Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The great international jazz musician Stan Getz said that other than conversation, no art form can give satisfaction of spontaneous interaction like jazz. On 1 May I attended the opening of the Melbourne International Jazz Festival’s ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ event. Held at the Melbourne Town Hall, it was inspired by two volumes of popular ABC music of the same title. The festival was held over seven days and showcased the extraordinary talent of our local jazz musicians at venues big and small, from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra to the laneways of Melbourne.

In a music world that is apparently dominated by Lady Gaga and pop, the impact of jazz on popular music is often understated. I want to congratulate the artistic director, Michael Tortoni, the program director, Sophie Brous, and the festival’s chairman, Leon Kempler, for an enjoyable opening evening and an extraordinary week of jazz in Melbourne.

What impressed me most about the opening were contemporary artists Lior, Clare Bowditch, Megan Washington and Whitley, who joined together with Joe Chindamo, the celebrated Melbourne jazz pianist, and his trio, bassist Philip Rex and drummer Raj Jayaweera, to celebrate the hits of the jazz era. Standards by Frank Sinatra, Nina Simone and Billie Holliday were recast. Rodgers and Hart’s Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered was truly an extraordinary performance that quite overwhelmed the 3,000 people in the town hall. It was magnificent to see these young Australian artists paying homage to a form of music that has shaped many of their own musical styles.

One of the gifts of jazz is that it reminds us of the need to have a little more spontaneity and improvisation in our lives. Often we are confined within the walls of this honoured and esteemed building, and we get bogged down in the routine of committee meetings, reports and speeches and forget that life can be spontaneous, like an improvised note played. Jazz reminds us of the importance of spontaneity in our lives. The jazz festival, with 40,000 people attending, cements Melbourne’s place as the cosmopolitan, cultured capital.