“I believe the melody is one of the most important things and I want it to always be significant. When I think the composition has reached a good level of complexity without sounding pretentious, then I am happy.”
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I love guitar, it has the ability to convey an incredibly rich range of textures and sounds, and has a history of amazing players. However, when I choose collaborators, it is often based on the individual: Lionel Loueke and Kurt Rosenwinkel are both unique voices on their instruments, and aesthetically, I felt they were a great match for the respective projects I was working with.
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I have always loved horns and a big band sound so I wanted to inject that into the project. I also had to have piano because of the colour it provides. I was looking for a slightly theatric bent as well.
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I told my Dad about it and he was so happy to hear that [Bill Frisell and I] would be working together. I said something like, “Hey Dad, I’m a jazz cat!”
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“I’m not a big fan of the word fusion, because it feel binary to me, and I’m trying to achieve a sound that is multifaceted and fluid. And I think this sound reflects our world today, one which is increasingly more complex and interdependent”.
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“I wanted to surround myself with musicians that made me want to play. I would have been happy just to sit back listen to them play together in that setting. Apart from how easy I find it to make music with them, they all have strong personal voices and I wanted them to put their own mark on my tunes, which they did”.
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This year’s headliners include Eclectic young Singapore band The Steve McQueens; three musicians from the legendary Buena Vista Social Club orchestra teaming up with popular Perth jazz crooner and musician Adam Hall with the Velvet Playboys; UK-based jazz singer and recording artist Karen Lane with her four-piece band, and festival favourite the vivacious Cathrine Summers.
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The Twentieth Century Dog is big on rhythm too – with two drummers and a percussionist, as well as having a bass-player as leader, it is inevitable that there will be grooves of all flavours, and rhythm games running through the music like pulsing veins. Funk, Afro-beat, jazz: all booty-shaking but mind-bending at the same time.
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“Due to [JMI’s] small size, every student is known by each and every faculty member and receives continuous personal mentorship – which is not possible at a large institution. The JMI classroom and performance space ‘incubator’ reminds me of my days on Woody Herman’s band, traveling every day on the bus, surrounded by great, more experienced musicians, seriously listening, discussing and playing music night and day. JMI is that kind of growth environment and it shows in the competency of your graduates” – John Riley, Internationally acclaimed drummer, publisher, educator, lecturer at Manhattan School of Music (NY).
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“Performance aspects aside, this album will definitely seek to explore some different compositional structures. ade and I have toyed with – and talked about – the idea of through-composed work and song forms that aren’t of the typical “head-solo-head” structure. Those elements are now coming out in our co-writing, certainly.”
