Who’s that whispering in the trees? It’s The Syncopators and they’re headlining the Brisbane Hot Jazz Festival.
So dust off your zoot suit and get ready to sweat. “It’s a fantastic initiative to have a hot jazz weekend in Brisbane,” says band leader and trombone player, Chris Ludowyk. “We have played before at the Brisbane Jazz Club at least a couple of times, but we haven’t been there for about 12, 15 years.
“We’ve played many times at the Noosa Jazz Festival as well, so we always love coming to play up there in Brisbane and Queensland; it's a thriving jazz community.”
One of Australia’s most successful jazz ensembles, The Syncopators formed in 1984 in Melbourne and have become mainstays of both the national and international jazz scenes, having toured Europe alone 15 times between 1995 and 2013.
For the Brisbane Hot Jazz Festival, Chris says audiences can look forward to a packed set encompassing almost half a century of swinging tunes traversing multiple genres and styles. “Our repertoire spans from the early ‘20s – the classic music of Louie Armstrong and Duke Ellington, some of those classic people from the ‘20s – right through the ‘30 and ‘40s, the swing era, through to the mainstream and almost pre-rock rhythm and blues.
“So it’s a very wide repertoire and we don’t park ourselves in any particular genre for too long. We’ll be playing a mix of some of our stuff; we’ve got about 400 tunes in the catalogue, but we’ll play about 30 of them at the festival.”Hot jazz (or Dixieland) originated in New Orleans at the beginning of the 20th century and by the 1910s and ‘20s had spread to New York and Chicago, largely due to the enduring influence of trumpeter, Louis Armstrong.
Blending brass band marches with ragtime and blues, hot jazz was named for its high tempos and firebrand improvisational sections. For Chris, above all hot jazz engages audiences with a different type of musical force and energy than slower, laidback styles of jazz. “Hot jazz is something that makes you want to sit on the edge of your seat with your tongue hanging out and your foot tapping along,” Chris says.
“As compared to cool or introspective jazz which is more cerebral; you lie back in your seat and probably even doze off sometimes,” he laughs.
On stage for the festival, Chris will lead a seven-piece band of talented multi-instrumentalists: Peter Gaudion on trumpet and vocals, Richard Miller on saxophone and clarinet, pianist Peter Locke, guitarist Chuck Morgan, James Clark on double bass and tuba, and Dean Cooper on drums.
As a jazz veteran and leader of one of Australia’s, if not the world’s, most respected ensembles, Chris is confident hot jazz still holds a relevant place in modern music and the style is being maintained by the emerging generation of musicians. “It does tend to have a rebirth from time to time and I think we’re due for another one,” he says.
“To have a rebirth of the jazz we play, it’s great to see some of the younger players are embracing this music. Even younger players who have been to the conservatorium and jazz-study courses, they’ve learnt contemporary styles but still elect to play some of the traditional stuff.
“There are a couple of jazz bands doing this and it's fantastic, that’s what we like to see. I reckon we’re just about due for a rebirth if we get more young bands coming up doing that sort of thing.”
The Syncopators headline the Brisbane Hot Jazz Festival at the Brisbane Jazz Club 19-20 March.
