Austral Jazz

The Localization of a Global Music Form in Sydney

Andrew Robson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781138316027
• eBook ISBN: 9780429850219
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Ethnomusicology

Austral Jazz: The Localization of a Global Music Form in Sydney proposes a new theoretical framework for understanding local jazz communities as they develop outside the United States, demonstrating such processes in action by applying the framework to a significant period of the history of jazz in Sydney, Australia after 1973. This volume introduces the notion of 'Austral Jazz, ' coined in order to reset the focus on supranational conceptions of jazz expressions in the southwestern Pacific. It makes the case for Austral Jazz chronologically across six chapters that discuss, interpret and critique major events and seminal recordings, tracing the development of the Austral shift from a pre-Austral period prior to 1973.

Austral Jazz presents a fresh approach to understanding the development of jazz communities, and while its focus is on the Sydney scene after 1973, the 'Austral' theory can be applied to creative communities globally. A creative shift took place in Sydney in the early 1970s, which led to the flourishing of a new kind of jazz-based expression, one that reflected Australia's increasingly globalized and multicultural outlook. This study is timely, and it builds on the work of local jazz researchers. Historiographical understandings of global developments in jazz can be understood within a framework of four overarching narratives: The 'birth and belonging' narrative; the 'spread and adaptation' narrative; the 'pluralization by localization' narrative; and the 'self-fashioning of the already local' narrative.

1

JAZZ AUSTRALIA

A Window into the Pre-Austral

Jazz recordings are powerful objects. The legacy of recorded jazz functions as the backbone of the music’s history and shapes our understanding of the past.

(Whyton 2013, 3)

Before examining the events that took place in 1973 and assessing their broader significance, it is necessary to consider the key figures and developments in jazz leading up to this moment of change and heralding a shift in the air. Following the arrival of bebop in the mid-1940s, jazz in Australia developed as ‘two bifurcating jazz streams’

informally ignored by many musicians, but reviewers, critics and jazz clubs and their members so emphasized the gulf that for the next several decades one of the most significant lines of force defining the jazz scene was the traditional/modern binary.¹

(Johnson 2008, 123)

It has been claimed that, within the traditional stream, Australia had produced a ‘distinct strain’ of jazz expression as early as the 1940s; however, even if this can be argued convincingly, the music produced at this time remained predominantly diasporic in that the sound and approach were clearly derivative of American influences in its essential characteristics: that is, the music’s distinctiveness was fundamentally and innately connected to its American source (Clunies Ross 1979, 62, 63). This is not to suggest that the music was not shaped by local circumstance, but rather to differentiate the diasporic processes by which ‘traditional’ Australian jazz was produced with the ‘self-fashioning’ modes of reidentification that would arise after 1973.

During the 1960s in Australia there were relatively few venues dedicated to the performance of modern jazz. Melbourne’s Jazz Centre 44 (1957–1966²) and Sydney’s El Rocco (1955–1969) in Kings Cross are perhaps the most notable of these. Similarly, opportunities for local jazz artists to record their own music commercially were limited: the recording process was expensive and contracts with major labels were difficult to secure. Some local artists did record, however, and from a pre-Austral perspective, several recordings illuminate both the period immediately prior to the Austral shift of 1973 and hint at what changes might occur. These are recordings by musicians who were later to become influential in the Austral landscape, or who played an important role in creating an environment in which a shift could take place. A brief survey of these pre-Austral recordings and the musicians involved offers clues as to what these future developments might entail, in terms both of the artists themselves and of the coming creative shift more generally. It can be argued, however, with the advantage of hindsight, that one particular recording points to an emerging Austral scene.

Jazz Australia

Jazz Australia was released on the prestigious Columbia label in 1967. The album comes closer than any other single artefact in epitomizing the pre-Austral jazz moment and announcing the creative shift that was about to take place. It is a significant recording on several levels. Most importantly, it is a compilation album that features original compositions by four bandleaders: Don Burrows, John Sangster, Judy Bailey, and Bernie McGann. Each leader contributes one long original piece, with the exception of McGann who contributes two shorter compositions. The album does not include a standard or other previously recorded American piece; this is an album by local jazz musicians performing their own music. The Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) sponsored the album in that it covered the costs of compositions, arrangements, and musicians. APRA also selected the bandleaders, inviting them to perform an original composition with a group of up to eight players. Each group was allocated a maximum 13 minutes of music on the final recording. The Australian journalist and writer Craig McGregor was a supporter of what McGann had been doing, and as McGregor was an advisor to APRA at the time the roster for Jazz Australia was being put together, he recommended McGann’s inclusion (Page 1997). Without McGregor’s intervention, McGann would almost certainly have been passed over: as his biographer, Geoff Page, relates, ‘there was apparently some disapproval in certain circles that this “young avant-gardist” was given a slot on such a rare and important record’ (1997, 40); although he gives no indication of who might have felt this way. Unlike McGann, the other bandleaders had previously recorded under their own names, and this, combined with McGann’s contested status in some quarters,³ may explain the purported ill-feeling; yet his presence here rounds out a remarkably coherent reflection of contemporary Australian jazz as it was in 1967 while offering tantalizing glimpses of where it was headed.

