigs have returned to Melbourne south east’s jazz club, The Count’s, every Wednesday until November. One exciting modern jazz ensemble to catch is King Koi (saxophonist Cheryl Durongpisitkul, guitarist Marcos Villalta and bassist Stephen Hornby) with their “refreshing sense of freedom and irreverence”.

They perform for this series on May 24.

MJC’s 40th Anniversary Concert – Melbourne Recital Centre The Melbourne Jazz Co-operative’s 40th Anniversary Concert on May 26 brings together 24 jazz artists from Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane. The highlight will be the premiere of a new suite, comprising works by Erkki Veltheim, Erik Griswold, Eugene Ball and Niko Schauble, for the specially formed MJC Orchestra conducted by Vanessa Perica.

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S POT L I G H T O N SINGAPORE TIM O ’DWYER When talking about jazz in Singapore it’s useful to think as if I’m talking about jazz in a place with roughly the population of Melbourne, packed into a land mass that would fit into Port Phillip Bay. And consider that Tasmania is 98 times larger than Singapore. Singapore is a tiny island cut out of the southern tip of the Malaysian Peninsula. Singapore is a city, but it is also a country and a republic. It is hard to compare, but I would say the jazz scene here would be larger than Perth.

Singapore is the most multicultural country in Asia and this is reflected in its jazz scene. Historically, jazz really took off in the post-World War II era with the influx of musicians from The Philippines including drummer Louis Soliano, then latterly in the 80s and 90s from the UK, US, Australia and Europe. This eclectic expat group would make up a lot of the established straight-ahead players, particularly from the US including Christy Smith (bass), Rick Smith (guitar) and Mario Serio (piano), and a more adventurous contingent mostly from Australia including Darren Moore (drums) and yours truly. Locally, if there was a cultural concentration of jazz musicians they would be grouped under Eurasian and Chinese Singaporeans including Jeremy Monteiro (piano), Alemay Fernandez (vocals), Chok Kerong (piano), Weixiang Tan (piano) and Rit Xu (flute), and they would be mainly straight-ahead artists with a growing number in their mid-careers now starting to compose more and getting their own music out there.

In terms of venues, like every city in the world, jazz clubs have come and gone over the decades for economic reasons. Post-pandemic, there would currently be about half-a-dozen active venues that offer jazz music.

Naming them pure jazz clubs would probably be stretching the definition, but clubs here need to diversify how they present jazz to survive.

One of the stalwarts of the scene since 2006, BluJaz Cafe has always had an eccentric approach to booking bands that would cover a wide range of musical styles, and they still do this in their three-story shop house in the centre of the Arab Quarter in Singapore. Ambitiously

103 T I M O DWYE R P H OTO BY LU K E L I M

global P E RS P ECT I V E

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curated by UK expat Greg Lyons (saxophones), The Jazz Loft was born back in July 2022 on the top floor of the building and is unique for presenting almost exclusively original jazz.

This has been a boon for local creative jazz musicians with many new projects being started and so far, audiences are flocking to the venue and generously supporting the music.

In Australia, jazz to a large extent has been embraced and reimagined into something like an Australian jazz sound. The jazz scene in Australia is a broad church covering trad-jazz enthusiasts right through to modern jazz. A large group of jazz fans in Australia are fans of original Australian jazz. This is not particularly the case in Singapore or for that matter in South East Asia. In this part of the world, imitating the American style is du jour, and has been this way for 100 years. Jazz music for both musicians and fans here is closely aligned with sounding like American jazz. That’s why The Jazz Loft has been such an outlier in recent times.

To survive and be sustainable, jazz in Singapore is often branded together with other commercial products to help promote and build an audience (think Lost in Translation). The most prominent one of these venues is The Whiskey Library & Jazz Club at the Vagabond Club Hotel which offers jazz with a dizzying range of different whiskey to accompany the tunes. It would be easy to say that the music takes a back seat, but that would be misreading the room. Some of the most prominent jazz players in Singapore perform regularly and really tear the place apart including Joshua Wan (piano), Aaron James Lee (drums), Andrew Lim (guitar) and Richard Jackson (vocals). Also, there is a lot of care about the curation of the music admirably achieved by Perth expat Nicole Duffell (saxophone), and whilst only being active for about a year, the musicians involved have built up a loyal whiskey/jazz following.

