Jazz

This page has been permanently moved here

Jazz in Australia by Richard Letts (MCA)

The role of jazz coordinators (in preparation)

Jazz in Australia

By Richard Letts (Music Council of Australia).
Last updated: 6 September 2006

Overview

The quality and variety of jazz in Australia has probably never been greater. Probably this has something to do with the inclusion of jazz into the curricula of the major conservatoria and music schools over recent decades. The aspiring jazz player no longer is thrown totally on his or her own resources as a student, but can get skilled guidance and a formal education. This might be the ruin of an art form living off the street, but jazz in Australia mostly has come indoors and is the sort of music that can benefit from the formal curriculum.

That its musicians achieve so highly is nevertheless remarkable because the circumstances are pretty dire. We can think of only a few players whom we know to make a good living. Everyone else lives hand to mouth unless they have an income from non-jazz sources such as taxi-driving or school-teaching. The overall level of subsidies is pathetic and unfortunately the audience is not large enough to support an adequate box office.

top

Musicians

As to individual musicians or small groups, there is such an abundance of talented players that to name one is to risk not naming ten others.

One way around the problem would be to name the winners of the major competitions, though this excludes older great players including Bernie McGann  (sax), James Morrison (brass), and Mike Nock (piano). Here are  some competition winners:

Australian Jazz Awards (‘Bell’ Awards).

This is the 2006 list. We can find no archive of the earlier awards.

  • Joe Chindamo, piano
  • Aaron Choulai
  • Paul Grabowsky, piano
  • The Necks
  • Jamie Oehlers
  • John Pochée, drums
  • Janet Seidel, vocalist

Music Council of Australia Freedman Jazz Fellows (35 years and younger when awarded)

  • Andrea Keller, piano
  • Matt McMahon, piano
  • James Muller, guitar
  • Andrew Robson, sax
  • Phil Slater, trumpet

National Jazz Awards (Wangaratta)

(One award per year since 1990, by designated instrument)

  • Felix Bloxsom Drums
  • Brendon Clarke Bass
  • Elliott Dalgleish Saxophone
  • Mark Fitzgibbon Piano
  • Will Guthrie Drums
  • Tim Hopkins Saxophone
  • Stephen Magnusson Guitar
  • Roger Manins Saxophone
  • Barney McAll Piano
  • Matt McMahon Piano
  • James Muller Guitar
  • Michelle Nicolle Vocals
  • Jann Rutherford Piano
  • Phil Slater Brass
  • Elana Stone Vocals
  • Scott Tinkler Brass
  • Julien Wilson Saxophone

There are many many more but we are already in enough trouble…

top

Venues and entrepreneurs

Traditionally, some jazz venues are as famous as the most famous jazz musicians. Ronnie Scott’s in London, places such as the Village Gate in New York, are legendary. Back when in Sydney, El Rocco, and in Melbourne, the Embers, were where contemporary jazz found its legs. But by and large, the Australian venues, even the important ones, have been short term, transitory. The venue that is totally committed to jazz, that is synonymous with jazz, is a rarity. Overall, it’s more about a night here, a couple of nights there, usually in pubs or football and returned servicemen’s clubs.

Rather than fund venues, the funding bodies tend to fund presenters. The presenters then do a deal with a venue and offer performances once, twice, three times a week. The presenter keeps the door charge, the venue owner keeps the profit from food and drink. Often, the door take will be about enough to pay the musicians so unless there is subsidy, the presenter stands to make nothing – not a prescription for longevity. In other places, the musicians themselves will do a deal with the venue operator to keep the income from a door charge. The venue takes no risk, the musicians might possibly take home a decent fee. But probably not.

The one real, committed, jazz-only venue in Australia is the privately owned Bennetts Lane in Melbourne. So far as we are aware, all other venues are part-time for jazz and may also present other types of music. Or no music for some or most nights of the week.

