Roger Dean’s examination of Australian contemporary Jazz on CD Sounds From the Corner has attracted considerable interest in the jazz community.
We published John Clare’s review of the book in January and here now is a second appraisal by Martin Jackson.
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Sounds From the Corner: Australian Contemporary Jazz on CD
By Roger T. Dean
(Australian Music Centre)
The Australian Music Centre’s initiative in publishing such a long overdue book on Australian contemporary jazz on CD is both laudable and clearly appreciated by the jazz community. (So much so, it seems, that its members do not want to be seen to be criticising it). With polymath musician Roger Dean as writer there was potential for the combination of both academic credibility and brilliant musical insights. As someone who identifies as an ‘improviser’ rather than a jazz musician, Dean would be expected to bring a broad appreciation (and working understanding) of various jazz styles to the study that was devoid of subjective leanings to any particular schools or style. This promising formula offered a great opportunity to provide “an accessible path to the recorded literature of Australian modern jazz and improvisation”.
Unfortunately, the result is more a promising but uneven and first draft-like work than the definitive benchmark it could have been. The quality of research and analysis ranges widely from stimulating and articulate insights to glib annotations that seem in rough, note form. And Dean demonstrates that he is largely out of touch with developments outside of Sydney and that he holds some basic misconceptions about the Melbourne scene. Furthermore, there is a questionable bias – not towards any particular style of jazz, but in favour of New Music improvisers – which perhaps should have seen the book titled Australian Contemporary Jazz and Improvised Music on CD. The very basic (low cost) design and production of this the book may turn out be a virtue, making it easy to produce further, improved, editions.
My first query regards the overall aim: is the book a general critical guide for local and international listeners and collectors, or a broad index-type survey with brief commentary? The AMC’s press release states that, “It aims to elicit international interest in this music”.
The international market is flooded with jazz CD guides – including books published by All Music, Penguin, and Blackwell – each with a slightly different approach. Virtually all of them feature some type of rating system and a guide to essential acquisitions. Dean mentions the Penguin guide but he takes the survey option, with no recommendations or ratings. His book does not, therefore, greatly assist the potential collector of notable Australian jazz CDs in making a confident start. It does not, for example, denote albums which are ARIA Award winners and (astonishingly) omits both of **Andrea Keller**’s ARIA-Award winning albums.
Far from being user-friendly, it is a perplexing work in as much as it discusses many recordings that the reader will not be able to access. Why, for example, is there no indication of out-of-print or deleted items (such as the case with virtually all of the ABC’s pre-Universal titles, while labels such as rooArt and Spiral Scratch have long been defunct). An unarguably essential acquisition, the Bodgie Dada compilation was tragically pulped after very modest sales in the 1990s. With only a couple of hundred surviving copies in existence, the reader faces a challenge in finding a copy.
The selection of recorded material, in fact, seems rather limited, and very much dominated by Sydney-based artists. The selection was supposed to be partially based on recommendations by respondents to Dean’s survey, but it is unclear how many participants responded with album suggestions. And was the final selection limited mainly to the resources of Dean’s own collection and (one assumes) that of the AMC, or was a serious effort made to seek out a much broader representation of artists and styles?
If there was a serious aim to “elicit international interest in this music”, then citing recordings that are obtainable overseas should have been a factor in selection of albums. For example, albums by The catholics and other Rufus artists were released on the Canadian Terra Nova label, while albums by Joe Chindamo, Tim Stevens, Mike Nock, Sean Wayland and others have been issued in Japan. And albums by such as Nock, Chris Cody, and others are available on the international budget Naxos jazz series.
Albums featuring collaborations between Australian and well-known international artists – such as Niko Schauble’s Tibetan Dixie with Arthur Blythe (on the Dutch Timeless label) and Enrico Rava (on ORiGiN) or **Paul Grabowsky**’s more recent work with Branford Marsalis and Joe Lovano (released in the U.S. on Warner) – would have been valuable starting points from this perspective since these collaborations feature international artists interpreting Australian compositions. However, any attempt at selection invariably generates debate about choices so I will not dwell on this aspect.
Apart from the odd glaring exception (such as Mark Fitzgibbon), Dean does manage to cover most major figures in Australian contemporary jazz. The main problem is in the way the book favours Sydney artists and, to a lesser degree, Melbourne artists to the exclusion of artists from other cities. This might be explained by the fact that Sydney and Melbourne host the country’s major jazz labels. Notable omissions from other cities include Perth’s K, Adelaide’s Ted Nettlebeck, and Brisbane-based Misinterprotato, the West End Collective, James Sherlock and Erik Griswold. In addition, the lack of emerging and established artists from the innovative Sydney-based JazzGroove label (such as Spike Mason, Andrew Fiddes or Cameron Undy’s Numerology) is also a fundamental omission.
