A personal perspective on the Jazz Visions Festival, Aug 12-21
I remember a time when, having passed middle age, I reached the reluctant conclusion that jazz, like me, had about run its course. Oh well, the music of Debussy, Ravel, Bartok, Bach, the Beatles and many others were as much my life as jazz, as was the ocean; and as to jazz and other musics I had more great recordings than I would ever hear again. Likewise there are books on my shelves that I will never again read. You do not sell off the ones you will never read or hear again; because you don’t know precisely which ones they are. Something will remind you of a neglected masterpiece. You will slide it out and the front room will be filled with colour, rhythm and texture; with melodic invention, with a forgotten language, of its time yet unique.
No sooner had I shrugged my shoulders with regard to the contemporary relevance of jazz than fresh and even unique bands began springing up in the kinds of venues I had also thought I would never see again. Actually this has happened more than once. In SIMA’s Jazz Visions Festival there are musicians who figured in periods of renaissance decades ago: Sandy Evans, Alister Spence, Lloyd Swanton, Chris Abrahams, Dale Barlow, Elliott Dalgliesh et al. Also such veterans as Mike Nock, Bernie McGann and John Pochee, who figured in earlier golden ages yet have remained ever vital, ever fresh and still of great interest to young musicians and fans. But these are outnumbered by the players who have figured in more recent waves of creativity. Their names will be familiar to young readers scanning the festival program. You may be surprised to know that they are almost all familiar to me. Curious perhaps that I have heard them despite the abovementioned periods of resignation. In fact their various arrivals have excited me and coloured my dusty world as vividly as anything I heard in my youth. Their CD covers have reflected the greater hand young musicians have taken in the whole process of music making and presentation. This sophisticated involvement is now universal, this breaking down of the division of labour, in step with new technologies; but who would have thought to see it rise within the tradition of jazz, which is now well over a century old.
Even the earliest of these CD covers, many of which I own (along with the music within of course), still have a freshness. Yes, some could be taken for rock CDs, but there is something different about them – the covers and the music. They reflect the wide interests of musicians who have grown up long atfer the Pop Art movement. That is, long after Warhol, Lichtenstein, Larry Rivers Tom Wesselmann, Claes Oldenburg, Jim Dine, Rosenquist et al. We should not forget that independent labels proliferated in jazz very much in advance of industry trends. Abstraction, Expressionism, inventive use of type faces and various creative photographic styles were somehow part of the feeling that surrounded new jazz releases in the 1950s and into the sixties and seventies, when European independents – notably ECM – began to run their parallel courses. As early as 1966 Cecil Taylor’s Blue Note album Unit Structures featured a grid of the same photo of Taylor solarised in different colours, in the manner of Warhol’s Elvis, Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Onassis duplications. Warhol had only recently introduced this concept, so Blue Note were quick off the mark.
We think of jazz as an exclusivist music and some jazz has been that, with intense and exciting results, but Dizzy Gillespie’s big band used powerful Afro Cuban rhythms in the 1940s. Machito and others mixed jazz with Latin rhythms. Nor was this new. Early in the 20th century Jelly Roll Morton declared that “the Spanish tinge” was essential to jazz. W.C. Handy’s St Louis Blues had a tango section. Klezmer sometimes entered the music of Benny Goodman, via trumpeter Ziggy Elman. Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys mixed jazz and country music in Western Swing. A number of jazz guitarists were also country guitarists, including Les Paul. It is true that the pre-rock and roll popular music of my childhood and early teens, having had no central dance craze since the swing era (except R&B which was reaching us in bits and pieces), was free to do anything so long as somebody thought it might sell. Music from south of the US border sometimes materialised on the hit parade. There was even a polka (There’s A Pawnshop On The Corner Of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania) and even in fact an East African song Wimoweh, sung by the folk group The Weavers, whose members included Pete Seeger and who were associated with Woody Guthrie. This was revived much later with an added descant as The Lion Sleeps Tonight. We experienced these as isolated novelties – not from Africa or the Wild West or American folk music, but from that sweet synthetic world apart, that parallel to Hollywood, known as Tin Pan Alley.
Some of jazz’s explorations have been singularly intense and informed: Joe Harriott’s and John Mayer’s Indo-jazz fusions of the 1960s, Tony Scott’s meditative recording within the Taj Mahal, Australian Charles Munro’s Eastern Horizons; and in parallel to this the so-called Third Stream movement, which can really be traced back to Paul Whiteman, and which, though much derided, has had some moments of great interest and even success in its pursuit of a synthesis of jazz and modern classical music.
Thus: Sandy Evans’s Indian project is the product of her studies in India with acknowledged masters. Sandy’s regular trio will be joined by percussionist Bobby Singh and sitar player Sarangan Sriranganathan. Drummer Simon Barker returns frequently to Korea for further studies. He has brought some of his Korean colleagues to Australia for concerts and a wonderful recording. His performance will be preceded by a showing of Emma Franz’s powerful film about Simon’s search for the shaman drum master Kim Seok-Chul, with many great musicians and characters encountered along the way. Young band The Vampires will present a sunny irresistible jazz often buoyed by reggae beats.
Brilliant and highly popular vocalist Katie Noonan will perform in duet with imaginative, colouristic guitarist Cameron Deyel. Katie’s husband, tenor saxophonist Zac Hurren (winner of the national saxophone competition at Wangaratta) will unleash his full force trio. Also from Brisbane, the extraordinary saxophonist Elliott Dalgliesh (an earlier winner at Wangaratta) with his Mute Canary Project (a tribute to soprano saxophone pioneer Steve Lacy). Dalgliesh’s ensemble will startle those who have not looked for jazz innovation from the North.
Tenor saxophone master Dale Barlow will lead a band selected from the wealth of young local talent. Barlow has had substantial success in America, as has Mike Nock, who will present his two bands – his renowned trio and his eight-piece Mike Nock Project. In both he will be joined by American tenor saxophone star George Garzone plus, as always with Mike, an outstanding collection of young local players.
While highly distinctive and recognizable in her own right, Melbourne composer/pianist Andrea Keller has also absorbed the influence of Bela Bartok, reflecting her Hungarian heritage. Joining her brilliant quartet will be two of Australia’s most original musicians, trumpeter Phil Slater and veteran alto saxophone pioneer Bernie McGann. Slater and McGann have played together before, when Slater was much more bop oriented, and brilliantly so. It will be interesting to hear his glorious current trumpet figurations in juxtaposition with McGann’s magnificent playing.
Renowned pianist Chris Abrahams (The Necks, The Benders, Roil, Jackie Orzacsky, a Midnight Oil tour etc) will duet with New York saxophonist/film composer Phillip Johnston. The recent playing of Abrahams with a Johnston ensemble including fellow Neck Lloyd Swanton with (of Johnston’s soundtrack for a Teinosuke 1927 silent movie) was a revelation. The Abrahams/Johnston duet will be of singular interest. Perhaps not singular. The Jim Denley/Mike Majkowski duet (saxophone and bass) is also much anticipated. This will be in an improvisational area consciously beyond jazz. Matt Keegan’s groove-based band, with Stu Hunter on organ is a guaranteed crowd pleaser. Plus plus plus.