Until a few years ago, there was a parsimoniously funded system of ‘jazz coordinators’ in Australia – a coordinator for each of the six states, plus a national coordinator of coordinators. The coordinators played mainly a supportive rather than an entrepreneurial role, helping musicians secure grants, providing information, maybe occasionally presenting a performance somewhere. The very modest funding brought corresponding success. That system has now been virtually disbanded by the funding bodies although there is a survivor in South Australia.

Some non-profit entrepreneurs are still supported, however, and give the funding agencies very good value for money. In Sydney, the Sydney Improvised Music Society (SIMA) presents two performance nights a week at the Sound Lounge, a club atmosphere in the Seymour Theatre Centre at Sydney University. Jazzgroove, a collective of younger Sydney jazz players, presents one performance a week and occasionally issues a disc of one of its members. The Melbourne Jazz Cooperative presents regular concerts at Bennett’s Lane. All of these receive national and state arts agency funding.

The small scale performance is probably most prevalent in Melbourne, where the liquor licensing laws have created a situation in which small restaurants and clubs are able to offer music. The laws in Sydney have choked off these possibilities because of the very high cost of liquor licences (although there are legislative changes afoot that may make new opportunities). Sydney performances tend more to be found in pubs or licensed clubs.

The Perth Jazz Society and the Jazz Club of WA have for years offered one night a week each at the Hyde Park Hotel; that has been important for Perth. In Adelaide, the best known venue is the Governor Hindmarsh, a hotel with a commitment to music but not to jazz alone.

top

Festivals

A few years ago, it was announced that of all the possible types of arts festivals in Australia, jazz festivals are the most numerous.

The most prestigious of them is the Wangaratta Festival of Jazz. This was set up in a country town in Victoria with no special connection to jazz. Jazz arrives, and leaves, once a year. The founder was Adrian Jackson, at the time but not any longer, the jazz critic for The Age newspaper in Melbourne. A major jazz award is a part of the festival each year, and each year is the outcome of a competition on a specific instrument, or voice.

A number of websites carry lists of Australian jazz festivals. The lists differ so it may be worth looking at more than one of them. The main ones are:

But there are many festivals not listed on those two sites. The majority are in small towns and probably feature traditional more than contemporary jazz.

Among the most important jazz festivals are these:

top

Other

Awards

Support and information resources

Education

Tertiary institutions offering instructions in jazz include:

At the school level, some schools have jazz bands alongside their concert bands. This is not a systematic offering but probably depends upon the skills and predilections of the available music teacher(s).

West Australia has a big, high level youth jazz band, the WA Youth Jazz Orchestra, WAYJO, based in Perth. This is an independent organisation and not a part of the education system. It may be part of the reason that so many fine jazz players are coming out of Perth.

Related record companies

Record companies that are totally or partly committed to jazz include:

Related broadcasters

No commercial stations known to us broadcast jazz.

The public station, ABC Classic FM, has regular jazz programs. The schedule can be found in its published program guide.

Otherwise jazz is found on community radio stations.

Funding

Funding for jazz activities is available from the Australia Council Music Board and from all state and territory arts ministries.

top

Issues

In the late 1990s, the Music Council of Australia, in cooperation with the then National Jazz Coordination Office (now defunct), prepared a strategic plan for jazz development. It can be read at the MCA website.

We have to say that the Australian jazz community did not cope well with this plan. By the time everyone had defended their turfs from imagined take-overs or found some molehill to turn into a mountain, the outcome was paralysis. Now the threat of action has been removed, Australian readers might find something of interest there. The situation is little changed and so the issues are much the same, excepting that probably with the wider utilisation of the internet, there is more information more freely available.

top

2 Responses to “Jazz”

  1. Digitalpiano Says:
    Monday, 13 July 2009 at 4:16 | Reply

    thanks for that piece of information. very helpful.

  2. shaidar cuebiyar Says:
    Monday, 28 September 2009 at 13:28 | Reply

    Hello,

    I found the previous winners of the Australian Jazz Awards or “Bell Awards” for the years 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2004 and inaugural 2003. No awards in 2005.

    See

    http://www.bellawards.org/index2.php?act=past&year=2009

    for the 2009 awards. Change last digit for other years or use the website’s own inteface.

Leave a Reply