Thanks to Brian Stewart of Cyberhalides for the pics
I like a writers’ festival but to be in one, on a panel, with illustrious co-panellists and not a few illustrious writers in the audience is a blast.
This was Conversations about Jazz at the Canberra Jazz Project. The CJP has a words and music theme this year, so a few jazz poets appear in the program (Alan Browne and spoken-word artist Miles Merrill) and this panel session. I represented the local, community stream, and the professionals were Sydney writers Jasmine Crittenden and John Shand and broadcaster-writer Andrew Ford. The session was convened by Melbourne writer and editor, Miriam Zolin. Now these are significant names in the jazz writing scene and I was chuffed to appear with them. The session passed with great speed, and some interesting points were raised about writing, criticism, the purpose and nature of reviewing, the benefits of writing about music, responses to reviewing, even the writer as parasitic on the performer. Also issues about jazz itself: the size of the community, the knowledge of jazz players and their expressiveness (or lack of it). And the state of publishing in Australia and the opportunities for jazz writers. There were a few questions at the end. I particularly liked one from Alex Raupach about the permanence of writing against the ephemeral nature of performance. Now that’s one that leaves your mind in a philosophical twist. Andrew quoted from Orwell - “[g]ood prose is like a window pane” (from the essay Why I write / George Orwell) meaning that the writer is of no consequence in the review. OK, agreed. I find these discussions intriguing (and perhaps unfinalisable: modern dialectics would argue the writer can’t be removed from the writing). FWIW, CJ takes a simple and practical approach. If interested, read my Instructions to authors. I seek to promote a community, widen popular interests, record some local history, assist performers and promote Canberra’s and Australia’s presence in the world jazz scene. And still allow the author some time for work and other interests. None-the-less, I could have easily chatted for hours more. Great fun.
It’s not often I attend singer-songwriter gigs and not often I get to the intimate Beyond Q bookshop café, but I did for Jasmine Beth and Daniel McFeeley. I met Jasmine (Crittenden, stage name Beth) when we both spoke on a panel about jazz writing and I was looking forward to hearing her in concert. Singer-songwriters are like books; very different under the covers. Jasmine performed a string of short songs, accompanied by guitar, dealing with all manner of people and relationships and loves with seriousness and presumably personal relevance.
Daniel performed longer songs, accompanied by eight-string ukelele and harmonica and clappers and metronome, with personal observations and humourous twists and American garrulousness. Jasmine’s songs ranged through a string of rhythms and meters with lines that spoke honestly with a sense of the poetic. Daniel was tongue-in-cheek, brash with a personable demeanour and played with loops and arrays of sound. He’s American but had me thinking of Ireland with his humour. Jasmine was Australian, laid back, even laconic on the day, with understated purpose. Words are the core of singer-songwriting, so here are a few: “Until you’ve slept with the Devil / you don’t know the meaning of love” or “Smiles like an angel / steals like a thief / tells you she loves you / but the words bring no relief” (Jasmine); “He must have felt crazy / he must have been sick / to be thinking with his d… / delusional mind” (Daniel). Like books on a shelf (or even women and men, for that matter) Jasmine and Daniel were worlds apart but bookended and they made for an interesting and entertaining afternoon, well away from jazz and where words matter more. Jasmine Beth (Crittenden) and Daniel McFeeley performed as singer-songwriters at Beyond Q bookshop.
