The weekend of 22 and 23 of October, the Coopers East End Jazz Festival takes place at Rundle Park in Adelaide’s East End. The Glenelg Jazz Festival in Adelaide may have disappeared from the scene, but jazz enthusiasts in South Australia will still have access to some great jazz through this new festival.
The first East End Jazz Festival was held in February this year – organiser Con Virlas treated it as a ‘proof of concept’. The results were good enough to make him want to continue, and less than a year later he’s doing it again – this time with major sponsorship by Coopers and the support of Adelaide City Council and a range of other local organisations weighing in with sponsorship and support.
The program is one that aims to cater for a wide range of tastes and hopefully, says Virlas, introduce people to some music that they might not normally listen to, but may actually enjoy. The international acts include the Niels Lan Doky Quartet with Lan Doky on keyboards (originally from Denmark and now living in France), Lissa Nilsson on vocals (Sweden), Pierre Boussaguet playing bass (France) and drummer Alex Riel (Denmark), Chico Freeman from New York is another international feature of the program who will also be appearing in Sydney on 19 October.
Even though he knows it means a harder road to hoe, Virlas has chosen to maintain control of the festival’s flavour. For one thing, he feels he can’t bring someone in for a festival unless he’s met them, so the program choices have been made with the music and the musicians firmly in mind. In choosing acts, Virlas has also been able to follow a personal preference – he loves Scandinavian jazz, and thinks it is some of the best in the world. “I think it’s because it’s so cold there so they practice a lot.” he hypothesises, and then adds “They really know how to express themselves and don’t hold themselves back. And they have great personalities,” The ‘personality’ aspect plays a part in the decisions about other groups on the program too, so it’s no surprise that James Greening’s Sydney band ‘The World According to James’ is also part of the line-up. The website puts it nicely, describing this band’s music with words like ‘wit, creativity and exuberance’ – qualities that are visible in Greening the musician and in his band and the music they play. The other interstate act appearing at the festival is West Park, also from Sydney.
However, local groups form the majority of performances and a quick glance at the program reveals that festival audiences are in for a real treat. Click here to see the programme>
Another important role of events such as this, according to Virlas, is that they provide an opportunity to bring jazz to the attention of young players. A number of high school jazz bands on the program and free workshops for high school aged musicians arise from Virlas’ conviction that the way to keep the jazz scene alive is to expose students to this type of music – in all its forms. He has a number of other related projects on the boil at the moment that take jazz to regional high schools—city and regional—and raise awareness of it as a possible direction for young musicians to take.
Jazz at the festival is played on three main stages over two days – allowing audiences to hear a wide range of music or stick to what they know and like. Everything from trad to latin, funk, fusion, contemporary, post be-bop. Virlas agrees that there are multiple challenges about arranging a festival such as this. With the potential audience for jazz being such a small percentage of the population—he quotes 4% of the music-loving public as being jazz enthusiasts—and on top of that, most people who say they love jazz don’t make it out to live gigs. “I really want to reach those people,” he says. “Jazz doesn’t always appear in the gig guide. Sometimes it’s invisible. If you’re not plugged into the information network, you just don’t know. A festival like this can be a great opportunity to motivate people to come out and listen.”
Looking at the programme, it seems like the perfect opportunity to make a day of it. Bring a rug and prepare to enjoy great music, scrumptious food and a good selection of beverages, supplied by Sosta Argentinian Restaurant, Chopstix Box on Rundle, Universal Wine Bar, Lemon Grass Bistro and Vili’s.
Day tickets: adult $20, concession $15; weekend: adult $30, concession $20; family: $60; children under 10 free. Tickets can be purchased at the gate or through Venuetix
For detailed information, go to the Coopers East End Jazz Festival website>
