It’s the perfect soundtrack to an escape and it also happens to be name of Melbourne jazz maestro Albare’s new collective – Travel Diary is the sound of the sun, warmth and the long days of summer.
It’s the perfect soundtrack to an escape and it also happens to be name of Melbourne jazz maestro Albare’s new collective – Travel Diary is the sound of the sun, warmth and the long days of summer. Renowned for helping establish acid jazz in Australia a decade ago, the French ex-pat and former chairman of the Melbourne Jazz Festival is about to unleash his new album, one best described as an elegant sonic journey reminiscent of a leisurely southern European holiday.
“I really enjoy the first track South,” explains Albare. “I come from France so because I come from the northern hemisphere, to me south would be north in Australia.
“I really think it was the accordion on this album that made it truly special,” he adds. “I think it made for that theme of escape to be prevalent on the record. There is something very unique about Australian jazz. In France you’ve got several movements, including the gypsy jazz sound, which is very different because its roots are in the traveling tradition of gypsies from the early part of the 20th century. It’s a very different sound to what you’d find in Italy or anywhere else – it’s quite similar in sound to the American jazz. In Australia, however, jazz is very lyrical. It’s quite unmistakable and has very strong personality here.”
It was Albare himself who helped shape it into what it currently is, particularly within the Melbourne jazz scene. After relocating to Australia from France over two decades ago, Albare claims he has watched the slow but steady growth of jazz’s popularity thanks to many of the genre’s festivals – a lot of which he has been a part of.
“I was the Chairman of the Melbourne Jazz Festival and artistic director between 2006 and 2008,” he confirms. “I’ve been very much involved in the jazz scene and I can say that all of the musos are my friends who have done lots for the local jazz community. It’s great to see that there are more and more venues to play in; I think it’s a result of the public being more receptive these days than back in the ‘90s. The education programs that we’ve had with Melbourne Jazz are not to be discounted. When I started with Melbourne Jazz in 2002 we only had about five or six thousand people attending the festival, but in 2008 we had 120,000 in attendance! I can only speak for Victoria, but we’ve spent a lot of government money in promoting jazz which has been a huge help,” he laughs.
“Melbourne is very much a festival city which is what makes it so special. I hope that the rest of Australia will follow – it just requires some philanthropy.”
An accomplished jazz guitarist as well as composer, prior to new album Travel Diary Albare has been responsible for two earlier albums including 2007’s Midnight Blues and last year’s After The Rain. On his latest effort, Albare reveals a brand new, all-star line up of crème de la crème of Australian jazz players with Joe Chindamo on piano accordion, Rob Burke on saxophone, Evripides Evripidou on bass and Tony Flord on drums.
“The guys on the album are the guys in the official band now,” says Albare. “I’ve been playing with them on-and-off for about 20 years. Actually, Joe plays the piano but his original instrument is the accordion, so I think it’s extraordinary that he went back to the accordion for this project and it’s just given it an incredible sound. Tony is the most recent band member, he started out with us back in May.”
And while the album launch will also see the band play some material from After The Rain, Albare warns his long-time fans that anything prior to 2009 will most likely not see the light of day.
“That album is about as far as we’ll go to the extent of the old stuff,” he states. “People seem to love the song After The Rain, I love it too. I was doing lots of acid jazz in the early ‘90s so that kind of stuff we won’t be playing. In the ‘90s, jazz had a lot more elements of funk and dance, so I was mixing up a combination of jazz harmonies and contemporary rhythms. I guess you’d need to listen to it to understand what I mean,” he chuckles.
“We had Tracy Bartram lined up to open the launch night but she’s been quite unwell and we’ve had to let that go. Everyone was looking forward to having her so much at the Melbourne show. We’ve been doing some gigs as of last May and we’re hoping to continue that. Actually, we have gone and played as far as Israel where we did a bunch of club gigs, whether overseas or at home every show is pretty special in itself.”
ALBARE launches his new album Albare Travel Diary as his band of the same name – Albare Travel Diary – at The Toff In Town this Thursday November 11
Tickets on the door or at moshtix.com.au. Albare Travel Diary is out now.
