58 YEARS ON: REMEMBERING THE 19TH AUSTRALIAN JAZZ CONVENTION, NEWCASTLE, 1964

By Roland Bannister

Back in 1964, news that we’d scored the 19th Australian Jazz Convention for Newcastle was a big deal; a mammoth task for our young, untried committee and a unique event for the people of the city.

In 2022, the news that a considerably older committee is bringing the Convention to Newcastle for its 76th edition – the third time in Newcastle – is inspiring, linking my thoughts to the 19th of 58 years ago. How could we, such a young and inexperienced committee in 1964, manage such a huge responsibility?

And how would our local community respond?

Well, we did manage, and some would say we managed magnificently. Good numbers of musicians and delegates attended, people had a great time, and we passed on a tidy sum to the next year’s committee.

I recently leafed through the printed convention program and counted about 230 registered musicians, but on noticing that one L. Hardin was the pianist in Melbourne’s Sidewalk Syncopators, my suspicions were aroused. I wondered whether this was the Lil Hardin that played in Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five and went on the become Mrs Louis. When I noticed that Pogo’s O’Keefenoke’s Swampers (Sydney) included trombonist Sarcophages Macabre, Howlan Owl on clarinet, and Pogo himself on banjo, my suspicion grew. Mal Jennings boasted Sir Prize as the clarinettist, Don O’Hoo as the bassist and NE Body Hucan on washboard in his Blue Bottle Five from Ballarat. I suspected that not all of this was true and concluded that a precise tally was not really possible. While jokes of this calibre were very funny to our 1960’s sense of humour, they probably no longer hit the funny bone.

In the practice of the time, numerous less confident, unregistered, or sheer recalcitrant players turned up anyway, hoping to participate in pub and park jams.

The program sold for 3/- (three shillings) and included the calendar of events for the week; a Presidential Address (from yours truly); a three-and-a-bit page ‘history of jazz in Newcastle’; by local jazz trumpeter, band leader, and jazz devotee Ray Scribner; and advertisements for local and Sydney music stores, local hotels and various small businesses. A notice from Vista Recording Studios told us that all Convention performances would be recorded ‘In Hi-Fi’, and microgroove copies of them could be purchased. I still have one of these LP discs.

The enormity of the task for our committee remains the memory at the top of my mind, but next comes the shock, horror, scandal!; the town was aghast at the spectacle of uninhibited musicians playing uninhibited Jazz in pubs and spilling out into the streets. The outrage was fanned by the spectacle of men sporting long hair and flowing beards.

Most of the musicians and the ‘dags’ (as we called jazz enthusiasts) were young in those days, and Jazz was their protest music, a musical celebration of the mature wisdom of youth. In 1964 short back and sides and a close shave was a sure badge of manhood. Our formal, programmed public concerts in our magnificent 1930s sandstone Newcastle City Hall lent a contrasting layer of respectability.

Time has taken its toll on the Conventioneers of that time, but here in Newcastle Bob Henderson (trumpet) and Jack McLaughlin (clarinet) still perform our glorious music. Val Jones – a pregnant young woman who worked for a recording studio at the 1964 Convention – and is today currently Secretary of the Newcastle Jazz Club Committee. Bands from further afield appearing in the 1964 Grand Final Concert that went on to honoured places in Australian Jazz history included the Yarra Yarra New Orleans Jazz Band, the Red Onion Jazz Band, Sweet Sal’s Syncopators, and Nick Polities Brownettes, all from Melbourne, and Sydney’s Geoff Bull’s New Orleans Jazz Band.

Following the Convention, I sent copies of correspondence published in the Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners Advocate to the editor of Sydney Jazz Club Quarterly Rag. These letters appear in the January 1965 issue of the Rag and are an invaluable insight into the 19th. The Rag also published contributions from prominent Adelaide trumpeter Alex Frame and well-known Sydney pianist and general enthusiast Win Foster.

Alex Frame praised the Convention, saying that ‘Musically it was better than last year [the 18th, in Melbourne] in spite of the lack of big names and older experienced musicians’, and commended a number of the bands and musicians, including Geoff Bull’s Olympia Jazz Band, The Red Onion Jazz Band, The Yarra Yarra Jazz Band, and the wonderful clarinettists Nick Polites and Tich Bray and the up-and-coming Paul Furness. Alex explained his absence from some Convention sessions as he was busy ‘in a vain attempt to raise a spark out of the weak New South Wales beer’.