Outside the club scene, while the festivals have yet to come back, there are other supports. The Jazz Association Singapore is a force to be reckoned with. They have junior and senior jazz orchestras that continued to present music throughout the pandemic and have just held their annual “Pinnacle” concert in January 2023 featuring Dutch singer Laura Fygi to a sold-out audience at the Capital Theatre. And, founded in the 90s by Eddie Chan, the Thomson Jazz Club is still thriving as an organisation offering amateurs and professionals alike the opportunity to come together, jam, and do community concerts with their more than capable big band. Jazz education continues to be offered at the degree level since 2005 at LASALLE College of the Arts, graduating a small cohort of students each year, where they can learn from all the established pros in the scene.

Born in Melbourne, Tim O’Dwyer has been an active saxophone player and composer in Australia, Asia and Europe for over 30 years. He has been on the faculty of the School of Contemporary Music at LASALLE College of the Arts Singapore since 2004 and the Head of the School since 2009.

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“ T H ERE ARE NO ST RANGERS I N I REL AND, O NLY FRI E NDS WH O HAVEN’ T YET MET.”

B I A N CA G A N N O N

NO PLACE LIKE HOME NÍL AON TINTEÁN MAR D O THINTEÁN FÉIN BIAN CA GAN N ON By 2020, I had been calling Melbourne home for six years and living outside of Ireland for 13 years.

When COVID-19 hit and the Australian borders were sealed shut, suddenly I felt exiled and all I could think about was being home-home, back in “the land of poets and scholars”. Life carried on, however dystopian, but as the borders began to open again in 2022, I couldn’t help but listen to the niggle. Somewhat impulsively, I decided to pack up to “be” in Ireland initially just for a few months.

Very quickly the snap decision paid off and is now evolving into something longer-term due to the support I’m receiving here – which is one of the things home has now come to mean to me.

Before leaving Australia, I was selected as one of Improvised Music Company’s (IMC) 30/30 Artists – 30 outstanding Irish improvisers to celebrate 30 years of IMC. Through this year-long mentorship, presentation and support platform, one project I have undertaken is recording a solo simultaneous piano and gamelan improv album which will be launched mid-year. A further reward for my impulsive decision to leave was that I was successful in my application for the position of Artist Development Officer at IMC, advocating for and creating resources and supports for Irish Improvisers.

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Through this role, I attended the Jazz Promotion Network Conference, which was held in Belfast, on the island of Ireland for the first time. An inspiring keynote by the incredible Brian Irvine had us engaged in play and improvisation right away. It was a great way to get reacquainted with jazz scenes and contacts in Ireland and the UK, while promoting and pitching 30/30 Artists to programmers. A highlight for me was a screening of experimental improvising harpist Úna Monaghan’s “And The Goals Will Come” for harp, bassoon, percussion, live hurler (Irish stick-and-ball sport) with field recordings of the All-Ireland Hurling Championship. Other Irish trad meets jazz delights I’ve encountered these past six months include the work of 30/30 Artists Neil O’Loclainn and Cormac McCarthy.

Australia is a far financially wealthier country than Ireland, with a collective ease that was incentivising and indeed healing for me for eight years.

Though while that sort of financial security leads to opportunity for more individual independence, I wonder if it also leads to less interdependence, losing some of the aspects of community that I am accustomed to.

Upon my return I was instantly reminded of the W.B. Yeats quote: “There are no strangers in Ireland, only friends who haven’t yet met.” Along with the ubiquitous everyday acts of kindness from known and unknown shirtoff-their-backs Gaels (shoutout to improvising drummer Conor McCauley), and support from Ireland’s Basic Income for Artists pilot scheme, I started receiving composition commissions such as writing for my childhood musical heroes Contempo Quartet, another specifically on the mythology of nostalgia-filled Lough Key, as well as the BAN BAM Award.

