Clarence Jazz Festival 2021 celebrated 25 years of concerts with sounds from the old and new. Mallika Naguran, with fine Tasmanian pinot in hand, grooved through the summer event to bring you this review.

Hobart, 1 March 2021. If you thought this year’s festival looked and sounded quite different from the last 24 years, you could probably be right.

Tasmania’s premier jazz extravaganza—the Clarence Jazz Festival—drummed up notions of jazz to the nth degree.

More than 1,600 festival goers were treated to jazz vibes and grooves at Tasmania’s Eastern Shore as they knew it, and didn’t.

Over five days from 17 to 21 February, there were jazz standards, swing, quartets, New Orleans jazz and blues, and big bands to please traditional jazz fans. These had audiences breezing through the waterfront park with Tasmanian food and drinks, tucking into their food on rugs or sitting on portable camp chairs. Dogs included.

There were also bands that reached out to listening ears with sounds not usually heard at Clarence Jazz Festival. Like Arabic tunes for a start.

Arabia, Afro…

Egyptian-born Mira Rizk sang to a sold-out late night Jazz Lounge concert on Friday at the iconic sandstone Rosny Barn. She delivered four traditional classical Arabic songs backed by a ten-piece ensemble orchestrated by Stephen McEntee.

A chance meeting at last year’s Hot August Jazz in North Hobart brought Rizk and McEntee together. The Egyptian newcomer to Australian public performance used to sing classical Arabic songs at the Cairo Opera House. But not in Australia since she moved here in March 2020 for studies. In fact, Rizk didn’t think that there was an audience for her music. “I was worried that the songs, which are highly lyrical, would be lost on the audience,” said Rizk.

McEntee thought otherwise and persuaded her to sing publicly. “We were delighted when our application to perform at Clarence Jazz Festival was accepted. Festival director Tim Kling said he wanted to support new and experimental sounds and he was excited at what we had proposed,” said McEntee.

Middle eastern cultural influences were thus rendered jazzy. “We didn’t get into the quarter tone and timing that went with Arabic tunes backed by instruments like the oud,” said McEntee, who put together, unusually, a western jazz setup. “Instead, I listened to the driving factors and translated them to western terms.”

This involved listening intently to the original music’s baseline, taking the basic concepts, then “stripping back the grooves” and replacing those with classical western baselines.

Adelaide-born McEntee clearly knew what it took to make a new and exciting sound. As a kid, the musician had listened to world music—from raga to Latino—as well as western classical. McEntee played Afro music with a big band while studying in Adelaide and lived in north India for three years playing fusion and punk, even with Indian classical singers.

McEntee moved to Hobart in 2016, straight into a world (pun unintended) of musical opportunities.

With Mira, it was pretty much a collaborative effort as they picked tunes together. Mira chose songs from Lebanon and Egypt that could be adapted easier for western instruments. She sang Salma ya salama composed by Sayed Darwish; Alby w Moftaho composed and sung by Faried Al-atrash; Kiefak enta composed by Zyad Al-rahbany; Ya habibi taala composed by Antonio Machín.

Arabic “Ya Ana Ya Ana”, based on Mozart Symphony No.40 in G Minor, came as a pleasant surprise! Made it a most a memorable performance too.

The rich blend of sounds from this ensemble could be attributed to McEntee’s attempt at structuring the composition (which he wrote “obsessively” in just one week!) as well as putting the different cultural sounds together and taking them apart. “Take the Arabic strings for instance; we first follow the Arabic (grooves), then snap into traditional jazz. There’s also the layering (of the eastern and western tunes), then demarcating them,” said McEntee, who also delivered an impressive trombone performance and solo strains as part of the ensemble.

McEntee’s other band, Baba Bruja, got people shaking their arms and legs uncontrollably to Afrobeat on Saturday’s Big Day at Kangaroo Bay. As its founder, composer and director, McEntee amplified the energy of the 12-member band with earth-moving rhythmic sounds of mostly wind instruments… and percussion of course.

Baba Bruja typically depicts journeys. “There are transitions from high to low, taking the energy down with it.”

Females come to the fore too: Maggie Abraham on the congas; Georgie Smith on baritone sax and Sasha Gavalek on the bass guitar.

Tim Kling told Gaia Discovery that this year’s festival was framed to be different to ensure there was a “diversity of culture, sounds, people and gender” while catering to different musical tastes and age groups of audiences.

… and all that Jazz

The last act of Big Day— Zenny Teller—brought the house down with the revival of hip hop jazz classics from the 1990s to the 2000s. Drummer Sam Dowson’s arrangement of the bobbing tunes, including those with programmed instrumentation and rap vocalists, was nothing short of electric. The young and the young-at-heart were shaking to the vibes, never mind the cold mist wafting in from the Derwent River.

If these do not take you by surprise, how about this: at Clarence Jazz Festival 2021, there was also experimental ska, swamp and punk. Unusually the banjo was featured too in Black Swans of Trespass and The Mentolists.

A new instrument—the ‘stick’—muscled into the jazz scene. The Chapman Stick, invented by American Emmett Chapman in 1969, debuted in one of the masterclass series. Tasmanian composer, drum and ‘stick’ teacher Konrad Park demonstrated how the electric ten-string instrument could be played by anyone, not just guitarists, keyboardists or percussionists, using the tapping method. He performed his original tunes that I’d describe as eclectically mystical, backed by James Anderson on the cello, Derek Grice on the bass clarinet, Tas Compton on the bassoon and Sam Dowson on the drums.

Kelly Ottaway, the festival ambassador, put together his keys “supergroup”, where they dabbled with improvised tunes (with some laughs) and gave tribute to the late Chick Chorea. The four-keyboard gig was a departure from the mundane line-up in a typical jazz festival.

In the crowd, Pradyumna Kiran, a budding astrophysicist, spoke about his listening experience. "I headed to the festival on Saturday night to kick back after a long day at the cricket. The genius of Kelly Ottaway and his keys group did not disappoint. Loved how the night ended with Zenny Teller. Had a great jig with fellow friends to hip hop jazz. I'm just kicking myself I could not make it to the rest of the festival."

Speaking about originality, many of the bands at Clarence Jazz Festival 2021 performed their own compositions, a number of which have been recorded into albums. Take Spike Mason for example, who with his quartet (Steve Brien—guitar, Hamish Houston—bass, Konrad Park— drums), enthralled the audience with originals such as River Jordan and Footprints.

The diverse programming of the festival simply revealed that jazz (and its myriad forms) has taken off in a big way in Australia’s southern island state in the Roaring Forties.

It is never just plain old jazz in Tasmania.

Photographs by Craig Opie. Do contact him should you like to use his pictures. This article was first published on Gaia Discovery.