AAO at Bennetts - and being a writer listening to jazz

This little Australian Art Orchestra (AAO) residency at Bennetts Lane has been a bit special. Miriam went to one a couple of Thursdays ago and the AAO doesn't actually do terribly many 'regular club gigs' and after having enjoyed this series, she said she hopes we get a chance to hear more of them in this mode in the future. The configuration for this residency has been his nibs Paul Grabowsky on the pianner, Lachlan Davidson, saxophone; Tony Hicks, saxophone (and a bit of the ole clarinet which he loves loves loves playing); Scott Tinkler, trumpet; Eugene Ball, trumpet; Jordan Murray, bass trombone; Erkki Veltheim, viola; Phil Rex, double bass (and ye old tuba); Stephen Magnusson, guitar; and Niko Schäuble, drums. Plus special guests Peter Neville, percussion and Scott McConnachie, saxophone.

The photo above is what the orchestra looked like in the big room at Bennetts, as we lounged in the doorway, turning up towards the end of the first set, and inevitably in the middle of a quiet bit. It was actually a Scott Tinkler bit... where in the concert from 11 August, Miriam's notes say he sound pied-piper-like, leading us into a mysterious green forest. Not quite so pied-pipery this time but still that same sense of mystery and fairy tale in those sounds. Then the sinister notes of Erkki's strings, a kind of dissonance and we feel as though the forest is not the nurturing welcoming place it first appeared to be. This is music that seems to evoke landscape - it moves through this forest with bird-calls and hidden messages, and later the sky seems to widen and the sea is not far away. Miriam has confided in me that she thinks perhaps her lack of musical knowledge forces her to rely on metaphors within her own realm of understanding to articulate some of the things she hears. Like landscape. Always with the landscape. Possibly because it allows her to 'move forward' through the musical 'narrative'. I tell her (again and again actually, but she still worries) that that's okay. And in any case, the musicians don't seem to mind. They're happy to be playing for people who can listen - whatever form that listening takes.

Hanging out with His Nibs, Paul Grabowsky

And of course something else that Miriam loves about jazz and improvised music is that its musicians understand the creative process in a way that she can related to. Writing is done a little differently to music... its moments of creation are often edited in different ways, but there are many things that writers and jazz musicians have in common... and sometimes a writer finds it easier to talk to a musician about the creative process then to another writer!

Here's a little bloggy item Miriam wrote on this subject for SPUNC a while back >>>>

So... on with the writers festival...  More music in the next post, with Shaun Tan's The Arrival and the Orkestra of the Underground

Thanks to Paul Grabowsky for the lovely chat and for letting me hang off his glass of wine, briefly. Thanks (no really, thanks, Paul) also for the Rabbit Ears. Humph