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For BAN BAM I’m writing for myself (piano and percussion), Ireland-based Australian improvising flautist Lina Andonovska and Irish jazz drummer Matthew Jacobson, with the working title “We’re all just walking each other home”.

This will be performed at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, Brilliant Corners Festival in Belfast, Glasgow Jazz Festival and Manchester Jazz Festival.

In Australia I had started to plan an album about home – Níl Aon Tinteán Mar Do Thinteán Féin (No Fireplace like your own Fireplace, or No Place Like Home).

Despite a successful start with the premiere of my Pythia Prize Commission “Our House is on Fire” for Melbourne’s Rubiks Collective, which won the inaugural Percy Grainger Award, I couldn’t quite get the album off the ground. As it turns out, for me at least, it takes returning home to write an album about home.

An irony amidst these nurturing opportunities and experiences at home, I am still searching for a physical home of my own, navigating an extreme housing crisis that’s been snowballing since the global financial crisis of 2008. Therefore currently, I’m house-hunting over the border in Northern Ireland, where rentals are available (for now), though is a bit culturally surreal to someone from the Republic. There are moments and interactions where I feel completely at home and at ease – in the improv scene with weekly jams with QUBe (Queen’s University Belfast Ensemble) and being immersed in Irish culture – but can then be quickly jolted back into a cultural-reality which is far more English-leaning. I can speak my native language again – in areas where it is safe to do so. Ubiquitous Union Jacks and confronting paramilitary murals remind me that I’m not fully welcome here on this corner of the island of Ireland without political independence. A karmic debt or humble pie perhaps, having profited off the back of colonialism in Australia.

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meet

LYNET TE IRWIN

AMSTERDAM AND BACK AGAIN NAT G RANT Lynette Irwin has an ex tensive histor y within the Australian music scene. She has directed, produced, presented, promoted, and toured local, national, international jazz and contemporar y music artists and ensembles within Australia and abroad.

In 2021 in recognition of her contribution to Queensland M usic, Lynette was awarded the Grant McLennan Lifetime Achievement Award for her prolific and ongoing support of the jazz communit y.

I spoke to Lynette about her time at Jazz Queensland, her passion for nurturing young artists and the importance of being a good host.

How were you introduced to music and jazz more specifically?

My mother got me into playing violin at the age of four. My sister was playing the piano (I didn’t want to do the same thing as her). The music teacher that my mother got, they did a barter system. My mother made her clothes, and she taught us music. I started my music life there and when I was 11 my mother took me to a lot of concerts; she took me to a Stéphane Grappelli concert at the Sydney Town Hall and I thought, whatever he’s doing, I want to do that! The other concert she took me to was a Daly-Wilson Big Band concert with Kerrie Biddell around the same time.

And that was even better! I thought, this is amazing.

F RØY A AG RE

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When I was about 14, I did a sight-singing course with a lady called Claire Poole.

She was a vocalist, and it was in Day Street in Sydney, which is down near Darling Harbour way. So, I’m this 14-year-old kid and the people in the class were people like Kerrie Biddell and Ed Wilson. Kerrie was well known in Sydney for her work with the Daly-Wilson Big Band, gaining accolades as the first lady of Australian jazz and placing Japanese Electronics company Sanyo in prime market position performing an advertising campaign called “That’s Life, Sanyo.”

I played in orchestras at school and in the National Youth Orchestra in the early seventies. Then there were these courses at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. After I finished school, I started doing them and met some great people.

One of whom was the head of the jazz course at the Con for a long time, a guy called Craig Scott, a double bass player. We became good friends and during those years our teacher was pianist and composer Roger Frampton, and Roger also became a very good friend. And (the late) Keith Sterling, he was a hilarious cosmic jazz trumpeter. Keith was originally from Adelaide, I think, but he spent a lot of years in Melbourne, then moved to Sydney.

And then a different track started for me in that I became involved with a musician, a composer, a saxophonist. And his name was Tony Hobbs. He’s not with us anymore, unfortunately. But he was a very funny guy. Tony and I stayed together for nine plus years and had two children, and we went and lived in Holland, in the Netherlands. He did some work at what was called the Sweelinck Conservatorium [since merged into the Conservatorium van Amsterdam], performed and toured with three Netherlandsbased big bands throughout Europe and was a big band specialist. Tony established the first big band at the Sydney Conservatorium High School in the early 70s with Paul Terracini and eventually played lead alto with the Daly-Wilson Big Band, years after I had witnessed the wonderful Kerrie Biddell as their lead vocalist.