The liner notes for Jazz Australia also hint at the approaching creative shift of the early 1970s. While invoking the concept of distance from a source, the album notes claim that this separation has an advantage:

Australia’s removal, geographically, from the personal contact of a continually evolving jazz art form and culture, may initially appear as a serious disadvantage when, in reality, this very aspect has been the prime motivation behind the development of a highly personalized creative music.

(Graham 1967, n.p.)

The significance of Jazz Australia cannot be overstated. It preserves performances by musicians that were either rarely recorded or are simply no longer available. However, its direct influence on the creative shift after 1973 is less clear, at least in the short term. While it is true that a commercial release by local jazz musicians added to public awareness of the artists involved, Burrows, Bailey, and Sangster were already established professional musicians and McGann would not record again commercially until the 1980s. Moreover, the direct influence of Jazz Australia on subsequent generations of musicians has been minimal, as the album has long been out of print and was never released on CD; it is now only available second-hand.

Jazz Australia provides a revealing glimpse of the Australian scene in 1967 (see Table 1.1). The gender imbalance is evident: of the 25 musicians, Judy Bailey is the sole female. The list of musicians included on all four tracks of the album also reveals how collegial relationships between musicians might lead to a reduction of opportunities for ‘outsiders’ such as younger players or, indeed, women. For example, Graeme Lyall, an exceptional saxophonist, was only 24 at the time, yet he features on three of the four ensembles on Jazz Australia. Were there no other tenor players available, or up to the standard required? Convenience can be discounted as a factor, as the recording sessions were days and weeks apart.⁴ Several other double-ups occur on the album: Sangster appears with his own group and with Burrows; McIver appears with Burrows and Sangster; bassist Ed Gaston appears with Burrows and Bailey, and Fairbrass appears with Bailey and Sangster.⁵

The practice of jazz musicians drawing on a small pool of colleagues reveals that developing a common musical understanding between players is important, and once creative relationships form, they are relied upon by those involved (particularly by bandleaders who are responsible for booking the other players). The cutting session or competitive jam session, a common trope in American jazz mythology, did not play an important role in the development of jazz in Australia: the communal aspects of the music had a far more prominent role.

TABLE 1.1 Jazz Australia: track listing and personnel details

∗Note: Clare disputes Sangster’s authorship of ‘Conjur Man’, suggesting the composer was in fact Bobby Gebert (Clare 1995, 125). However, the Jazz Australia LP credits Sangster as the composer, as does Sangster’s autobiography, Seeing the Rafters (Sangster 1988, 264).

A striking feature of the Austral scene that is soon to emerge is the longevity of many of these groups of musicians (micro-communities) and smaller creative partnerships (affinity clusters). There are clear examples of both large and small creative groupings in the personnel of Jazz Australia. Don Burrows and George Golla’s musical partnership stretched across several decades, as did McGann and Pochée’s.⁶

Jazz Australia: The Bandleaders

Don Burrows

Born in 1928, Burrows took up the flute while at primary school in the Sydney suburb of Bondi, later adding clarinet and saxophone. He attended the NSW State Conservatorium in the early 1940s and began to perform professionally in 1942 (Johnson 1987). Burrows’ professional career spans seven decades, and he has contributed to Australian jazz as a performer, composer, arranger, and bandleader,⁷ but his commitment to jazz education and advocacy of jazz more generally may be his most important, most widely felt, and most enduring legacy. Aside from his natural musicianship, Burrows is also very personable—he is a people person. And while these qualities are no doubt important for a successful career as a performing musician, Burrows also possesses an important additional attribute in that he is a gifted educator.⁸

Burrows was one of the principal architects⁹ of the jazz studies course founded in 1973 at the NSW State Conservatorium of Music. His approach to Rex Hobcroft, then director of the Conservatorium, was the initial impetus from which the jazz studies course emerged. This, the first tertiary jazz studies course in Australia, offered a model that was adopted by other Australian tertiary music institutions. Since that time, and despite having to navigate several major structural changes in the Australian tertiary system,¹⁰ the Sydney Conservatorium (now part of the University of Sydney) continues to offer one of Australia’s most prestigious jazz studies programmes.

Burrows’ push for jazz education was motivated by the realization that the language of jazz was not being passed on to the younger generations of musicians:

When I and Errol Buddle, John Sangster and Bryce Rohde were on the way up, none of us had access to jazz studies programmes, there were no such things. But what I, and they, did have was a different social environment as far as music was concerned. It afforded us as youngsters the opportunities to see as well as hear big bands. They were all over the place in those days, even the nightclub bands, with brass and four saxes. In later years we had the rock element, and sounds changed. But they didn’t when it came to a tour of this country by, say, Sinatra or Tony Bennett, who are very fine musicians and who instinctively demand a certain sound, a certain type of arranging, a certain type of discipline in the sections. And that does not come, with all due respect, from the roc...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Praise
• Series Foreword: Transnational Studies in Jazz
• Preface
• Disclaimer
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction to Austral Jazz
• 1 Jazz Australia: A Window into the Pre-Austral
• 2 Chain Reaction: Jazz in the Classroom and Jazz After Dark
• 3 Action, Re-Action, and Interaction
• 4 Doing It for Ourselves: Self-Fashioning of the Already Local
• 5 The Continuing Reidentifications of Austral Jazz
• Index