Overground: Melbourne International Jazz Featival

[bxckxtrxdxr]

Overground at MIJF 2010
Sunday May 2nd, 2010 at the Melbourne Town Hall

Melbourne International Jazz Festival and City of Melbourne present Overground, a history-making multi-stage concert featuring a spectacular line-up of some of the most celebrated creative jazz, rock and improvising artists in the world, including world premiere collaborations especially put together for this Festival exclusive event.

Overground celebrates the rich diversity of the underground music culture in Melbourne in a day long event set in the many lost spaces of Melbourne Town Hall. It will be an event where new sounds can be made and heard as the outer limits of jazz and improvisation are explored, incorporating rock, avant garde, grindcore, big band, expanded cinema, contemporary classical and much more.

Highlights include legendary European free-jazz improvisers Peter Brotzmann and Han Bennink; Brian Chase of famed band the Yeah Yeah Yeahs with saxophonist Seth Misterka; Oren Ambarchi; Mick Turner; Kim Salmon; Anthony Pateras on the Melbourne Town Hall's Grand Organ; revered pianist Paul Grabowsky with avant luminary Sean Baxter; leading musicians Scott Tinkler, Erkki Veltheim, Simon Barker, Carl Dewhurst and Vanessa Tomlinson; Brisbane-based expanded cinema soundscape artist Joel Stern with stalwart filmmaker Dirk De Bruyn; new music trio Golden Fur; the Embers Big Band, neo-dada upstarts Bum Creek with Snawklor and much more!

What: Overground MIJF 2010
Where: Melbourne Town Hall
When: Sunday May 2nd, 2pm to 8pm
How: Tickets: $30

Lineup and Running Order:

Bennink/Brotzmann Duo, featuring:
• Han Bennink (drumkit)
• Peter Brotzmann (tenor saxophone)

Pure Evil Trio and Occult Blood, featuring:
• Abel Cross (double bass)
• Aaron Pure Evil (guitar)
• John Pure Evil (drumkit)
• Pete Hyde (voice)
• Dan Brady (electronics)
• Tommy Miller (drumkit)

Kingston/Manek Duo, featuring:
• Greg Kingston (electric guitar and toys)
• Tarquin Manek (various instruments)

Myhr/Gorfinkel/Fuhler Trio, featuring:
• Kim Myhr (acoustic guitar and objects)
• Dale Gorfinkel (vibraphone, percussion and trumpet)
• Cor Fuhler (piano)

Chase/Misterka Duo, featuring:
• Brian Chase (drumkit)
• Seth Misterka (saxophone)

Salmon/Brown Duo, featuring:
• Kim Salmon (electric guitar and tapes)
• David Brown (electric guitar and preparations)

Carolyn Connors Solo, featuring:
• Carolyn Connors (voice)

Golden Fur with True Radical Miracle,
• Judith Hamann (cello)
• Samuel Dunscombe (clarinet)
• Alex Garsden (acoustic guitar)
• Evelyn Morris (drums)
• Leith Thomas (bass)
• Scott O'hara (guitar)
• Mark Groves (voice)

The Deadnotes, featuring:
• Eugene Carchesio (guitar, drumkit, saxophones, clarinet, voice)
• Stuart Busby (trumpet, recorder, voice, effects)
• Leighton Craig (drumkit, keyboard, voice)
• Sandra Selig (bass, baritone saxophone, euphonium, flute)

Pateras/Bennink Duo, featuring:
• Anthony Pateras (grand organ)
• Han Bennink (drumkit)

Tomlinson/Ughetti/Fox Trio, featuring:
• Vanessa Tomlinson (percussion)
• Eugene Ughetti (percussion)
• Robin Fox (processing)

Vocal Ensemble, featuring:
• Carolyn Connors (voice)
• Nik Kennedy (voice)
• Sophie Brous (voice)
• Pete Hyde (voice)
• Jessica Aszodi (voice)
• Alex Vivian (voice)
• Christopher L. G. Hill (voice)
• Tarquin Manek (voice)

De Bruyn/Stern Duo, featuring:
• Dirk De Bruyn (audiovision)
• Joel Stern (audiovision)

Showa 44, featuring:
• Simon Barker (drumkit)
• Carl Dewhurst (electric guitar)

Ambarchi/Fusinato/Chase Trio, featuring:
• Oren Ambarchi (electric guitar and effects)
• Marco Fusinato (electric guitar and effects)
• Brian Chase (drumkit)

Simon Barker with Bum Creek and Snawklor, featuring:
• Simon Barker (drumkit)
• Trev Clay (various instruments)
• Tarquin Manek (various instruments)
• Sam Karmel (various instruments)
• Dylan Matorell (various instruments)
• Nathan Gray (various instruments)

Fuhler/Tinkler Duo, featuring:
• Cor Fuhler (piano)
• Scott Tinkler (trumpet)

Grabowsky/Baxter Duo, featuring:
• Paul Grabowsky (piano)
• Sean Baxter (drumkit)

Turner/Plagne/Morris/Veltheim Quartet, featuring:
• Mick Turner (electric guitar)
• Francis Plagne (acoustic guitar)
• Erkki Veltheim (viola)
• Evelyn Morris (drumkit)

Embers Big Band, featuring:
• Peter Brotzmann (tenor saxophone)
• Kris Wanders (tenor sazophone)
• Adam Simmons (various saxophones)
• Abel Cross (double bass)
• Greg Kingston (electric guitar)
• Dave Brown (electric microtonal bass)
• Han Bennink (drumkit)
• KRAM (drumkit)
• Sean Baxter (drumkit)

[listener]

Nice program on the whole... well done and great to see such a good crowd.
Highlights for me were Eki Veltheim's quartet and the Tomlinson/Ughetti/Fox piece. Didn't hear the vocal piece but would've like to.
There were a few lowlights too though. Not mentioning names but some of it was so predictable that I just felt worn out. Free improv (especially in Melbourne) often just sounds like genre music. Not that different from hearing someone play the same old licks on the same old jazz standards, just a different surface.

[Not saying its good or bad]

So what about something like bum creek? They've had lots of gigs in last 2 festivals. Can't work out if they're really deep or a really superficial kind of fluxus rip off without any sense of history or context. Is this just gigs for mates or inspired programming? Anyone?

[bxckxtrxdxr]

I think Bum Creek are actually inspired and knowledgeable musicians. We programed them in the combo with Simon and Snawklor precisely because of magic it would create.

Not gigs for mates, gigs for collaborations we thought would produce interesting and novel musical results.