Without apology, I start the Wang blog with the launch of extempore, the journal of arts and writing with content that is 'about, inspired by and responding to jazz and improvised music'... it's been a major project for the past year or more and it was launched on Friday 31 October at the Wangaratta Festival of Jazz. Yaay! We had commandeered the supper room beside St Patrick's hall, one of the major venues of the festival. Normally this room is used for feeding the sound guys... it adjoins a fully-fitted kitchen where meals are prepared daily for the discreet people in black who make the sound possible...
A simple launch formula - plenty of cool guests (Andra Jackson, journalist, Adrian Jackson, Artistic Director of the Wangaratta Festival of Jazz and Lafayette Gilchrist, piano player with David Murray Black Saints Quartet) some drinks (supplied by Baddaginnie Run) and nibbles and mingling followed by a notable personage doing a launch speech, a reading or two by contributors and then a big thank you and hurrah! We officially exist. Our notable personage for the evening was the wonderful Mike Nock, jazz icon and chief judge at the finals of the National Jazz Awards each year at the festival. We were treated to a reading of 'Coffee with Miles' by Geoff Page and 'Quintet' by Lynn Hard.
Pictured at right, Geoff Page, Mike Nock and Yours Truly.
The highlight of the launch had to be John Clare's performance of three short excerpts from his piece 'Rock and Roll Diary of a Jazz Musician' (pictured below
Here are some more pics of our happy event:
Cheese by the Milawa Cheese Factory and wines by Baddaginnie Run
Gerry Koster (Jazz Up Late on ABC Classic FM) and Henk van Leeuwen (Australia Northern Europe Liaisons). Also visible, Adrian Jackson, John Shand (his new book Jazz: The Australian Accent being launched this weekend) Jane March (her photographs appear in John's book), and Peter Riechniewski (Sydney Improvised Music Association)
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