The career of Sydney pianist Aron Ottignon has received a major boost following his inclusion in a feature on significant young jazz musicians, published in the British newspaper The Observer.
Written by respected UK music journalist Stuart Nicholson, author of the new book Is Jazz Dead (Or Has it Moved to a New Address)?, the article profiles six musicians and groups he believes represent the changing face of the art form in the new millennium.
“Without anyone really noticing, jazz has become discreetly hip and these young musicians are part of the reason why,” writes Nicholson in the November edition of the paper’s music supplement. “They represent a refreshing breeze of change blowing through a music that once sounded like a tormented brain puzzle, the sort of stuff Julie Burchill called ‘a whole pile of notes in search of a melody’.”
Nicholson went on to say that the 23-year-old Ottignon is “serving notice that he is, potentially at least, one of the finest pianists in jazz”.
Aron, who was in London when the piece came out, says the timing was a stroke of luck. Speaking on the phone from London, he told Jazz Australia he had been planning the trip for months.
“Then a couple of months before I bought the ticket and saved enough money, I get an email from Stuart Nicholson saying he wanted to feature me in November. You wouldn’t believe it.”
So, did the phone start ringing after the piece appeared? “Not for gigs and not from other musicians,” says Aron. “But I had been ringing agents and labels and once the article came out I was getting publishing offers, record deal offers and there are a few UK, New Zealand and Australian magazines I’m going to be featured in.”
While Aron had done a lot of ground work before going to the UK – contacting publishers, record companies and sending out more than 200 copies of his debut album Culture Tunnels – this lift in profile made advancing his plans considerably easier. With support from a London-based management team, he is able to fly his band Aronas to Cannes to perform this week at Midem, the world’s largest music expo.
“We’ve got a featured main spot on Tuesday night [January 24],” explains Aron. “It’s not on the jazz stage, it’s on the actual main stage at 11.30pm, so our job is to get people from our favourite labels and publishers to that gig. It’s not so much the size of the audience – it’s who’s there. It’s a chance for us to show what we do to people from all around the world.”
After Midem, Aronas performs at two London showcase gigs – at the Jazz Café and Cargo. “Cargo is especially good even though it’s a nightclub. It’s run by Gilles Peterson, a well-known BBC DJ who recently hosted the BBC Worldwide Music Awards, which he put on at a huge venue. His interests are really broad – jazz to electro to quirky pop stuff. Quite a mixture. So we’re going to be featured on a night with him, which is another chance for us to play to a big audience.”
In an environment where categories can assume great importance and the word jazz gets music industry executives anxious about the bottom line, how does Aron position his band?
“That’s the hardest thing,” he says. “Saying we’re a jazz group scares off the publishing and record companies. Once I say we’re blending different sorts of world music, that we do a rock thing and we like to play dance clubs, it definitely opens up many different areas but it’s quite testing.”
“Being an instrumental band it’s not easy to please a dance crowd and then to be put into a jazz club we’ve got to change what we do a little bit. But that keeps the excitement there for sure.”
If all goes according to plan, Aronas will spend the northern summer touring. An agent that books acts such as Incognito, Coldcut and Matthew Herbert wants to include the group on a bill that will play up to 60 gigs throughout Europe over June and July.
“That would be huge for us,” says Aron. “We’ll be working every night and playing in different cities, which is a big goal of mine. That’s all ready to go so I just have to stick it out in London until then really.”
Aron says he enjoys the variety of music on offer in the city (“I was just reading Time Out magazine and working out my week – there’s so much international stuff coming through”) but that from a performer’s perspective the disparity between the major jazz names and the rest is problematic.
“There’s the guys who are signed and are touring constantly and they’re cool but then there’s no middle,” he explains. “They’re making money but the ones who aren’t signed and touring and are working in the clubs around London are struggling terribly and not really enjoying it.”
“So I am lucky that I have jumped straight to getting signed, so I can get onto the touring circuit and not have to worry so much about having to hustle gigs, which would be difficult. I’m finding that the regular gigs I’m getting offered are sort of hip-hop things. No jazz things are jumping up.”
What about the standard of the local music he has heard to date? “I haven’t heard the highest level of jazz yet,” he says. “There are a few different things that are cool, but I should just say that going down to a SIMA [Sydney Improvised Music Association] or Jazzgroove gig – the standard is a lot higher. There’s also a different energy and a bit of a different attitude. People are definitely a lot happier in Sydney with the sun and the food.”
Jazz Australia will be reporting on Aronas’ upcoming appearances at Cannes and London next week.
Also included in The Observer article were British pianist Matthew Bourne, two Norwegian musicians – trumpeter Arve Henriksen and singer Solveig Slettahjell – Finnish pianist Alexi Tuomarila and US group The Bad Plus.
Links
Stuart Nicholson’s article, Welcome to Our World http://observer.guardian.co.uk/
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Peter Jordan is also the national Editor of Jazz Australia and can be contacted at editor@jazz.org.au
