Being a sucker for lists, I perused Peter's site and sent him the following email:
Hi Peter! I enjoyed browsing your site - I'm as big a list junkie as anyone!
I have some comments - please take them in ths sprit of jazz comradeship!
As a zealous booster of Australian music, I sense a bit of cultural cringe going on.
Yes, you have an Australian section - albeit an out-dated one (and I hope I can help you with that!).
But as far as I can tell, there are no Australian artists featured on the the following lists: Top 100 Jazz CDs, Next 100 Jazz CDs, New Breed Top 100 or indeed any of the lists apart from the Australian one. Not even on the New Breed poll.
Do you restrict inclusions on these lists to northern hemispehere artists? Or are the Aussies simply not good enough?
For more than a decade now, I have just about all Australians new jazz releases and a broad and deep cross section of international albums (although not as many as you, mate). On my hearing, not only are the Australian releases consistently as generally good as those from the northern hemispehere but frequently - as in the case of trumpeter Scott Tinkler's live album from last year - much, much better.
It reminds of a recent thread at the AAJ forum on which the question "Do American jazz fans pay any attention to non-American jazz?" almost instantly became a straight out comparison of th US and the European varieties, with everyone else excluded in a sort of commnal geocultural myopia.
Speaking of which ... you may be already be aware of it, but at AAJ there is a dedicated Australian jazz thread called Australian Jazz Korner, with a lot of comments by myself and others. It's not as acrtive as a couple of years ago, but it keeps ticking over. Here's the link:
forums.allaboutjazz.com/showthread.php?t=2600&highlight=australianAlso: Another forum you may be interested in checking out is the one run by Michigan organ trio organissimo. When the old Blue Note board folded a few years back, its denizens ended up at AAJ and JC and - especially the hard bop nutters - at organissimo.
www.organissimo.org/forum/I hope you find the lists I am going to amend to this email useful and/or interesting!
Finally - my own bit of self-promotion - my radio show The Pearls is now on Melbourne's PBS on Sunday's from 1-3pm. On March 5 my guest will be ozjazzforum's Mark Isaacs, who will be laucnhing his CD in town that night. It will be an all-Australian show. You can listen on the net here:
www.pbsfm.org.au/Cheers,
KENNY WEIR
Sunday Herald Sun CD Reviews Editor/Jazz Writer/Gelati Tester
******
Peter replied:
Hi Ken
All good questions and taken in good spirit. I am all too aware that my Oz jazz page is outdated. A couple of years ago when I tried to make it better I didn't get much help. Things seem to be going better this time around.
I know exactly what you mean about cultural myopia. The lists on my website are purely statistical... I don't pick em, I just add up the numbers. I did try and include Australian artists in early versions, but the stats just
didn't support the effort. There are a few basic problems here. First and foremost, most people overseas simply aren't exposed to Oz jazz. I would
like to think that this is just the myopic thing happening, but in truth, experience has taught me that Australia is not doing a very good job at promoting its jazz to the world. A decent net presence has been very slow in
coming. Hopefully digJazz will change a bit of that. Most people that email me about Oz jazz want to know where to buy it. Again, it doesn't seem to
stay in print for very long and is often hard to track down if you don't know where to look.
Also, bear in mind the purpose of Jazz 100. I only started listening to jazz in the mid-90s and put the site together because from personal experience I
knew that no good buying list for the casual listener existed. I am certainly not professionally involved in jazz... I am a wildlife ranger in North Queensland and my biggest issue in life is crocodile management. I
only stumbled on the Oz jazz scene by accident. If I live in Australia and didn't know much about our jazz, imagine how tough it is for the rest of the
world. I am more than willing to promote Oz jazz in any way I can, but I need help. The lists you have sent will be invaluable and I have already received a few others.
Problem #2 - America. I lived there for a while in the 1970s. People wanted to know what language they spoke in Australia and thought I had a very good
command of English for a foreigner. Talk about myopia! I recently tried to track down an online European jazz station to broaden my horizons a bit. Guess what they are playing... American jazz. Whether we like or not, the
Americans have a stranglehold on the jazz world.
Finally, managing the website has taught me that we are fighting ghosts. The reason I created a 'new breed' list was because the newer artists - even the
Americans - weren't getting much attention. It's pretty tough to sell a record when most modern listeners are just now discovering 'Kind of Blue' and think it sounds great. Aussies aren't the only ones suffering.
Anyway, the plan is to do the same for Oz jazz that I did for the 'new breed'. If I can't beat 'em statistically, I give them their own list and do everything I can to make it prominent. It may not be much, but it sure makes me feel good. I am told that Jazz 100 is tops in its Google category, so I might be able to help a bit.
Thanks again for the lists. I'll definitely check out your show.
Cheers
Peter
