MJIF

[isaacs]

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: SUZIE HOWIE, HOWIE & TAYLOR PUBLICITY
[phone] or [e-mail]

Melbourne Jazz International Festival
New Directions in Jazz

Melbourne Jazz International Festival is delighted to announce an exciting new direction for the 2007 event, to take place from 3 to 13 May 2007. Making the announcement, Melbourne Jazz Chairman Albert Dadon said, “Melbourne Jazz is the most significant jazz event in Australia, presenting the highest profile local and international acts, the largest number of free public concerts, and attracting the biggest audience.”

Following lengthy discussions, and a visit to the Umbria Jazz Festival in July 2006, the Boards of the Melbourne Jazz International Festival and Umbria Jazz have mutually agreed to end their association.

The partnership between Melbourne and Umbria saw Artistic Director Carlo Pagnotta create a multicultural event in 2005 which celebrated Italian jazz along with Umbrian cuisine and arts.

“Carlo and I remain friends, and I value his contribution to jazz in Melbourne. However, while the collaboration with Umbria was a good experience and delivered a great event in 2005, we believe that next year it is time to put the focus back on Melbourne and feature the world’s best jazz artists without specialising in a particular region,” Dadon added.

From Crown, to Hamer Hall and Federation Square – Melbourne’s river precinct will come alive with the sounds of jazz in May 2007. Artists from musical hotspots around the world will join Australia’s best in a celebration of jazz, Melbourne-style. Melbourne Jazz acknowledges the support of major partners including the Victorian Government, Crown and City of Melbourne.

“We will announce the Festival’s international line-up in November, and I’m delighted to say that everything is on track for Australia’s best ever jazz festival,” concluded Albert Dadon.

[Kenny]

In this morning's Age:

Artistic imbalance and all that Umbrian jazz
By Andra Jackson
August 25, 2006

Personality differences have emerged as the reason for this week's curious news that the relationship between the world-renowned Umbria Jazz Festival and the Melbourne International Jazz Festival has been severed.

This emerged during preliminary program planning for next year's festival in Melbourne.

The Umbria Jazz Festival's press office in Italy this week bluntly said the premature parting of ways was because the Melbourne festival did not have the budget to maintain "the high artistic standards" associated with the Umbria name.

The Melbourne International Jazz Festival insisted that the split was mutual and in the interest of greater input for Australian and international jazz artists.

But its chairman, Albert Dadon, has since revealed in an email: "Some people want to be seen as winners at all cost, as if partnerships were combats that needed a winning side. The reality is that we did not get along. It was impossible to agree on the artistic balance and keep the integrity of what we (as in we Australians) are here for namely: promote Australian jazz and Melbourne. The rest is pure spin."

The revived Melbourne International Jazz Festival announced the backing of the Umbria Jazz Festival as a coup in August 2004.

Having the imprimatur of one of the longest-running and prestigious jazz festivals in Europe, was to allow access to the international jazz luminaries who appear at Umbria. The deal saw director and founder of the Umbria Jazz Festival Carlo Pagnotta double as artistic director of the Melbourne event.

The revamped Melbourne festival, billed as Umbria Jazz-Melbourne '05, had a New York launch. It drew state government funding for three years - believed to be $500,000 first year, $50,000 second year and $125,000 third year.

Its first festival, financed also by corporate sponsorship, was held in 2005 and the Umbrian sister-festival relationship with its strong input of Italian jazz artists, was acclaimed a success by organisers. This was despite miffed local jazz musicians launching the successful Melbourne Fringe Jazz Festival in response.

The second festival - postponed because of the Commonwealth Games to 2007 - had been promoted in Umbria.

The Umbria Jazz Festival's announcement took the Melbourne festival by surprise this week, citing "the reduction of the budget" as convincing Pagnotta "to cancel an event which was no longer able to present the usual high standard demanded by the Umbria festival for these initiatives abroad". Speaking by phone, Umbria Jazz Festival press officer Cristiano Romano said: "I believed the festival lost money in its first year. I think there was not money enough for artists such as last year's names, for example Wayne Shorter."

But a spokesman for Major Events Minister John Pandazopoulos believed there was as much government funding as last year. The Melbourne festival has since accepted Crown Casino sponsorship.

The sticking point appears to be the Italian acts who were extolled as an asset by Melbourne organisers the first time round. But now organisers want to "put the focus back on Melbourne and feature the world's best jazz artists without specialising in a particular region".

[glean]

"Carlo and I remain friends" ,,,, "The reality is we did not get along" Bit of a mixed message there Albert!

[timothystevens]

Does anyone else remember Lloyd Cole?

Spin, spin, whisky and gin
I suffer for my art
Bartender, I've got wild mushrooms
growing in my yard.
Fix me a quart of petrol
with clams on the half shell -
Feels like prohibition, baby,
Give me the hard sell;
More, give me more, give me more, more, more -
I'm your yes man, yes, ma'am, I'm your yes man...

Not usually one to support a point by quoting pop lyrics, this seems strangely appropriate.

[alimcg]

Melbourne Jazz International Festival. I like the way turn they their words around.

[captain]

Cool, local artists. Can I have a gig? I'm not Italian...

[kazuo]

glen said:

"Carlo and I remain friends" ,,,, "The reality is we did not get along" Bit of a mixed message there Albert!

Shouldn't that read....."Carlo and I remain fiends"?

[punter]

What a joke... what a pack of goddamn morons
Anyone with half a brain could see it coming though