Those not represented from Melbourne include well-respected artists Jex Saarelaht, Sam Keevers, Christophe Genoux, Geoff Hughes, and Frock (which has four commercially released CDs) as well as the “next wave” Murphy’s Law (which features promising young guitarist Nashua Lee).
When the selection is limited to less than 250 albums (I estimate this is around 20% of Australian jazz albums) and 115 artists or groups, the criteria for selection must be thoroughly scrutinized. Dean’s criteria in examining “as broad a stylistic range of Australian jazz as possible” are not clearly stated apart from the exclusion of traditional and mainstream jazz, which he quite reasonably argues have been covered elsewhere. However, in trying to examine any potential Australian jazz style, it would have been quite beneficial to examine some CD examples of Australian originals in (or inspired by) the traditional idiom, such as those by The Hoodangas, Virus and **Allan Browne**’s groups, which is a sub-idiom unique to Australia.
His stylistic demarcation line allows adequately for vocalists, including Sydney’s Lily Dior and Pamela Knowles, but not for Melbourne’s more recorded ex-Tasmanian Christine Sullivan and ex-South Australian Michelle Nicole. Nor does it allow for fusion groups (such as the internationally-known Crossfire). Yet he includes ensembles with pronounced World Music influences. With the notable exception of James Muller, Jim Kelly and Guy Strazzullo, he does not seem interested in the music of guitarists. Omissions include Steve McKenna, Peter O’Mara, Steve Brien, George Golla, Doug deVries, Carl Dewhurst, Jeremy Sawkins, Peter Petrucci, Sherlock, D’Volv, Geoff Hughes, Dan West of Kadoonka, amongst others.
While I both admire and share Dean’s broad taste, there is clearly a distinct bias – unintentional or otherwise – towards non-jazz improvisers, conceding of course that some of those cited, (such as The Necks or Tim O’Dwyer), straddle both genres, or who are deeply informed by their jazz background. However, with such a limited cohort, I believe that the total of around 20 entries for artists whose work is better described as contemporary improvised music or New Music is far too high. They include What is Music?, Ambarchi, Avenaim, Buck, Bucketrider, Cooper, Jim Denley, Guthrie, Johnson, O’Dwyer, Pateras, Peril, Pipeline, That, Jon Rose, Sheridan, Hazel Smith, Jo Truman, Unamunos Quorum and Wishart. Most of these belong to a genre in its own right rather than under a jazz banner. And some, such as Hazel Smith, feature Dean on their albums. How does one justify the inclusion of harp and guzheng soloist Clare Cooper when a central Melbourne figure (and Wangaratta National Jazz Piano Award winner) such as Mark Fitzgibbon is not included? Also included is European World Music group, Bitama, mainly to illustrate expatriate **Adrian Mears**’ use of the didjeridu.
It is here that Dean is on problematic and contentious ground in putting forward his own personal opinions about the nature of improvisation and its relationship to jazz, with the main purpose seemingly being the creation of a broad enough definition to validate the inclusion of such improvising artists. Ironically, several of these same artists (who mainly receive relatively detailed analysis here) have gone to great lengths to not only distance themselves from any connection to the term jazz, but have publicly denigrated it as a passé, moribund idiom.
In relation to the selections themselves, there are some baffling choices. Dean indicates that some of these choices were made after feedback from respondents (including some of the artists), but it is not stated what percentage of artists contributed to this process. In several cases, I would argue that the artists’ best work is not represented. For instance, many believe that Vince Jones’ Here’s to The Miracles is the pinnacle of his song writing collaborations, while Jeff Usher’s Vol.1 is arguably his best album.
Other anomalies seem to indicate a lack of thorough research, such as inclusion of The catholics eponymous debut album, and The Necks‘ Sex album being listed by their out-of-print Spiral Scratch label details rather than citing available re-issues on their Rufus and Fish of Milk labels, respectively.
The overwhelmingly positive aspect of the book is the “generous spirit” (as John Clare termed it in his review) with which Dean discusses the strengths of some commercially successful, less original or less adventurous, and more accessible artists such as James Morrison, Vince Jones and Joe Chindamo.