Tony toured a lot and composed. My job in those days was to hand copy the individual big band parts from his original scores. He’d write big band charts, 22-piece big band charts. And that was part of my unpaid work in Holland. Which was, as you can imagine, a chore, especially if you accidentally leave out a bar of music and have to get the white-out to embed a bar back in its rightful place! I came to live in Brisbane with Tony in the mid to late 80s when he scored work at the Queensland Conservatorium. The job as jazz coordinator for Queensland was advertised and as a single mother of two small children I needed to work. Out of about 33 people who applied for the position I was fortunate to secure the twoday-a-week role (really seven days as muso’s schedules didn’t stop because of a weekend). I don’t know how many women applied but there wouldn’t have been many. It was great for me. I was sort of a lonely passionate jazz lover and because of a car accident in 1975, which crushed my 12th thoracic vertebrae, it was very difficult to sit and play violin, so in January 1990 from memory, I began a wonderful journey. The actual Qld Jazz Co-ordination program began in 1983, funded by Australia Council with Ted Vining as the [inaugural] Queensland Jazz Co-ordinator.

The first thing I thought was: we need to get Queenslanders heard. So, we hooked up with Community Radio 4MBS and had regular monthly liveto-air concerts happening. 4MBS was running out of what is now called the Queensland University of Technology: QUT at Kelvin Grove.

That was the first major thing that was great, and we did a whole spectrum of stuff like modern and originals because my bent was always giving people the opportunity to play original work. I love all styles, but it seemed to me that this was, number one, a priority for the Australia Council and two, it was something that I could identify with as important, for people to be heard. And certainly, in Queensland,

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LAILA BIALI

not that many people were known, but there were all these talented people, which now we can say, yes, there’s Katie Noonan and there’s drummer Sam Bates, saxophonists Phil Noy and Zac Hurren, who were all trained at the Queensland Conservatorium.

Can you share some of your experiences with the international artists you brought out to Australia over the years?

I worked with these like-minded organisations such as SIMA (Sydney Improvised Music Association) and the Melbourne Jazz Co-op. There was also a Perth branch and there was a coordinator in South Australia as well. We tried to link up and make things happen. The major two that were doing stuff on an international scale were Melbourne (Martin Jackson) and also SIMA, which was under the banner of the Artistic Director Peter Rechniewski who [later] established Foundry 616.

And there were also other things like performers coming through for festivals and they wanted to have another gig in Brisbane or whatever, so they’d hook up with me because I was the jazz person in Queensland to hook up with. Usually, our organisation didn’t have the money to do it, so I just put my hand up and went, it should be done – I’ll take the risk.

I paid for all the stuff: accommodation, drum kits, venue, whatever. Tried to get as much for nothing as I possibly could, which we all do and have done, to make a gig happen.

But to me it was really, really important. There were 80-100 maybe more international artists that were able to perform in Brisbane – incredible musicians including Steve Lacy, Kurt Elling, Laurence Hobgood, Ernie Watts, Sheila Jordan, James Carter, Andrew Hill, Kenny Barron, Darryl Grant, Cecil Taylor, Keyon Harrold, Charles Haynes, Joshua Redman, Gwilym Simcock, Nikki Iles, Tim Garland, Peedu Kaas, Clotilde Roulland, Bob Berg … so many amazing jazz musos.

Also, I started going to Jazzahead in Bremen, Germany. I’d go overseas and on the way back I’d think, oh, you know what, I could go to Japan and set up a meeting with these people and see if they want to come to Australia. Some of them I brought myself. Some of them I just went ahead and did the visa applications. Some of them, the visa applications were organised by Melbourne International Jazz Festival, or Wangaratta [Festival of Jazz & Blues].

We worked together. It was quite an odd family, but it was a community of like-minded souls.

