School is in and this year Jazz Music Institute (JMI) throws its doors open once more and welcomes a fresh class of aspiring jazz greats.
We caught up with JMI Head Of School Dan Quigley, who is also a famed trumpeter and composer, to find out what's coming out of JMI in 2018.
What were some of the major highlights for JMI and JMI Live in 2017?
[Dan] 2017 at JMI was another fruitful year with the growth of our students. We employed students to perform in over 60 gigs that saw over 300 performance opportunities for individual students.
This provides excellent development opportunities for our students as well as exposing more of the Brisbane community to jazz music and further developing the culture of jazz in Brisbane.
At JMI Live we held over 80 performances of mainly local artists, but also interstate and some A-list internationals including Vince Gardner, Jerome Jennings, Ari Hoenig and Joe Farnsworth.
What do you have planned for 2018 in terms of the educational component of JMI?
We hope to continue the development of the educational activities we currently provide including our acclaimed Bachelor programme, our Certificate programmes for high school students and the night classes we run for adult learners.
In August, we look forward to running the third Essentially Ellington Down Under Regional Festival in all major capital cities of Australia in conjunction with Jazz at Lincoln Center from New York. This will give performance and educational opportunities to over 800 high school students and over 100 music teachers.
On top of this we will endeavour to further the development of our students through performance opportunities outside of our education programmes.
A few of these regular opportunities are our monthly Street Parades in the Queen St Mall, Thursday afternoon gigs at the Jubilee Hotel as well as regular performances at JMI Live, Doo Bop Jazz Bar, Newstead House and Roma Street Parklands.
Will there be any major changes or additions to the curriculum?
We are always making small changes to our curriculum and working with our staff to find new ways of implementing educational strategies to improve course delivery and ensure that we are at the forefront of jazz education internationally.
We have made some changes to some of our core subjects in our Bachelor programme, in particular our Improvisation Techniques class, Jazz Materials classes and Aural and Analysis classes but nothing major.
For people looking to enrol for 2018 courses, what advice can you provide?
My advice to people looking to enrol in any of our courses in 2018 would be to engage in the jazz community in Brisbane as much as you can. The last couple of years we’ve seen a significant growth in the number of jazz gigs happening in Brisbane and there is a really great community and culture developing here.
The best way to learn this music is to get engaged with it, listen to it, experience it. We now have three dedicated jazz clubs in Brisbane (JMI Live, Doo-Bop Jazz Bar and the Brisbane Jazz Club) so there are plenty of opportunities to check out the jazz scene.
I’d also strongly encourage as many people to get involved in the jam sessions that happen at these gigs as much as possible. The jam session is one of the most valuable learning experiences you can have as a jazz musician. We still run jam sessions before and after every gig at JMI Live and Doo-Bop also run jam sessions every night of the week from 10:30pm.
Why choose to study at JMI?
JMI is unique as we are an educational place as well as industry. By that I mean we provide an education to our students and our students get a holistic, well-rounded understanding of music plus we are also leaders in the industry through live performance opportunities.
We are the only school in Australia that has a direct connection through education and performance to the largest music organisation in the world, being Jazz at Lincoln Centre in New York City.
What do you look for in a potential student during the audition process?
We look for students that have a positive attitude and show a willingness to learn, work hard and aim to be the best musician they can be.
Who will we get to see perform at JMI Live in 2018?
In 2018 we will continue our mission of providing performance opportunities for local jazz artists where the focus is completely on the music.
The jazz culture in Brisbane is growing and it needs to fuelled by performance opportunities so we have focused the majority of our programming toward home grown artists. We will have a few interstate artists as they travel the east-coast circuit throughout the year.
Plus we will see Vince Gardner from Jazz at Lincoln Centre here in August, which is always very exciting.
And will the famous pre-show jam sessions continue to operate as well?
The famous pre-show and post-show jam sessions will continue. They are wonderful incubators for inspiration and long-term development of jazz culture in Brisbane.
Do you have any specific goals you want to achieve in 2018?
I do want to engage with more high-school students and encourage them to be involved in our monthly street parades in the Queen Street Mall. These are free and anyone can join in. They are modelled off the New Orleans-style street parades and are a great way to introduce people to jazz and improvisation.
There are many young students out there that are curious, but slightly shy and I’d love for those people to engage and find a part of themselves in the music.
