The relationship between what most people would categorise as jazz and the sort of sounds you might expect to hear at the now NOW festival in Sydney, Articulating Space in Melbourne and Openframe in Brisbane is not as tenuous as it might appear at first listen.
According to Clayton Thomas, co-organiser with Clare Cooper of the fifth now NOW festival in Sydney from 18-21 January, jazz is a great inspiration to everyone involved in the festival, both as a creative expression and as a music of its time. Thomas himself admits that he draws inspiration from Charles Mingus, Henry Grimes, William Parker and Wilbur Ware—but make no mistake it’s not their music that you’ll hear at the now NOW. Anthony Pateras, largely responsible for organizing Articulating Space in Melbourne from 22-24 January (with Robin Fox) , agrees to a certain extent, saying that jazz has made an important contribution to the formulation of the festivals, and the formation of the musical communities behind them, often providing the doorway that a musician will walk through to become involved in the more experimental music.
Both Thomas and Pateras acknowledge that people often think of jazz when they hear talk of improvised and experimental music simply because it is probably the most well-known example of real-time composition. Pateras also adds, however, that to him that the avant garde, experimental music that all three festivals are presenting is “more about another shift, another movement in which musicians are taking it upon themselves to do their own exploration and their own compositional forms, which don’t necessarily match that jazz form of head, improv, head or solos or the jazz ideas of rhythm or melody. Many of these ideas are being thrown out for a new language.”
He goes on: “The major shift has been in terms of ‘what music is’ and all the cross pollination between various explorations, whether they are in classical music or improvised music or jazz or electronic; it’s only really in the last ten or fifteen years (more like 20-25 now I think about it) that we’re beginning to see an intersection of all these forms.” The association with the more experimental community is one that both Thomas and Pateras enjoy, with its many influences and the opportunity for the exciting unknowns that come out of cross pollination.
What seems to be true for the experimental community is that many jazz musicians are interested in what is being done in this region of experimental music: music that goes beyond the melodic language that has been happening in jazz for over thirty years. For Pateras, the question is also about forward movement. “While some jazz music is extraordinarily beautiful to listen to, the question remains ‘Where’s it going?’ ‘How can it progress (evolve instead?)?’ The very essence of experimentation is forward movement and an attempt to attain something that has been unheard before. Perhaps jazz doesn’t provide an open enough forum?” The now NOW, Articulating Space and Openframe are about exploring, presenting and playing with this forward movement.
The now NOW has been around for a few years (this is the fifth annual occurrence) and was originally born from a small segment of the Sydney musical community – notably the musicians who played in or with the Splinter Orchestra. The original impetus was to build on existing musical relationships and forge new ones. It was not put together as a commercial festival—and in fact this year is the first time that artists will be paid (although, admits Thomas, that is yet to happen for organisers!) Over time, the festival has worked its way into the mainstream consciousness, perhaps partly because it happens annually, consistently and is fuelled by the seemingly boundless energy of organisers Clayton Thomas and Clare Cooper. And of course reviewers in mainstream press such as the Sydney Morning Herald and the Daily Telegraph actually give the now NOW some exposure. That’s not to say the music has become more mainstream. In fact, Thomas says, the music has actually become more ‘extreme’ in recent years, as boundaries are pushed and experimentation goes further. This year, too, the festival is offering a program of short films.
Pateras, based in Melbourne and clearly committed to the presentation of experimental music, believes the Sydney scene is doing good things for the community in NSW and beyond, just by being a focus for musicians that has some longevity and looks to continue. He also says that on an international level, it is becoming clear that Australia has an extraordinary community of experimental musicians, and awareness of that is due to festivals such as the now NOW and What is Music, a festival that has been running for ten years (although not this year).
While in recent years the now NOW has worked with the Make It Up Club in Melbourne to present a new music festival down south that featured many of the musicians in the Sydney festival, this year sees a change in direction and a collaboration with Articulating Space. For Melbourne fans of experimental music, Articulating Space has been around since 2001 with early autumn and late spring mini-festivals of a month with a fairly packed line-up each week. After a short hiatus, necessitated by Pateras’ other commitments, Articulating Space is now back. Due to public demand, he says, but also because events like the now NOW have made it clear there is a need for a forum in Melbourne in addition to the Make It Up Club. This is the sort of music that jazz venues wouldn’t normally program as a regular gig.
The program is broad, with players such as Chris Abrahams and Tony Buck who can easily work their way through any jazz composition through to classical musicians as Erkki Velteim (Finland) and bass recorder player Natasha Anderson who play in a range of contemporary music ensembles from here and abroad. And then you have Botborg who are interested in experimentation with malfunctioning technology.
The intersections between these practices are what intrigues organisers and the musicians involved. What happens when you take a warped version of jazz technique or a sense of jazz form and join that with flexible real time technology? What happens when you then incorporate that with classical extended techniques?
So… think spontaneous, improvised, experimental cross-pollination and you’ll begin to get the gist. These are festivals that present the music of a broad (and growing) Australian community of musicians who are exploring a large array of techniques and activities that don’t necessarily fall into the category of jazz, although it is improvised and it is exploratory and it does require a sense of compositional intuition and thinking in the moment. And of course it’s inevitable that featuring the now NOW, Articulating Space and Openframe on a site called Jazz Australia will lead to that old, old discussion about ‘what jazz is’. I suggest we just leave it alone for now. Argue with me after you’ve listened and we’ll take it from there.
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_Miriam Zolin is a writer based in Melbourne who does a bit of work here and there on various jazz websites. You can contact her by email at miriam@jazz-planet.com_
The now NOW is on in Sydney from 18-21 January. Web: www.thenownow.net
Articulating Space is presented for your listening pleasure in Melbourne from 22-24 January. Web: www.anthonypateras.com
Openframe happens in Brisbane from 27-29 January. Web: www.brisbanepowerhouse.org