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I’VE ALWAYS S EEN DEALIN G WITH IN TERNATIO NALS ESP EC IALLY, AND I N TERSTAT ERS, AKIN TO BEI NG AN AMBASSAD OR FOR YOU R STAT E O R C OU N TRY.

In the mid-1990s I met the amazing Melbourne quintet “Morgana” and organised a two-week tour in Northern New South Wales and South East Queensland which was enormous fun.

And the Melbourne Women’s International Jazz Festival grew out of that?

Yeah, Sonja [Horbelt] said, can you become involved and do some artistic direction and work with me and we’ll share it? So I did a lot of the overseas stuff, like booking Emie Rioux-Roussel who’s a piano player from Canada, Japanese pianist and composer Satoko Fujii. And we still keep in touch with most of these people, which is great. Laila Biali is another one who’s a singer from Toronto.

The Canadians have got a good system for touring down. I reckon we could learn a lot [from them].

I provided management for Cuban pianist/composer Marialy Pacheco who while living in Australia was the first female winner of the Solo Piano Competition at the Montreux Jazz Festival and for Kristin Berardi who also won the Vocal Competition at Montreux and released a number of duo CD’s with James Sherlock on the Pinnacles Music Label, that I established in the early 2000’s as no interstate labels wanted to support Queensland artists in those times. Both these outstanding women jazz musicians/composers Marialy and Kristin have moved on and live in other parts of the world … they found their niche.

There’s a trust, in music, not only as a person who’s playing, but you need that trust within the bandstand, between the players that you’re

playing with. And because it’s teamwork, it’s like being on a basketball team. It’s not quite the same, but you know what I mean.

And it’s the same when you’re working with people who are going to pay you for a gig or going to get you from the airport to the hotel and those sorts of things. To me, I’ve always seen dealing with internationals especially, and interstaters, akin to being an ambassador for your state or country.

The way you treat them is what they’re going to remember. Like, hey, Australians are a-holes, or they’re actually fine people who look after you and get the importance of being an artist. And the same with interstaters as well. You have to treat people correctly. You’ve got to remember to feed them between the rehearsal and the concert. And they’ve got to get home. And sometimes they don’t want to go home, they just want to go to a club that’s spinning music that they don’t play and take them away from all the playing so they can just hang.

It’s not important what other people think of you.

It’s important about what you do. And what you can give. It’s really good to give. It’s satisfying.

And so, these little things that you take home (from a tour or event), are because they are cherished by you, you treasured them. What an honour being involved in the music scene.

Sadly, Lynette finally lost her battle with cancer on March 10, just as this edition was going to print. We extend our deepest condolences to her family and friends.

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GRANT WRITING 101: D E F I N E YO U R P R O J E C T ADAM SI MMO NS Securing funding is crucial for success in many industries – music is no dif ferent. For those looking to develop their creative practice, record their first album or take their music on the road, investment through funding is available for those who can state their case. Following on from last issue’s outline of available opportunities, this series will draw upon my own funding successes and failures over the years to provide an over view of practical tips for preparing competitive grant applications .

Define your project Whatever it is you want to do, there is likely to be a way to fund it – the key is in defining your project and being able to clearly articulate the reason why it deserves to be funded and what difference investment/funding will make to the outcome.

Doing this requires more than saying, “I want to record an album”, “I want time to develop some new music” or similar. Everyone wants to do those things also, so what makes you special, why should you get support, what impact will this have on your career trajectory, how might this contribute to and sustain your colleagues, partners and community?

These are the kinds of questions that an assessment panel asks when reading an application. They may read literally dozens of applications, all wanting to do the same thing, such as funding recording costs or go touring, and they may all be deserving but with limited funds there needs to be some imperative for an application to be successful. When assessing applications, a panel will be looking for projects that show how this project is the next step in your journey and how investment will help you achieve better results.

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Ask yourself these questions: Where have you come from?

Where are you right now?

How did you get here?

At whatever stage of your career, it is likely you will identify several steps between “then” and “now”. And chances are, any of these could have been funded as a “project”. Personally, I’ve been successful with “small” steps such as spending a few weeks to compose a new piece of music, or “bigger” steps such as a concert series involving creation, development, presentation, audience development and recording. Each time I have aimed to show how my “step” is building from where I’ve been with a clear vision of where I am heading.

