THE RETROSONICS

Mon Aug 25th 2008 @ 8:00pm

Admission PJS Members $15 PJS Student Members $8 Concessions $18 Guests $22

This evening’s performance features The Retrosonics, an 11-piece big band newly established by vocalist Alida Wright and veteran sax man Roger Garrood.

The multi-generational ensemble brings together emerging musicians with stalwarts of the Western Australian jazz scene.

Young guns Mace Francis, Alida Wright, Ben Collins, Tilman Robinson, Wayne Slater, Ricki Mallet and Callum G’Foerer join experienced campaigners Roger Garrood, Lee Buddle, Mike Nelson and Glen Walsh to create an impressive pool of talent with a tasty selection of fine soloists.

The repertoire features a stylish mix of jazz, soul, funk, boogie, blues and swing favourites with vocals and artistic direction by Alida Wright and musical direction and arrangements by Roger Garrood.

The Retrosonics made their debut at Jazz Fremantle in April this year.

“… a tight ensemble and many fine soloists… the band played many blues drenched numbers to the pleasure of an appreciative audience. This outfit should have no trouble in finding opportunities to display their many talents.” Lew Smith

The Retrosonics:

Alida Wright - vocals, Roger Garrood, Lee Buddle, Ben Collins – saxophones, Ricki Mallet, Callum G’Froerer – trumpets, Tilman Robinson – trombone, Mace Francis – guitar, Mike Nelson – keyboards, Wayne Slater – bass, Glen Walsh – drums.

www.myspace.com/retrosonics

GEORGE GARZONE QUARTET (USA)

Mon Sep 01st 2008 @ 8:00pm

Admission PJS Members $18 PJS Student Members $9 Concessions $20 Guests $25

Tonight’s performance features legendary American tenor saxophonist, George Garzone, known amongst jazz aficionados, and particularly saxophonists, as one of the music world’s most creative and influential players.

George has performed all over the world during his long and illustrious career, with an incredible array of prominent artists including the Brecker brothers, Chick Corea, Don Alias, Ron Carter, Buddy Rich, Medeski Martin & Wood, Miroslav Vitous, Gil Evans Orchestra, John Patitucci, The Woody Herman Band, Jack DeJohnette, and Jamaaladeen Tacuma, as well as a range of non-jazz artists as diverse as Elvis Presley, Aerosmith, Aretha Franklin, Tom Jones, Gladys Knight, Liberace and The Temptations.

George’s best known outfit is his group The Fringe, which has a cult-like following in the US and has been a mainstay of the American music scene for a remarkable 36 years, making it one of the longest running groups in jazz history.

A veteran of the studio, George Garzone has appeared on many recordings, including nine with The Fringe and seven as a leader, including his ’96 release “Fours and Twos” featuring Joe Lovano, which received four stars in Downbeat Magazine.

George is also a member of the Joe Lovano Nonet and features on three of the band’s recordings, including 2000’s Grammy-winning “52nd Street Themes”.

George is also sought-after as a jazz educator, teaching at the Berklee College of Music, New England Conservatory, Longy School of Music, New York University and the New School University Jazz and Contemporary Program.

His former student roster reads like a who’s who of the modern saxophone - Joshua Redman, Branford Marsalis, Teadross Avery, Mark Turner, Donny McCaslin, Danilo Pérez and Australian saxophonists Julien Wilson and Jamie Oehlers are just some of his many students.

George is in Perth to share his knowledge and experience as an Artist in Residence at WAAPA and will tonight be performing with Graham Wood on piano, Matt Willis on bass and Chris Tarr on drums.

With one of the strongest sounds around and a unique conception to match, this is a tenor player that shouldn’t be missed.

www.georgegarzone.com www.thefringejazz.com

IT'S A BEAT UP! Jazz and The Word, celebrating the recent 50th Anniversary of 'On the Road' by Jack Kerouac

Mon Sep 08th 2008 @ 8:00pm

Admission PJS Members $18 PJS Student Members $9 Concessions $20 Guests $25

As the Beat movement was getting underway, bebop was already going strong, especially in New York, where 52nd Street was bustling with activity in jazz clubs up and down its length. Bebop was an innovative style of jazz characterized by smaller combos as opposed to big bands and a larger focus on virtuosity. Its renaissance came about in the heart of New York City, where musicians like Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Max Roach and Miles Davis were ushering in a new era for jazz music.

Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and friends spent much of their time in New York clubs such as the Red Drum, Minton's, the Open Door and other hangouts, shooting the breeze and digging the music. Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis rapidly became what Allen Ginsberg dubbed ‘Secret Heroes’ to this group of aesthetes.

Why did jazz suddenly become such a driving force behind the writings of the Beat authors?

The word 'beat' was primarily in use after World War II by jazz musicians and hustlers as a slang term meaning down and out, or poor and exhausted. Kerouac went on to twist the meaning of the term "beat" to serve his own purposes, explaining that it meant "beatitude, not beat up. You feel it in a beat, in jazz, real cool jazz".

The Beat authors borrowed many other terms from the jazz/hipster slang of the '40s, peppering their works with words such as ‘square’, ‘cats’, ‘nowhere’, and ‘dig’ - but jazz meant much more than just a vocabulary to the Beat writers - to them, jazz was a way of life, a completely different way to approach the creative process.

'Go', Beat author John Clellon Holmes wrote: “In this modern jazz, they heard something rebel and nameless that spoke for them, and their lives knew a gospel for the first time. It was more than a music; it became an attitude toward life, a way of walking, a language and a costume; and these introverted kids... now felt somewhere at last.”

Not only did the Beats try to emulate the ways of life of bebop greats, they used the principal ideas of bebop playing and applied it to prose and poetry writing, creating a style sometimes called ‘bop prosody’.

Beat prose, especially that of Jack Kerouac, is characterized by a style submerged in the stream of consciousness, words blurted out in vigorous bursts, rarely revised and sparsely punctuated. "No periods...but the vigorous space dash separating rhetorical breathing (as jazz musician drawing breath between outblown phrases)" wrote Jack Kerouac in his "Essentials of Spontaneous Prose," one of the few pieces he wrote which explained his method of writing.

In a 1968 interview Allan Ginsberg said: “Yeah. Kerouac learned his line directly from Charlie Parker and Gillespie and Monk. He was listening in '43 to “Symphony Sid” and "Night in Tunisia" and all the Bird-flight-noted things which he then adapted to prose line.”

Kerouac was particularly into the bop scene, even outside of his works. In his book “Milestones: The Music and Times of Miles Davis”, Jack Chambers writes: “Kerouac was even booked into the Village Vanguard to ‘play’ regular sets, reading poetry with jazz accompaniment... on his better nights, he dispensed with the poetry and took up scat singing, including a faithful rendering of a Miles Davis solo that... was entirely accurate and something more than a simple imitation."

“It’s a Beat Up!” will acknowledge and celebrate the relationship between Jazz and the Beat Generation through the 21st Century eyes and ears of Australian contemporary jazz artists. It will explore the ‘beat’ through songs such as “Easy to Love”, “Tea for Two”, Monk’s “Bolivar Blues” and “I Mean You”, and lots more.

The evening will also include readings of excerpts from “On The Road”, “Mexico City Blues” and other material. 

“It’s A Beat Up!” features Chris Foster - piano, Carl Mackey - tenor saxophone, Ricki Mallet - trumpet, Michael Perkins - drums, Matt Willis - bass, Helen Matthews - vocal, and, on spoken word, acclaimed American actor Kenneth Ransom.

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