Partially offsetting this “generosity” is the glib quality of some of the brief annotations given to jazz artists in comparison to more lengthy analysis of non-jazz improvisers. These include pithy observations such as “Lively, expert playing, but predominately tonal” (as if being predominately tonal were a flaw, whereas inventive melodic playing remains a great challenge for improvisers, and cannot be simply taught by any formula or patterns).
The appendices have some quite useful material, but again suffer from uneven quality. Appendix 2 lists artists with important LPs which have not been issued on CD. This would have been far more useful if it provided the LP titles (which are known to serious collectors, but certainly not to the uninitiated). Dean refers to “Cale’s orchestra recordings”, but the two live LPs are now available as CDs (on the VISTA label). The remaining orchestra LP is A Century of Steps (on Larrikin), possibly the best summation of Cale’s writing. There are some other LPs which should belong in this (Sydney dominated) list. The most obvious omission is Brian Brown, with his Carlton Streets collaboration with David Tolley, and his Upward (on the 44 label). A case could also be made for including some earlier historic LPs (such as some by Bryce Rohde or Brown’s 1958 Quintet), seeing that Munro’s 1967 Eastern Horizons is included. Another surprising omission (given Dean’s bias) are the two highly distinctive 1980s solo piano LPs by Chris Abrahams, Piano and Walk (both possibly still available from Hot Records), which illustrate a very original trajectory away from his initial Hancock and Tyner influences.
Appendix 5, a list of Dean’s collaborators, is rather superfluous, while the number of respondents (15) for a national survey in Appendix 4 is far too small to draw any solid conclusions on aspects such as attitudes to female instrumentalists. While there are undoubtedly grounds for improvement of male attitudes towards female instrumentalists in this country, it could also have been pointed out that there is a relatively high number of working female instrumentalists here (especially compared to Europe or the USA). The dual ARIA wins of pianist/composer Keller surely suggest that such attitudes are not as broadly held as this survey might suggest.
Appendix 1 is also somewhat superfluous, except to point out the incorporation of the Japanese shakuhachi (which Adam Simmons also plays) and koto. The use of didjeridu in Australian jazz (as well as in rock) should be no revelation to anyone, but surprisingly Dean does not refer to the growing use of the piano accordion by Melbourne keyboardists such as Joe Chindamo, Andrea Keller, Anthony Schulz (of Frock) and Stephen Grant.
Appendix 3 is a most useful introductory guide to “Improvisation and the experimental and world music scenes in Australia”. More crucial to the subject, Appendix 6 is an excellent (albeit brief) annotated survey of key sources on Australian jazz. This is quite thorough despite videos/DVD omissions, such as Mike Nock – A Jazz Film, and The Pulse series.
Dean’s essay “Australia and contemporary jazz and improvisation is an academic examination of “selected aspects” of the ‘the life of jazz in Australia’ to provide a background and link for his observations of the CDs. He makes some valuable points about social conditions and incomes to argue that jazz is not “popular” music.
One aspect of Australian jazz history which I find interesting (and which is not grasped here) is the relatively limited of impact of non-Australasian born performers when compared to the Australian rock and pop world (where the majority of successful 1960s performers were usually immigrants). With the exception of the late Roger Frampton and several expatriate New Zealanders (such as Munro, Nock, Bailey and Simmonds), the major figures of Australian jazz history have been Australian born (such as Bell, Brown, Burrows, Sangster, Frank Smith, etc.). Resident artists such as Howie Smith and the late Keith Barr or Gordon Brisker were it seems anecdotally quite influential during their stays here. However, most migrants (such as Ed Gaston, Vince Genova, the late Jeff Pressing and Dean himself) have been more contributors rather than harbingers of any significant stylistic change.
Dean’s written contribution, from the perspective of a mature international artist who moved here, could have been invaluable. This book is instead a starting point towards an invaluable resource. When Dean does revise this (as hopefully he will), the AMC should also look at improving the quality of the book design – it currently has a library index look – if it is serious about attracting an international market, particularly given its $46 cover price.
For the time being, Dean is to be congratulated for taking up the challenge and providing a focus for the depth and diversity of recorded contemporary jazz and improvised music in this country as well as highlighting many artists who deserve broader recognition. This is a positive step towards tangibly demonstrating the scale and richness of this scene to arts bureaucrats, politicians, and the wider CD buying market.
Martin Jackson is a musician and founding president of the Melbourne Jazz Co-operative.
Photo: Roger Dean