The next questions to ask are: Where do you want to be?

What will be the benefits of getting there?

What step(s) do I need to take to get there?

The steps here may be one project, or maybe several. Now, consider how support would assist one or more of those steps, that you would not otherwise be able to do. You’re beginning to answer the questions that you will be expected to answer in your grant application.

Now, instead of the project beginning, “I want to record my new album”, you might talk about how you’ve got a tour planned around some confirmed events and that a new album will be key to the promotion of the tour, building upon previous media support and that sales will contribute to financial sustainability. Or instead of “I want to write some music”, you might discuss how you intend to develop a certain aspect of your practice through a period of creative development, with expressed interest from an organisation keen to present your work. This may be an existing relationship you’re fostering or a new opportunity for both of you.

In these cases, the outcome is not the album nor the music – these are outputs.

Think of outcomes as about change or improvement: audience development, media awareness, financial wellbeing, professional capacity, creative development and relationship building. These are the kinds of long-lasting outcomes that funding is more likely to support than just another album or a tour.

Next time: Answer the questions – who, what, when, where, how and why.

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VA L E

SUPPORT ACT

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:

C RI SI S RELI EF & WELLBEI NG H OTLI NE

Sue Barker – vocals Barry Bruce – piano Peter De Visser – trombone, composer, arranger, musical director for “Hey Hey It’s Saturday” Renée Geyer – vocalist, ARIA Hall of Fame, Music Victoria Hall of Fame, Australian Women in Music Awards Lifetime Acheivement Award Lynette Irwin – violin, founder of Brisbane International Jazz Festival, Pinnacles Music, Queensland Jazz Co-ordinator, Jazz Queensland, Artistic Director Melbourne Women’s International Jazz Festival, board member of QMusic, Grant McLennan Lifetime Achievement Award Chris Kelsey – clarinet, reeds, Southern Jazz Club President/Life Member/Hall of Fame, three-time winner Original Tunes Competition, award-winning engineer and inventor of the “Kelsey Jig” David Lole – piano, The Syncopaths Marty “Moose” Mooney – saxophone, Galapagos Duck Stuart Niven – piano John Pochée OAM – drummer, Ten Part Invention, The Engine Room, Graeme Bell Hall of Fame, ARIA Award winner, APRA AMCOS Award for “Distinguished Services to Australian Music”, member of Jazz Action Society committee, Jazz Co-ordination Association of NSW, SIMA, President of the Professional Musicians’ Club Andrew Speight – saxophonist, ARIA Award winner Graeme Thomas – bass, producer, Dancehall Racketeers, Preston Records Gary Walford – pianist, Unity Hall Band

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.

Wellbeing Helpline – free & confidential 24/7 support: 1800 959 500 General Enquiries | Crisis Relief: 1300 731 303 www.supportact.org.au

Additional Content Contributors Adelaide Jazz Festival Australian Art Orchestra Dan Barnett Emily Rytmeister Manly Jazz Melbourne Conservatorium of Music Melbourne Women's International Jazz Festival Wangaratta Festival of Jazz & Blues West Australian Youth Jazz Orchestra

Additional Photographic Contributors And Machines Martin de Arriba Réda Chakir Pawel Czerwinski Gareth David Severinus Dewantara Shubham Dhage Dids E Diop Milad Fakurian Dan Farrell Wilhelm Gunkel Mick Haupt Katerina Holmes Danny Howe Jude Infantini Daniele Levis Pelusi Norbert Kowalczyk Oscar Mackey Stephane Margerin

Bruno Mendes Thom Milkovic Tim Mossholder Andre Moura Mzwandile Dube Nada Ehud Neuhaus Tyler Nix Jovydas Pinkevicius Anni Roenkae Jose Maria Sava Brett Sayles Malena Gonzalez Serena Markus Spiske Javon Swaby Pramod Tiwari Jon Tyson Hao Wang

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Cover Art ‘Jazz’ Louise Adams