Australian jazz - mainstream

Australia has had a strong and vibrant jazz scene since the 1920s, commencing with visiting performers and reciprocated by Australian jazz performers touring regularly in America and Europe.

Mainstream jazz centres on 'swing', although most jazz styles combine elements of improvisation and the 'jazz swing feeling'. A swing feeling is a rhythm with a constant tempo. In jazz terms this requires a lot of syncopation (accenting notes before or after the beat) and a continuous rise and fall of tension.

Swing dominated the popular dance styles of the 1930s after the swing feel became more popular in the late 1920s. The dominant movement of the 1950s was 'mainstream' which centred on 'Swing', although it overlapped with 'Be-bop' and 'Latin', new modern styles which had emerged in the 1940s.

Australians have contributed to this modern and mainstream sound, as well as creating original sounds by mixing jazz styles and helping to define 'Nu' jazz. Innovative Australian jazz is contributing a defining edge to Australian music.

Jazz in Australia - popular and unconventional
When jazz first reached Australia in the 1920s it became popular as dance music, although it was not until the end of World War II that jazz became truly popular in Australia. In December 1946, the first Australian Jazz Convention was held in Melbourne and became an important gathering place for mainstream Australian jazz musicians. The convention has been held annually ever since. During this post-war period, jazz appeared in clubs, concert halls and hotels. Soon jazz societies, festivals and dances were springing up all over the country.

In Australia, jazz was also viewed as a radical, unconventional form of music and has often been associated with politics and radical ideas. Harry Stein, one of the founders of the Australian Jazz Convention, was also the founder of a left-wing political movement in Melbourne. Many people, particularly younger people, were attracted to jazz as an alternative to the popular music of the time. Jazz also gained a reputation for being the music of artists, painters and poets – the radicals of the time – and as such, found fans attracted to this bohemian element.

In the 1960s and 1970s there was a decline in the popularity of jazz in Australia due to the new pop and rock music styles that emerged. Since the 1980s however, jazz has experienced a revival in popularity.

Today, musicians like Vince Jones use lyrics to express political beliefs. Vince also has the ability to move his audiences in an emotional way, that they describe as insightful, subtle and discreet. This trait, more often associated with classical musicians, demonstrates the maturity of jazz in being able to reach audiences on many levels.

Australian jazz legends
Frank Coughlan

Frank Coughlan is recognised as the 'Father of Australian Jazz'. Frank played with the first jazz group to come to Australia in 1924 - the Californians. From 1928-30, Frank Coughlan played in England with the leading dance bands of the day - playing at the Savoy Hotel, Claridges, the Kit Kat Club and many others. He recorded with Jack Hilton's Band, Fred Elizalde, Arthur Rosebery and the New Mayfair Orchestra. When the Sydney Trocadero Club opened in 1936, Frank Coughlan and his Dance Band became world famous over night. He successfully combined a career as dance band leader in the commercial world of dance, with that of a dedicated jazzman.

Graeme Bell
Album cover photograph of the Regal Bells - Graeme Bell and his Dixieland Jazz Band, 1944.
The Regal Bells – Graeme Bell and his Dixieland Jazz Band, album cover, 1944. Image courtesy of Nugrape Records.

One of the pinnacles of success in Australian jazz is to win a Bell Award, named after the acknowledged leader in the development of Australian jazz, Graeme Bell. Bell first played for Harry Stein, a jazz drummer, one of the founders of the Australian Jazz Convention.

Graeme Bell was born in Melbourne to a professional singer mother and comedian father. Graeme started learning the piano at eleven. In his early twenties, he heard jazz for the first time and started playing jazz with his younger brother, Roger, with whom he formed his first band in the late 1930s.

In 1947, Graeme and his Australian Jazz Band sailed to Europe to take part in an international youth festival in Prague. By the time they reached London, everyone was talking about the Bells, as the band came to be known, and their unique Australian style. A chance meeting between their manager and the manager of comedian Tommy Trinder in a London pub led to the band to be broadcast on the BBC, followed by sell-out performances throughout Europe.

By the time the band returned to Australia, jazz had flourished and they were offered a concert tour for the ABC. Since then, Graeme's name has become familiar to jazz fans throughout the world and he has rarely stopped performing.

read more: http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/austn-jazz-mainstream