Win Foster reviewed the ‘How Ya Goin’ Night, the jazz picnic at Wangi Wangi by Lake Macquarie, and our out-of-town after-hours jamming venue, which turned out to be such a hit; she describes the New Years Eve Rort which ended with massed bands on stage and the mid-night street parade that followed as ‘a gas’. Win also praised the Yarra Yarras, the Red Onions, Nick Polites and his Brownettes, and Alex Frame’s Band too, but she reckoned that The New Olympia Naked Brass Band was a ‘bit of a shock to the eye bone’.

Win bemoaned the fact that most Newcastle pubs served Toohey’s Old, but she took comfort in the knowledge that Resch’s beers were served at the Great Northern Hotel. To my delight, Win told the world that the publicity our committee ran ‘…on the whole was quite good’.

He referred to a ruckus at the jazz picnic at Wangi Wangi and suggested that the steelworker-with-the-clarinet-logo be replaced by a ‘jack booted figure complete with whip holding an inspection of delegates for whiskers’.

Win, taking up the theme of the unconventional jazz weirdo, tells us that at one event ‘The natives were very amused and could be seen and heard saying, ‘Look! He’s one of them!’ Several correspondents – local citizens and definitely not Convention people – initiated debates in the Herald.

One J.E. James complained that the committee was preoccupied with ‘Keeping jazz respectable’.

He referred to a ruckus at the jazz picnic at Wangi Wangi and suggested that the steelworker-with-the-clarinet-logo be replaced by a ‘jack booted figure complete with whip holding an inspection of delegates for whiskers’.

In a response to James’s criticism I reported that Wangi Wangi police sergeant describe the behaviour of our people as ‘very satisfactory’. Later a prominent police officer expressed the view that he had never seen ‘so many people enjoy themselves so much, with so little trouble’. James acknowledges that those of bizarre appearance played with ‘sound musical sense and excellent technique’.

The Jazz-and-a-Jug at Speers Point attracted no adverse commentary. James went on to ask that the musicians not play the German folk song Tannenbaum so often as this melody was indeed the socialist song the Red Flag, and in playing it, we were advertising our adherence to Trades Hall politics.

A second Newcastle Herald debate was about the quality of music at the Convention. Local man Charles Grahame criticised the standard of playing, to which our committee’s John Carrick replied that the 19th was notable for its encouragement of young, developing musicians. I defended the Convention with an explanation that we set no standard-of-entry test. This is a good policy as it gave all a chance to participate. I referred to the improvement of the Yarra Yarra Jazz Band over the recent six years and to the Red Onions over the recent three years. I listed the fine and experienced players who did appear: Lachie Thompson, Neil McBeth, Maurie Garbutt, Bob Brown, Geoff Bull, Peter Neubauer, and George Wood.

Our Bill Jones, in the Newcastle Sun, proclaimed the 19th as a successful event that might set a standard for future events in Newcastle, especially the city’s annual Mattara Festival, which was in the doldrums at the time. He pointed out that the 19th had attracted more support from interstate than any Mattara Festival had done. The Convention, Bill said, established Newcastle as a tourist destination. He noted that our young committee began with $100 passed on from the previous year’s committee and that we, at our fundraising events during the year, had raised $600.

The Australian Jazz Convention website proclaims the often repeated claim that ours is the longest-running annual jazz event in the world, and I can find no evidence that this is not true. In my experience with the Convention and with occasional jazz festivals since, I am struck by the fervent loyal adherence to our music. The basis of the loyalty and the fun that the Police Sergeant commented on is the music. The social activity, the tradition, are part of it, but at the centre is the music. Here in the joy of jazz is the reason for the longevity of the Convention’s success.

46th Australian Jazz Convention

The Australian Jazz Convention returned to the University of Newcastle’s suburban Callaghan Campus for its 46th edition in 1991, and although my wife and I made our Christmas trip up from Wagga Wagga where we were living, we spent most of our precious time with my parents at Maitland.

58 years on

So, we might ask, how will the 76th differ from the 19th, and what will remain the same?

Since 2013 the Convention has been organised by an Australian Jazz Convention Executive Task Force, which in turn answers to the AJC Trustees, whereas back in 1964, local committees were appointed by the AJC to run the Convention for that year in their town. Newcastle’s 19th was a case in point: locals ran the show. The present ETF is a small group that runs the convention year on year and is not attached to any particular town or city.

