The future of jazz
GERRY Godley began the 12 Points festival six years ago with the idea of exploring European jazz. But, the question arises, just what is European jazz? Does it conform to the cliché that arose some time ago — of a more lyrical, expansive sound that, unburdened by the weight of tradition, was freer to experiment? Or does close examination explode that myth?
“When I started the festival,” says Godley, a saxophonist who also presents shows on RTÉ lyric fm, “I was absolutely sure I had the answer in my head. And it was exactly that there was this Nordic ‘spacey’ sound. It was a rude awakening, to find out, through this process, that there was all this other music going on in different places in Europe.”
The festival focuses on musicians in their 20s and early 30s. And it seems the music is safe with them. “What I have found is that in the most healthy jazz ecologies, there is a lovely accommodation and respect for all the different things jazz music can be. If you go to Oslo or Stockholm, you’ll find there are people playing the heritage music, people playing great contemporary, straight-ahead jazz. There’s people playing free music; but equally there’s great commercial stuff as well. That’s how it should be. The thing that’s unhealthy is having a stylistic orthodoxy.”
And, before you say, ‘well, isn’t that very freedom a European trait?’, Godley is citing New York as another hotbed of jazz diversity. “And it’s full of European musicians. And now, Berlin is full of American musicians, and so is Amsterdam.” The jazz map is one of cities, not countries, and certainly not continents: 12 Points is very much a festival of jazz music in Europe, rather than European jazz.”
For a lesson in stylistic heterodoxy, this year’s programme is a good place to start. The musical gamut runs from the traditionalist tenor-sax of Hanna Paulsberg, to the precocity of Enrico Zanisi and his piano trio, the skronky free improv of Cactus Truck and the sometimes daft mix of hip-hop and, well, anything else that is Koenigleopold from Vienna.
The festival, then, has the feel of something carefully balanced and finely curated. And, in a way, it is. But, in another very important way, it is different: 12 Points solicits its acts via an open call.
Every year it’s “squeaky bum time” as they wait to see what the open call brings in. “You can only play the cards that the open call puts in front of you, but once we short-list the applicants we do apply standard programming ideas. For example, you don’t want a festival full of piano trios.”
A conversation with Godley about jazz easily moves from the specifics of a festival to the music in general. But there’s a practical side to such philosophising right now: 12 Points is holding a two-day conference called Jazz Futures. “Jazz is in an interesting place,” he says. “There are all sorts of legacy issues coming up. The great spurt of development in terms of festivals took place in the 1960s and ’70s, so lots of people have been in situ at these festivals and organisations since. There are loads of figures who will retire over the next decade. It’s time to think about succession planning, setting the agenda. These things are really dependent on networks, so the first thing is to identify who the fellow travellers are, who’s up for it, who sees the big picture, who are the people who are going to be in leadership roles over the next 10 years.”
Of course, it’s not all rosy. The audience demographic problems of classical have long since migrated to jazz. It’s difficult to attract young audiences. “That’s not being negative about it, that’s just the way it is. If I go back 10 years to the kind of shows we were doing and the kind of artist we were putting into Vicar Street and the Concert Hall, could I depend on getting the same audiences for those artists now? Absolutely not.”
The problem, says Godley, is more acute in anglophone countries than elsewhere in the world. And 12 Points offers a window on this: the festival alternates between Dublin and another European city every two years. Last year, it was Porto. “We got 400 people a night, which is unbelievable for a festival that’s completely unknown in that part of the world, with a line-up that’s complete unknown.”
Yet, despite the challenges in getting younger audiences out from behind their smartphones, there is an irony in its demographic problem: while audiences might be aging, there’s no shortage of young musicians. “One of the things that should make it appealing to young people is that it’s genuinely a subculture. You rarely see it on the television, you read about it less and less in mainstream journalism. It is as counter-cultural as anything out there. It’s as far removed from the production-line, television-led pop music as anything out there.”
The question for jazz, then, is how to appeal to young listeners and not just young musicians. In this light, 12 Points has a simple proposition: “If you are young why don’t you come out and hear these people who are just like you, who happen to come from Geneva or Strasbourg or Thessaloniki? Come and hear what they are doing. It just so happens that the music they are playing is jazz.”
With that high-minded call, it seems inappropriate to mention ticket prices. Tickets for all four nights of the 12 Points festival — a total of 12 gigs — cost a mere €40.
If past experiences are anything to go by, you won’t get better bang for your buck all year.
*12 Points is at the Project Arts Centre, Dublin, from Feb 13-16
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