Independence and Flexibility in a Changing Jazz Industry

This article written by Paul was originally published in Wiltshire Jazz Festival's 2011 brochure.

It's a really great event, check out the programme (which includes Brazilian pianist Eliane Elias) for June 2012 http://www.wiltshirejazzfestival.co.uk/


“Independence and Flexibility in a Changing Jazz Industry”
By Paul Towndrow

Some time in 2002, a lifelong friend of mine sat next to me on a park bench in Glasgow and outlined his vision for creating and touring an ensemble comprising four saxophones and one car, with no rhythm section or start-up capital - along with the question “was I in?”.

The friend was baritone saxophonist Allon Beauvoisin, and the good part of a decade, and several personnel adjustments later – Brass Jaw (now three saxes and one trumpet) has begun to find its feet, and to carve out a clear ‘modus operandi’ in the ever-changing jazz industry. Importantly for us, we have needed this time, in order to mature musically and to learn about how we can best co-ordinate both our musical, and extra-musical values within the fractured and nebulous infrastructure of the music scene.

Long gone are the days where jazz groups seek out management, major label backing, and the team of experts who take care of all things business, so the musicians can concentrate on the music and on ‘being creative’. The 21st Century Jazz Musician is a much more independent beast, finding himself dealing as best he can with a multitude of different jobs : Musician, composer, arranger, accountant, tour manager, educator, sound engineer, driver, politician, fly-poster, publicist, motivational speaker, web designer, graphic artist…the list goes on. The secret to survival for us has been to use the strength of our creative resources, to help us compensate for not having that ‘team of experts’ that many artists in the mainstream take for granted.

The more keen minded and forward thinking music promoters, festivals and funding bodies, have realised that this sort of independence and creative work ethic is worth supporting and developing. We are fortunate to have received a great deal of help and mentoring from friends on this side of the business, particularly from those behind London and Glasgow Jazz Festivals, and from funding bodies like Jazz Services, the Scottish Arts Council (now Creative Scotland). London based music production company Serious provide some fantastic opportunities for emerging artists in the area of professional development. This sort of thing just didn’t exist twenty years ago, and now we are seeing the results of initiatives like this – a new breed of independent and hard working jazz artist.

Good musicians seem to share the same set of core values, in particular the desire to maintain an unfettered creative outlet, produce consistently high quality work, and to reach as many people as they can with their music. As a group, Brass Jaw is driven by all of these ideals – not just in our music, but in how we manage the business aspects of our group as well.

It was with these core values in mind, that when trumpeter Ryan Quigley joined Brass Jaw in 2008 we started to examine the efficiency of how we were working. We realised that we had many unique traits as a group. We performed completely acoustically, we had no additional equipment other than our horns, we could fit (with only small amount of discomfort) into one vehicle, we all liked each other, we all loved to be involved in education, we could all find humour within and outwith our music. We realised that our sound check routine of turning up several hours before the gig only to inform a delighted sound engineer that we didn’t need any microphones, thus allowing us a leisurely dinner and pint before the gig, could be time used to serve a greater purpose. So we began to make it our policy, that wherever possible we would use the extra time afforded to us to deliver workshops, masterclasses, and generally to hang out with the local musicians and members of the community. Lo and behold, these people would then turn up to our evening gigs, dragging a few friends along with them and as a result our audience figures and CD sales began to rise.

All of the members of Brass Jaw are friends, and have been since we were young. This is something we owe to the Scottish music scene’s strong youth jazz initiatives in the 1990s . A sense of friendship, respect, and lack of inhibition in an ensemble is a real boon as it opens the door to musical risk-taking, open and frank discussions in rehearsals, and above all a huge sense of fun and mischief, both onstage and off. We have a fairly open policy about the things we get up to on stage too. So that means if it feels right to gaffer-tape somebody’s feet to the stage, or chain them to a music stand, or wander off stage and dance with the audience, then we just go right ahead and do it. We are very careful not to contrive this sort of thing, but we don’t suppress it either. It’s easy for musicians to forget that music can be great fun at one point, and serious at another. But who wants to look at four po-faced musicians for an hour, standing stalk still and delivering their music like automatons anyway – when I go to a gig I want to see them have some fun!

Over the last couple of years, we have found that festivals have been able to utilise our flexibility, mobility and willingness to use unconventional spaces. For us this has meant being programmed to play at every conceivable type of venue from concert halls and jazz clubs, to open-top buses and trams, and from nightclubs and churches, to bandstands in the middle of ponds! Festivals who book us have also found that, because of our acoustic nature, and our short set up time – more time is afforded to have us on call for photo shoots and radio & TV broadcasts, all amounting to greater exposure for the festival, and for us.

The way I see it is that all of this visibility, and community involvement is good for the image of jazz. Jazz is a wonderfully rich and socially aware art form, that came out of the community and should always return there.

As a group we have been labelled as ‘quirky’, ‘unusual’ in our instrumentation and attitude towards making music – but perhaps a look at the origins of a community driven, mobile, joyous, colourful, wind instrument based music in New Orleans at the beginning of the 20th century would show that Brass Jaw isn’t that unusual after all.