The AJC is committed to preserving the tradition that has shaped the Convention since 1946. The group’s website indicates its commitment to traditions. Here in Newcastle in 1964, the music we promoted was already four decades old and was undergoing yet another revival. But now – in 2022 – our music has flourished for more than 100 years, and rather than undergoing fervent periodic revivals, the jazz of the Convention persists as steady, low-level current of mature enthusiasm. Nobody sees the need to commit energy to the frenzy of a revival.

The Australian Jazz Convention remains ‘an annual gathering for musicians and jazz lovers to celebrate their music’. Just as in previous years, both musicians and organisers work as volunteers.

This year’s program lists events that have been part of the Convention since the early days. The Street Parade follows the tradition set in New Orleans and is a key Convention event, as is the Original Tunes Competition; there is a picnic this year, as in previous years, but now it is an Evening Picnic. Public concerts are of less importance than the sharing and celebrating of the music by its devotees.

There’ll be little in the way of media scandal – as there was in 1964 – as little of a scandalous nature is likely to happen. I doubt that there’ll be letters to the Herald about the music – or people’s behaviour – but the paper might run community announcements about the Convention.

The Jazz-n-Jug – a staple in earlier days – is no longer; perhaps jazz folk prefer to focus less now on playing up and more on playing the music that they did back then. As in the past, this year there’ll be Blackboard Jam sessions, a Welcome Night, and a New Year’s Eve Party.

The music focus is recognisably similar to that of previous years, although we are now likely to hear more post-trad styles: ‘While the focus is on traditional or “Dixieland” jazz, the Convention is also open to … swing, mainstream, bebop, modern, funk, and other jazz genres’; the Convention website advertises.

Yet a strong sense of jazz tribalism remains, a tribalism centred on the music that we all know is the music we’ll hear in heaven.

This year’s event will be held at our lovely Newcastle City Hall as in 1964, and the ETF is grateful that this beautiful building has a number of venues, allowing most events to take place in one site. The external fabric of the building has been recently restored at huge cost, and it is a treat that the Convention will happen again in this building which has also been home to the Newcastle Jazz Festival for much of its 34 years.

The ETF acknowledges that participation fees will be higher this year and cites the cost of the City Hall as a contributing factor: ‘We … face a cost footprint for the Newcastle City Hall that is very different to that experienced since the ETF presented its first AJC in Goulburn in 2013. In setting registration fees for the 76th, we need to balance the unavoidable venue and equipment costs with revenue.’; The ETF goes on to acknowledge a donation of $3000 from the Sydney Jazz Club intended to offset costs.

While the Convention retains its passion, though at a lower voltage, for the music, and while the format of the Convention remains largely unchanged, it will be the people that have changed most, I think.

There’ll be musicians and delegates who survived 1964 and the intervening 58 years. Taking the ongoing Newcastle Jazz Festival as a guide, the audience will be older, although the good news is that younger people are turning up as newer styles of Jazz have been introduced. The crowds we see at today’s jazz events sometimes include some of the same 1964 conventioneers, but they are now 58 years more mellow and more conventional in their behaviour.

Unlike in 1964, beards are common now and raise no eyebrows. Jazz is no longer centre-front in society, and it is no longer a music of protest, and jazz people do not generally present as radicals. Aunty ABC is probably the greatest media advocate for our music now.

Yet a strong sense of jazz tribalism remains, a tribalism centred on the music that we all know is the music we’ll hear in heaven.

The Executive Committee, 19th Australian Jazz Convention, Newcastle 1964: Roland S Bannister (President), Richard Hanninck (Vice-President), Margaret Kirkpatrick (Secretary), John Carrick (Assistant Treasurer), Bob Jones (Treasurer), Colin Hansen & Paul Leman (Accommodation), Jack McLaughlin (Program), Terry Campbell; Bob Henderson (Printing and Design) and Peter Huff, Ray Scribner and John Armstrong (General Officers).

The 76th Australian Jazz Convention is on in Newcastle from 26 – 31 December 2022 culminating in a New Year’s Eve event. Program and bookings available here:

https://australianjazzconvention.org.au/conventions/newcastle/

Roland Bannister – 2022